I liked using the adobe slate app the most because it had a really cool way to scroll through things. You could scroll forward and then go back if you wanted to. It was just a different way to present information and I really liked that. You were able to put a picture, text, or a link. Or you could put a group of pictures, or you could put words on a picture. I recommend this app because it was something fun and different. Adobe slate is free from the App Store.
Using apps in the classroom is a series of 18 books written by Apple Educators.
They are located in iTunes U, once there you will find a for educators button and then there are several series located under that and you should find Using Apps in the Classroom, which is where I found all of these cool books. There were some cool titles in the series like Art Authority Lesson Ideas, Puppet Pals HD Director’s Pass Lesson Ideas, and Scoodle Jam Lesson Ideas. The book that interested me the most was Aurasma Lesson Ideas, so that’s the book that I read. They are called books, but really, they are mini lesson plans. The book first gives you a little information about the app that it’s about, and then gives lesson plans for the app. Aurasma overlays videos and other media to make an interactive video. So the book had lesson plans for literacy ages 5-11, literacy ages 12-14, science ages 12-14, mathematics ages 12-14, literacy ages 14-18, and history ages 14-18. Each topic has an objective and an overview followed by an activity and most of them also have an example rubric.
I think that each of these lessons would be great for the given subject, but the one that I think I could use in my classroom the easiest was the literacy lessons, just because telling a story is like cooking. They can talk about how to put together a recipe and create a fun way to show others what they made.
To make this screencast I used the app ShowMe, it was free from the iTunes app store.
ShowMe was a very easy app to use, you start with a black page that you can add picture, text, and drawings to. As you add all of these things you can record the page as you talk along with what you are writing. They have a large variety of colors to chose from as well. Once you are done you can save your project, and have as many projects as you want. You can also explore other ShowMe creations in the app. You can publish your ShowMe when you are done and put it on their website with a category tag. You can also purchase a premium app which is $5.99 per month or $49.99 per year.
Lloyd Johnson is my grandfather, him being mayor is something that I always knew he did, but it was never something he talked about. So this was a great excuse to get more information out of him. My idea behind the interview was to just let him talk and direct him to different things as he was talking. I really like the end product because it is what I wanted to know from him and I think it’s all very interesting. I think that he’s not always the most serious guy and it kind of comes out in the video that he makes jokes when he can. I think that everyone will learn a little bit about part of Riley’s history.
All I used for making this video was iMovie and the camera.
I’ve never really explored iTunes U, but for this reflection I explored the features pages and on that page there is a “for educators” link, and within this link there is a set of Inspiring Lesson Ideas. There are 30 of these course, they are called courses, because it’s a set of assignments, readings, videos, and other books. Each of these is written by teacher for teachers. There are courses like Create a Toy Challenge, iPad as Expressive Sound Canvas, and The Graphic Novel, as well as things for other subjects.
For this review I played with the course Non-Verbal & Visual Communications. The course is truly a course, there are step by step directions that go over what non-verbal communication is. in this case they begin in a weird way, by showing you that words are the most important, not the non-verbal side of things. This is shown through a video, and then after that it asks you to write a reflection, each little section does this. Section, or task as they write it, is a picture and then a task. So these tasks are all pretty similar, some have you do stuff on apps.
So I learned from the iTunes course is there are a bunch of different ways to use non-verbal language. The very first thing that the course does is debunk the though that non-verbal communication is more important, but in reality nothing is better than talking because it’s the most direct way of communication. Each section after goes over facial expressions and sign language, music, and pictures respectively. I think after learning everything from this course I could create an assignment where the kids would have to describe a food without spoken word. They could come up with another way to get across how they feel about certain foods.
One Best Thing is a series of books written by Apple Distinguished Educators. The particular book that I decided to read was Design Secrets Revealed: Teaching Students the Principles of Design. This was a book that really all teachers should read, it wasn’t one that was geared toward a specific subject. In this short book author, Keri-Lee Beasley, shares the troubles go getting students work back that is difficult to read or follow because of their design. So she has created a visual mnemonic to help students understand design. She uses the word carp for contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity.
I think that having kids understand her simple principles of design will produce better posters, art work, powerpoint’s, and in any visual presentation. As a future Family and Consumer Science Teacher interior and clothing design could very well be something that I end up teaching and using Keri-Lee’s principles I could get across to my students what they will need in projects and in designing a living room. Because these design principles are very straight forward I feel that they will easily be able to adapt it from creating a powerpoint to creating a bathroom design.
Learners Inspired is a blog written by tpadfield, I read their Blog post titled Fall in Love with Your Content & You Students. They write in their blog that the key to good teachers is to have the combination of loving your content area and having respect for your students. I think that they have a very good point and that all people should choose a profession based on something that they love. Personally I couldn’t be more excited about what I am going to teach. I think that having a classroom that is open and show respect toward the students allowing them to fail and succeed all in the same tasks are the best classrooms to be in. Creating those classrooms are the hard part, but when you are truly passionate about what you are teaching it comes easier. I think that both of these come easier with practice and experience, and I can’t wait to achieve that.
Amanda Dykes,an instructional technology coach and former 6th grade teacher, has a blog called Upside Dow Education: My upside down view of happenings in my classroom and in education. I recently I read her blog post titled Use your ‘Teacher Voice.’ She talks about two very cool trips she went on where she got to openly discuss education and what all needs to be improved and just a real open table where she felt she was heard. That definitely lead into how she ended her post. In bold she wrote teachers have voices, and Teachers need their voice heard. I think that even with all the technology that we have teachers aren’t being heard by the right people, mostly because the right people don’t really want to hear the teachers. As a student I think that I am fed very idealistic goals about education, which might be another reason teachers are leaving their professions. Amanda writes that teachers are leaving because they are frustrated with the government not listening. That the most important teachers, the ones who care will get fed up with trying and leave. But like I said, I’m just a student, and I don’t have any answers, but I do believe in what Amanda is talking about in this post, we need to be heard or teachers are going to start leaving earlier and earlier in their careers.
Apps for Creativity was my favorite of the three, Guy Trainin, the guy who talks during the videos, goes over creative apps. He goes over Home Design 3D, MoMA Art Lab, and Minecraft. Home Design3D would be something that I would use in my classroom when going over interior design. I think that it’s a cool app that would allow them to create a house and see how different layouts are set up. Then they can use their own design ideas. The other apps are good creative apps and could be utilized more in other classes more than mine.
In Summer Learning Apps he talks about skyView Free, Google Earth, News-O-Matic, Lets Create! Pottery HD. As a teacher these apps all interest me, and I can see how each of these apps could be used in classrooms. Talking about astrology in science class, Google Earth in geography, News-O-Matic in social studies, and Pottery in art class. I think as a teacher of each of these subjects could talk about how important it is to continue to learn and to give their students fun things to do during the summer or just outside of the classroom.
Teacher Professional Development is something that every teacher should watch, especially current teachers, to show them how to utilize things like twitter, and make it more teacher friendly. I think that my generation of teachers will be able to easily adapt to using twitter as an educational resources. He talks about transitioning into using twitter with Flipboard, which has twitter and other resources to use with twitter. Instapaper is the other app that he talks about where he can keep track of articles and other resources so that you can find them time and again, the pocket app also does the same thing. Lastly he talked about Symbaloo which is just another app that would be similar to the other apps.
This week I read a blog post form Hanna Shekhter called Why Teachers and Students Should Blog on Edudemic. I really like this blog, I think that she makes a ton of good points about the way we need to teach in our classrooms. She points out that with blogs in that classroom give teachers another platform for students to learn. Not all students absorb the information right away, this gives them an outlet to write down what they learned and then get feedback from not only the teacher, but from other students and possibly parents. It also allows for the quite kids or kids who aren’t the best at articulating questions to ask questions and understand the curriculum without having to ask in person. She touches on having a classroom blog that would allow the students to post on a community like blog, I really like this idea. I think that in a Family and Consumer Science classroom that having a class blog would allow students to write reviews over what they cook, and what they make, of course this could also be don’t on individual blogs as well. But I can see all of the benefits that she talks about throughout her blog and will be implementing blogs in my classroom.
