Ipad Trial at Delany in the Music Department

Learning with iPad's at OLOL:

We have had a busy term learning with the iPad's in our Stage 3 learning environment. The students have thoroughly enjoyed exploring new ways to extend their learning and approach tasks. The children found the iPad's very easy to navigate as it is quite visual. Those that have difficulties with reading were able to find the App they wanted to use by clicking on the corresponding App's picture. Children learn by experiencing, and even those with no knowledge of how an iPod or iPad works were able to use them independently very quickly.

We feel the use of the iPad's are a very valuable motivational tool for the students' learning. We have had to create rosters to allow all 100 Stage 3 students time to use it in either Maths, English or Integrated studies. In these lessons we have observed the extensive opportunities the iPads have given to the students to allow them to explore different ways to express their learning. Students have been quite eager to ensure they have had their share of use with the iPad, with many choosing to use it when given free reward time in class.

On asking the children on why they feel the iPad’s are a valuable classroom-learning tool, many answered that it was a fun, different, entertaining and educational way to learn with a large variety of options that are easy to use. The children also felt it helped teach them the skill of sharing and interacting with others. We have thoroughly enjoyed using the iPad’s at OLOL and hope to continue to do so in the future.

iPad to get printing capability

iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch to Get Wireless Printing with iOS 4.2

Apple has announced that the latest beta of its iOS 4.2 software comes with printer support. The AirPrint feature allows users of the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch to print wirelessly over Wi-Fi, without needing to install drivers or software.

Although the software is currently only available through Apple’s iOS developer program, Apple says iOS 4.2 will be ready for the masses in November. The first devices to support AirPrint will be HP’s line of ePrint enabled printers.
AirPrint is said to support a full range of print functions through iOS, including page range selection as well as single-sided and double-sided printing. It will also feature a Print Center that coordinates your print queue, so you can keep track of the progress from across the office if you’re so inclined.

Comics Come to Life at Marian College

What fun Year 9 had reading the Marvel Comics, www.marvel.com, on their iPads. Little did they realise that their English Teacher, Trish Sewell, was actually teaching them about backgrounds and foregrounding, frames, and salient images. This vocabulary of visual language could be so easily integrated with the iPads that it made the lesson come alive. The next stage is to have the students use POW an iPad app that will allow the students to create their own comics. Students, often not motivated, to read said using the iPads to read the comics was so much better than a paper copy. The graphics on the iPad are excellent quality and the comics really do come alive.

iPad replaces uni textbooks at University of Adelaide science faculty

Traditional textbooks will be put on the endangered list next year as the University of Adelaide's Faculty of Science becomes the first tertiary institution to embrace a new approach to online learning.
The pilot initiative involves all first-year undergraduate science students next year receiving a free Apple iPad to use with online curriculum, eliminating up to $1000 in annual textbook costs within three years. More of this article can be found at iPad replaces uni textbooks at University of Adelaide science faculty

St Agnes - Student Response

Using the I-pad may sound complicated, but once held, is easy to get the hang of. The knowledge needed for using an I-pad is basically the knowledge to know how to operate simple technology devices. There is no actual skill required, except learning how to browse on the I-pad and find what you are looking for, which is quite easy to learn.

The great thing about the I-pad is that it is their to support the many different ways students learn. If you are more of a visual learner, you could look at a video to understand, or if you are the person that learns better with audio, you could listen to some clips on the I-pad that relates to what you are currently learning. The I-pad is not limited to certain literacies, which is a good thing when you want different ways to learn.

At OLQP our objective was to use the IPADS to really engage students in authentic Maths tasks. At first the children (and the teachers) were enthusiastically looking at the games that could be downloaded to support learning. While all the games that the children have been using are really fun and reinforce skills taught in Mathematics the difficulty has been sharing the ipads amoungst four classes. It seemed that instead of supporting the learning while it was actually happening in the clasroom the students were looking on the ipads as a tool for playing games or as an incentive to finish class work and move onto the ipads.
This week we are encouraging children to use the ipads as a way of recording learning and/or looking at that APS which provide opportunities for putting Maths into real life contexts. We are looking at APS that provide timetables, graphs, menus etc - rather than those that are specifically designed for education. We are encouraging students to create real life mathematical problems and to solve and record them using IPADS. Any suggestions for APS that are "year 3" friendly and provide simple data that can be used to create and solve authentic mathematical problems would be most appreciated.

The kids are absolutely fascinated with the iPads! They are definitely an engaging tool which sparks the interest of the students. We are currently working collaboratively for Mathematics investigations and as I'm sure you can imagine having acces to only 2 iPads for 60 children is quite challenging! We have found some great apps which are allowing the children to practise their mental computation skills, however, I believe they would be used more productively in a Literacy block.

Teleprompter iPad