Stuart Hale iPads and Literacy Course

Wow! What an inspirational 2 hours! Here are a few things that I took away and will be attempting to use in HB 8 for Literacy and other curriculum areas...

From a survey of 500 students in Brimingham this is what was found...

Who would they ask if they wanted to find out about something:

54% = Google
26% = Parents
3% = Teachers

Therefore we need to teach children how to ask the questions!


Padagogy Wheel and information: http://www.unity.net.au/allansportfolio/edublog/?p=324

We can use iPads to get to the more difficult levels of Blooms - the Creating and Evaluating. We should be using iPads to create meaning not just to play games!!!!

Great Apps to invest in:

1. Wordbook - $1.25 - Fantastic dictionary that does so much more than a paper dictionary! It has a 'did you mean feature', audio and puzzle solver feature.

2. PicCollage - this is already on our iPads.

3. Strip Designer - Better and more user friendly than ComicLife.

4. Life Cards - Publish a newspaper.

5. Puppet Pals - $4.15 - This allows children to use their own art work or images from google to create backdrops and puppets that they can write dialogue for, record their dialogue and play back their play like a movie. 

6. Book Creator - $6+

Students create an interactive book. Can incorporate their work from other apps (like PicCollage) then the book can be published by sending to iBooks.



Stuart then showed us some amazing augmented reality children's books and the ChCh rebuild blueprint augmented reality map that you may have seen on the news. If you go to Amazon - children's book - augmented reality, there are already a few available. 

A Belkin Rockstar is the new listening post! 





Stuart believes that BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is the only way to use the technology effectively as iPads were designed for personal use i.e. not to be shared.

Printopia will allow printing from iPads and iPods (aprox $20) http://www.ecamm.com/mac/printopia/

Check out the NZ Virtual Learning Network http://www.vln.school.nz

Further tips to take away:

1. You don't need to touch the screen of your phone/iPad/iPod to take a photo - use the + volume button instead. Makes for a clearer picture.

2. Touch - Pause - Engage... come and see Katrina, Sarah M, Nicky or I for a demonstration on this little beauty of a tip!

3. Google iPads and Autism if you have a child with autism or aspergers in your HB. There is heaps of research about how effective iPads are at engaging these children.



I would HIGHLY recommend you take the opportunity to go on any course that Stuart is running :)

Clare