Category Archives: How To

May 17 2013

Dynamic School Documents

I started thinking about the amount of time I was spending on dealing with files, their types and their availability online. I was being sent Microsoft Word Docs, converting them to Pages, exporting a PDFs and uploading them to websites and the school Learning Management System (LMS).

Problem 1: Managing the availability of your documents and worksheets online can be time consuming and difficult when allowing for  iPad access.

Problem 2: Teachers emailing files to each other for checking and updating and then collating the result is also time consuming.

Problem 3: Re-printing or uploading revisions to worksheets and docs and deleting old copies is annoying too.

Solution? Using a central department or school Google account, I can operate and organise permanent, online dynamic Docs as the standard for the school / department files. From my Google ‘Drive’, Students can download PDF versions for working on in any of the iPad PDF apps. Multiple Teachers can access and update the single copy of any file knowing the existing links to these will access the latest version. No more work is required in updating and uploading new files as the links point to the same live document in Google Drive.

My staff have seen many benefits in the first month and started working much more collaboratively. Here’s a diagram to explain the features and setup.

Dynamic School Doc links

Apr 26 2013

ENSURING SCHOOL IPAD SUCCESS

PRIORITY NO.1 : LEADERSHIP FROM THE TOP.

LeadershipDucks

The initial goal is to ready a school for the quick iPadding of all daily school tasks carried out by Teachers, Admin and students. The first emphasis must be to get staff and students to move their daily routines onto the iPad and not look back. This realignment will only be quick & successful if staff and particularly members of the leadership team understand iPad best practice.

BIG DECIDER: ONE COMPETENT SENIOR LEADER (AT LEAST)

In the beginning, at least one senior leader must become fully fluent in how the iPad deals with the daily school tasks. My experience to date tells me that this will be the key decider on iPad success. I find that most school technicians charged with readying school systems for iPads only ‘fully respond’ to senior leaders. Here’s a check list of good iPad practice the senior leaders must understand:

5 EVERYDAY iPAD ESSENTIALS THAT LEADERS MUST UNDERSTAND AND PROMOTE:

PDFexpertA) DOCUMENTS: How to convert and ensure all documents (forms/worksheets) are shared in PDF format. This includes on the Website, LMS and in shared folders on the servers. We all use apps like Word to create documents but once finished, Word/Pages/Powerpoint should not be the file formats that are shared publicly or internally. Don’t continue to think that because a form or worksheet must be filled in, it needs to be shared in Microsoft Word format. Most PDF apps (both Free and Bought) will allow the staff and students to view, complete, sign or annotate the forms & worksheets and will really start to make the school paperless (a serious ‘Green’ issue). One problem area will be uploading PDFs to the existing school websites / LMS directly from iPad. Some of the LMSs are creating iPad apps and this can help but without clever design, the website might need to continue with desktop updates.

iMessageAppB) COMMUNICATION: Email is dead! Students certainly don’t regularly check emails. New communication tools must be considered. Internally, it’s best using messaging tools like iMessage, your LMS’s messaging service, if its iPad app runs such a service or even Twitter. I find adults like ‘texting’ messages as much as the kids do, you only have to look at Facebook to know that. Externally, the school should also run a Facebook Page for people to follow for community announcements and this too can be run by the senior leader directly from the iPad. It might be with the best intentions that every school aims to run a good website, but for communication, parents rarely check school websites and it’s not the way 21st Century communication takes place. This is one reason iPads have never needed the facility to update website HTML.

PhotosAppC) IMAGES: The leadership must decide on how staff iPads will upload, store and organise photos. This is good for teachers as they can share pictures with students directly from the iPad and good for all staff to share images of student work and activity. Using online services like Flickr or Google’s Picasa, there are ways to ensure images can be uploaded and organised by staff iPads to appear embedded on the school websites etc, without the need for separate login. (See my previous posts)

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YoutubeD) VIDEO: This is quickly becoming the new ‘paper’. Young people are experiencing online video as a first step to understanding anything. They also create multiple videos using devices like phones on a weekly basis. If harnessed, this can make any school a lively exciting place where students really show-off their understanding and even start to learn and leach each other through video. The school must have an official system for staff to organise the videos for the courses and where the school can showcase student video work. The one system that the iPad and all the available apps work seamlessly with is a Youtube account. The school should setup a Google account from which it can organise its Youtube channel with playlists for different courses, classes or general school activities. Students and staff can now login or be logged-in to upload video content to the channel. This channel can be embedded in school websites etc, and will automatically update as the content arrives.

wordpressE) LEADERSHIP BLOG & ADVICE: This is a great idea to ensure genuine engagement from all staff and students. A senior leader blogs the schools experiences and advice on using iPads from day 1. This blog is linked to on the school website and can be used by the whole community to find out the latest news in how the school is operating with iPads, including any problems that have arisen. A school “How-to” page is also setup to cover all the basics.

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If you can get your school performing the daily basics on iPads, the creative stuff will follow naturally. The more they stick to their old ways, the harder the transition will be. Success and collaboration between members of the iPadding community rely on full understanding and engagement from all parties. And this starts with the basics and from the top!

[Update] Other Considerations:

1. Don’t waste time looking through the App Store. Focus on tasks. Start with only considering all the daily tasks within the school for students, teachers and admin and focus on collaborative systems like Google Accounts and Twitter to bring the new iPadders together.

2. Ensure that all the departments have the basics mentioned above working before you worry about adding extras. The first issue is about building confidence and when staff & students see they can at least do all that they did before but better, the project will really take-off.

3. Get the whole senior leadership team fully immersed by the end of the first year. This will build respect for both the individuals and the project. The school will really come alive if the community see the leaders themselves start moving forward.

4. Build an open approach to web filtering. Like all major businesses, 1000s of schools are now using Social Media and Youtube in the classroom. Other than blocking the ‘obvious’ negative material, it is important that schools are able to teach digital citizenship within school and this requires positive role-modeling in how the internet can be used.

Apr 23 2013

School resources with Mac’s Pages.

The most common question I get on Twitter is “How do you create your graphics?”

The answer is: lots of practice with Pages / Keynote, both having the same tools. These tools are much more useful and intuitive than those in either Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. I’ve recorded this 20 minute video (did it quickly for a colleague, so sorry if I don’t perform particularly well!)

Kids have higher expectations these days and now that they can view my worksheets and docs electronically, full colour and design is not the issue it was when considering photocopying.

The video runs through the usual key tools I use to gloss up school worksheets etc, which are also the tools I use for the graphics.

These include:

  1. Image Cropping / Colourising / rotating / transparency / wrapping
  2. Text columns / styles / sizing / wrapping
  3. Table styling / sizing / settings
  4. Graphs styles / setting / data

Please contact me with any further questions:

Apr 10 2013

How to organise an iPadded Department.

NUTSHELL_Dept_iPads

I recently became head of a large enough department that centrally organising media and resources as a department has become more important. It’s also nice as the manager to see this organised media to get an overview of what’s being taught. The starting point is to setup a department Google (gmail) account. This account then operates many systems for sharing files, videos and pictures. All the staff can then permanently log in to several apps and systems and load, share and view the department files at the touch of a button.

app-flickrFlickr allows the Google login and offers brilliant editing and organising tools for photos. The album sets can be used for either courses or topics. They can then be embeded in your school LMS systems or any website as a slideshow. I run a weekly update on a class’s project work by simply taking the photos of work with my iPad and uploading them into the existing course album, knowing they will appear in the schools Website/LMS. This is a great solution of your school systems don’t do iPad uploading particularly successfully. Because the uploading is easy, staff are more willing to do it and:

A) The HOD gets a regular update of activity.

B) Student work is showcased more often

C) Marketing the courses becomes much easier.

YouTube-for-iOS-app-icon-full-sizeYoutube is well known but with all my department’s iPads permanently logged into by all teaching staff, videos of student work, video lessons, and course playlists start to appear much more readily. The iPad’s camera, iMovie and most other video apps will stay logged in and upload immediately, including Explain Everything (Whiteboard App). See my Help Docs like this one or this one to get more setup information.

 

dropbox_iconMany school servers are difficult to access from iPads and sharing files across the department without lots of emails is challenging. Dropbox is a solution that works well on iPads and shared folders are easy to setup and free. Using the Department Gmail account you can setup a free department Dropbox account and use it to share folders will all the department staff’s own dropboxes. This makes sharing any type of file between iPads much easier as the department folders appear in everyone’s dropbox and nearly all apps will send material and files to the Dropbox app to share with the department.

 

Google-Drive-iPad-Icon_thumbShared documents for group editing. The creation of Department policy docs, for example, is often a shared duty for a number of department members. With the same Department Google account, you are offered Google Docs (Online Office apps). The new Google Drive app now edits Google Docs and Spreadsheets on the iPad. This is also good form recording Meeting minutes and agendas.

Oct 5 2012

IPad = Flipped Classroom Made Easy

Yes, the Flipped Classroom (Video lessons watched before class time) is a fashionable topic but whilst there’s still chalk-and-talk together with standardised testing I feel I must continue to push it. And no, it’s not just chalk-and-talk in disguise. It creates a whole new learning environment for the student.

I haven’t taught a whole class for 6 months! All my teaching is now one-to-one and not surprisingly, my grades are soaring. In the classroom I only teach individual students the specific points they highlight as unclear after watching the video lesson and I monitor progress on the projects they’ve designed to prove understanding of the content. This I’ve done within a traditional exam-based school structure and have students who are not focused on grades but more on what they can best do with their time at school, especially now that the time is very much theirs not mine.

Flipping my classroom has changed my career. My job’s more fun, the students are happier and scores in the tests, I unfortunately still have to dish out, improved vastly and immediately. Although, be prepared for the students to be slow to adapt to the autonomy of running their own time, it might take 3 or 4 weeks to get fully engaged with managing their own education!

Why should all teachers flip their classroom?

Online videos should replace all whole-class teaching because:

  1. Not every student listens to teachers when surrounded by distractions
  2. Students understand at differing levels when lessons are one-offs
  3. Some students need the teaching at a different pace (both faster or slower) to what’s delivered in the classroom. (Solution: Pause and rewind video)
  4. Students generally concentrate when watching a video on their own.
  5. Some students miss the lesson in question and would never ask a teacher to repeat a lesson.
  6. Teachers moan about time pressure and this returns all lesson time to tasks and one-to-one follow-up (I’ve now got so much time, I’m not sure what to do with it!)
  7. Autonomy is returned to the student who can watch the lesson when it best suits their own schedule (teachers rarely allow for all the other commitments in a student’s life)
  8. Even whole-class ‘discussion’ (as apposed to teaching) excludes the shy, the bored, the under-prepared students.
  9. The iPad whiteboard allows for paused-recording-setup, meaning all the teacher’s time writing, typing, finding images, drawing diagrams, loading web pages & even thinking is removed from the final lesson and everything in the video seemingly appears on-demand. (I’ve reduced one annual course’s content delivery to under 4 hours!!!)
  10. With the teaching online, my students discuss amongst themselves in the online class forum, adding comments both in and outside the classroom, often solving each other’s issues without my input. My students are free to watch it at home or in class but can also use all the class time to prove understanding in a way that’s personally interesting to them. I set understanding goals but the output is all down to them.
  11. One-to-one explanation is superior to reading large amounts of written text and is more successful with the majority of these Generation Y and Z students. Some teacher’s have told me they’ve “Flipped” already because they ask the students to read the textbook for homework. That’s just not the same and the teacher in question still does chalk-and-talk because he’s not confident the students fully understand from the prior reading!

So here’s my workflow for those who are interested

WHAT’S NEEDED?

1. YouTube account (stores the videos with controlled access)

2. Explain Everything (iPad app for recording iPad screen as Whiteboard – it’s the best of this type of app available – See bottom of page)

3. A Learning Management System (needs to announce videos to class and allow for commenting / forum – I use Facebook groups with my senior students -see my Help Docs for FB setup)

STEP 1: Online Account setup

Having a google/gmail account does automatically give you a YouTube account but you have to login to YouTube specifically to activate the video storage. So first login to YouTube using a Google (Gmail) account using a browser like Safari/Chrome/Firefox.
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STEP 2: Recording a lesson

Now open the Explain Everything app.

Have a practice with Explain Everything. There are some features that take a bit of getting used to, such as:

  1. the pen marks become objects when you click on another tool and must then be deleted as a whole rather than rubbed out which you can only do whilst still drawing.
  2. Teach using a number of slides (like PowerPoint) as each slide is stored as a separate part of the recording meaning you can return to the lesson and re-record just slide 3, for example, if it’s reported as not being very clear. Then upload the video again with all the slides stitched together.
  3. Get used to hitting the Pause button. If you can’t think how best to say something, need a picture or need to draw something then Pause!
  4. Don’t worry too much about it being perfect. The students like the little mistakes so have a bit of fun!

There’s a few more things, so have a play.

STEP 3: Uploading the lesson

When you’ve finished the last slide in a lesson hit the Camera button in the bottom right-hand corner of Explain Everything and select Youtube.

Login using your Google account.

Name your lesson using a system like “YEAR/GRADE – TERM/SEMESTER – COURSE – TOPIC”. This will make organising videos with YouTube account easier later on.

Choose “Unlisted” to keep some control over who sees your lesson. DO NOT choose “Private” as this demands the student have a Google account and you have to individually grant each account access to the lesson!

STEP 4: Publishing to students

Once uploaded, click the button to “Copy link to Clipboard” and move to your LMS course page to paste the link for your students to access. (I use Facebook with most my seniors)

STEP 5: Your new classroom

Now consider a small number of tasks the students could attempt (if they can’t think of a project) to prove they understand the video or a number of videos. Examples include: making 3 minute documentaries, animations, even their own “better” Explain Everything video! These products can then also be posted on the LMS for peer review.

It’s amazing how easy tests become when the students have been this connected and autonomous with the content. These videos are then available all year and of course very useful revision the night before the test!

Should I use the ShowMe or EduCreations app to do the same thing?

My answer is No! There are a number of apps like these that send the videos to only their website for storage. They are hoping to become the one-stop video sites for education. The issue is that Youtube is known by all and accessible by all. Believe it or not, both the apps websites use Flash (unplayable on the iPad normally) and all students need the app to see the videos on their mobile device. Youtube means you retain control of who sees it, you know everyone can see it and this will require no further technical setup or app awareness.

It keeps things more simple and you can also just keep the lesson as a MP4 file on your computer. Another option not available on the other apps.