iPads & New Entrants

iPads with New Entrants and the old, ex-DP. What a mixture!
CR and I have worked in her class this year with her learners and new iPads. We have worked with the Explain Everything (EE) app and managed to get to the stage where the projects are accessed from the class site then saved onto the iPad so they can work with them.

We have made projects for word work with the word of the week, learning to use the tools in EE and with the big book for the week. At times it was like herding cats.

The biggest challenge has been mastering the iPad/EE workflow for making projects , saving it to our Drive then embedding them on the class site for learner access. It has been a huge learning curve for CR and I.

I am looking forward to extending my work in this area next year with more classes in the cluster. We have 7 classes in total across Tairāwhiti signing up for in-class support with 1:1 iPads and that is very exciting for us all.

 
via GIPHY


Now we are like...


via GIPHY

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 4 - Devices / iPads

I love iPads and I love my iPhone and anything Apple. Whilst I am not a exclusionist and dis any other makes,  I am unashamedly an Apple fan, right down to Apple TV and Netflix.

So when it comes to iPads and Explain Everything (EE) this is all new learning to me. I have tried to use a while lot of other whiteboards and apps on iPads, I have never found one that has the features of EE. It is worth every penny spent on it. With schools investing in EE we need to make sure that the use of it is maximised.

Currently I am facilitating in a New Entrant class with iPads and loving every minute of it. The challenge of working with new learners who each have an iPad is huge. The class teacher and I are both newbies to this way of working and are nutting out the intricacies as we go. Not quite building the plane as we fly, but close.

Today I learnt how to trim audio. Yay! last week in class we were trying to do this and ended up deleting both the audio and the beautiful creative picture on the screen. Ouch! the learner was not happy!

Ending the day with a Hangout with Anjila from Auckland's DFI group was a bonus today. She had just sat her Google Certified Educator Level 1 exam this morning and talked about how she found it. One of her tips was to use a laptop that is not old She struggled with an old laptop from her school which slowed her down because it was slow. Our cohort sure did enjoy connecting with the Auckland cohort and gleaning gems from them. Not only did we find out more and ease our anxiety around the exam, we also practised Hangouts and their power to connect and communicate. A great example of "connected learners share".