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Well, this has been quite a journey..I have been trawling the web and my twitter PLN to exhaust all the free possibilities for students to record their voice and share with others via a URL rather than a large audiofile.

It’s not that this hasn’t been possible; in fact, for some time I have been promoting ShowMe and Educreations as they are ridiculously quick and easy to use ways to produce a recording with a public or private URL. However, it has always bugged me -perhaps unreasonably- that the URL shared opens an app instead of just playing an audio track.

Similarly, it has always been possible to record audio in one app like Voice Record Pro (free) and upload to a free cloud storage platform like Google Drive, Dropbox or Copy. Copy for iOS is my favourite as it gives 15GB free and the iPad app is fab, every file and folder has a private or public link. But, again, I just want the audio URL to play, not open an app or require a download. Fussy or what?

A decent alternative has been the Croak.it app, which is free and produces its own URL, but it only allows up to 30 seconds recording. Actually that is quite a long time for a Y7 or 8 student..and they could of course, make two or more recordings.

Numerous other options, such as iPadio, Audioboo and Soundcloud required signing up to social media sites or providing phone numbers, which is not ideal when students are not yet 13.

The free app Spreaker DJ, however, as tipped by @joedale and @suzibewell, might fit the bill. It does need a subscription but nothing in the Terms and Conditions mentions an age limit. I will give it a go and report back!

My TFL (Technology for Learning) colleagues and I took the plunge and ran an introduction to Augmented Reality session with the whole Senior School staff this morning as our contribution to the weekly internal staff teaching tip programme we have. After thanking the TFL team and all staff for making our iPad pilot year such a success, I briefly explained the concept and potential of augmented reality and then we let everyone loose.

We had examples spread all over the place from all the Faculty areas, 17 images triggering videos of students discussing their work, teachers explaining concepts, open day recruitment videos, etc

Obviously, as images can link to anything, the wider potential across the school is huge…pop-up instructions on how to use PE, Science or first-aid equipment, interactive points around the school for visitors, talking departmental and option evening displays, singing concert posters…you name it.

The technology worked flawlessly and there was a really good buzz. Best outcome? I could see quite a few teachers trying straightaway to make their own auras and many others came up and demanded training!! Always the best way round for CPD!

Excellent day today. Our 20 Y7 tech leaders helped us get the Y6 students signed up and doing a familiarisation ‘scavenger hunt’ on Edmodo. Very interesting to see how the Y6 students really really struggled to avoid ‘text talk’, abbreviations, emoticons etc in their early posts to the group! It’s in their genes!!

Enjoyed this activity today: I needed to recap what leisure activities my Y7 students could remember in French before introducing them to the simple Future tense. I made a shared wall on http://www.padlet.com, shared the url with them on edmodo and they had to add a verb and an image whilst trying not to duplicate those being posted by other students. They worked out very easily how to add images from their camera roll. The major advantages of this over a regular verbal or whiteboard brainstorming session were that the kids were doing the work, that they came up with a much wider range of activities than normal, that it was anonymous and that they all had a great resource to refer to when they they made up their future tense sentences later. Result!! Here is the wall they populated.

I have just discovered slidego, which is a web-based presentation maker. As you cannot make or edit a Google Presentation on the iPad, this is a handy alternative. Actually, it works really well. You can import from the camera roll, add animations and transitions and share via url. Quite impressive!

Bump is a cool free iPhone app (which also therefore works on iPads) that allows you to gently bump devices together to instantly transfer photos, videos, files and contacts without the fuss of emailing. This is not an April Fool! Just as useful -and rather extraordinary -is that you can also use the app and any web browser to transfer the same kinds of items to and from any computer without the need for cables or iTunes. Could be very useful for enabling students to share work with one another and with the teacher…let’s say photos they have taken on a field trip, for example.

I have struggled for some time to get the Aurasma creation and sharing process working, but now that  I have- with some help from looking at Kelda Richards’ blog, and working in tandem with my colleague Nicky Hodges and Tweetbuddy Dee Blackman – I thought I would share a video tutorial that takes you and your students through the steps needed to bring those displays to life!

Enjoy!

I have been trying the beta version of Markup, a Kickstarter project by the creators of Showme that has been fully funded and has now been submitted to the App store.

Essentially, you set up an email address with Markup, your students email a pdf of their work to that address. You open the pdf, annotate using your finger or stylus, from a small palette of colours, then mail the pdf back to the student.

It works perfectly as described…but even though I backed this app on Kickstarter, it is not -in its current form at least – the answer to iPad workflow, as I can already achieve the same goal, but with many more functions like voice recording, typed text etc with other apps like Explain Everything. The workspace is not searchable and there is no way to organise student work into folders so the interface will quickly become unmanageable. Also, whilst you are making annotations you can undo or erase them but if you close the document and reopen it, your earlier annotations are no longer editable.

What I dream of is a seamless solution where student saves a pdf to a shared workspace, I open it and annotate over the work..but just as a layer on top…the student then opens the work and makes changes to their original. No email, no multiple versions.

Currently the closest I can see is using the annotation feature in Edmodo, or students using Google Docs. Of course, Edmodo features GoogleDocs integration so I think that is worth further investigation. Hapara offers a great teacher dashboard solution for GoogleDocs, at a cost, but of course you cannot make or edit a Google Presentation on the iPad…hmmm.

None of this is uniquely an iOS issue, the same would be true on an Android or Windows device in terms of the digital submission/correction/resubmission flow. Whoever comes up with the solution to this is going to make a mint! The key will be having a way to organise and view student work without needing multiple folders. Obviously, the Holy Grail would be having this system work with school information systems and feed into assessments, grades and even reporting..a one-stop shop.

We were very lucky to have an hour today with visiting Australian-born but UK-resident teacher and ADE, Dr. Andrew Lee, who gave a presentation on exploiting iOS devices in Geography. Many of the uses he described we have been exploring ourselves, but he had several very clever ideas that were new to us and it was also good to be reminded of the amazing collection of measurement tools and sensors that are already part and parcel of the device, without endlessly looking for apps. With the redesigned KS3 curriculum imminent, this tool is going to have all sorts of potential for data-logging, mapping and reflection..

Lovely to have a first meet and greet with our 20 newly-appointed Year 7 tech leaders today…I think they sense the unusual opportunity they are being given to potentially change the way they are being taught and in working WITH teachers in the subject they love. They are also really keen to make videos informing their peers..and very importantly, parents, about different aspects of growing up with technology. First job…make a video explaining Instagram.

Here is the ‘job description’ we discussed
– make help and advice videos about apps, workflow on the iPad, social networks
– test and discuss whole yeargroup ideas ie Portfolio platform, iPad carrybag
– suggest and devise competitions, projects, links with other subjects/year groups/schools
-suggest and devise TFL opportunities around the teaching of your subject area

Opportunities to
-develop their own tech skills
-collaborate and help peers, teachers, parents etc
-change how they are taught/will learn in school

By Ben P-W
At the start we were asked to translate a Latin text called Venalicius (which is about Caecilius buying a new slave) not only through our knowledge but using the Cambridge Latin Course website. Then we were asked to create a short video about it which would show our understanding of the text. It would incorporate certain skills such as teamwork and thinking outside the box. When we heard we were going to use our new iPads to make an iMovie our group was very excited as these iPads really help enhance our learning as we had to use many different skills to do this such as teamwork and acting. For Venalicius we used our iPads in a unique way as we filmed it with the iPad and then used the app iMovie to enhance it. So overall the iPad played a very big role, probably the most important, and without it there is no way it would have been as good. This is because we probably couldn’t get a good enough camera or editing software. We had so much fun filming and we worked really well together!

Had my second session this morning between 8 and 9am with parents wanting to develop their tech skills. All of this group already had an iPad but were amazed by all the hidden tips and tricks that make using the device even easier. Essentially I went over all the gestures, shortcuts and settings. Most didn’t know -did you? – that the iPad comes out of the box with Bluetooth turned on which is odd and definitely robs battery life. Other hits were Voice dictation of notes and emails using Siri, the Do Not Disturb feature and knowing how to close all running apps without having to cycle through them individually. All went away excited and wanting to learn more.

This morning I really enjoyed running my first hands-on session for parents who are keen to ‘catch up’ with their children in terms of tech use. There are three groups, this was the ‘treat me as a beginner’ group. Most had their own iPad but were not confident beyond sending emails. I went through the following functions:

Buttons: Turn on, Turn off, reboot
Volume, mute, orientation lock
Home button/power button screenshots
App icons
Move to different screen, make and name folders, remove apps from folders
The dock..add up to 6 apps
Gestures: The squid, 4 fingers up, view and close recent apps, 1 finger sideways left for spotlight, slide from top of screen for notifications

Settings: Notifications: banners, Brightness and wallpaper
General: Bluetooth off, auto screen lock with magnets, side switch preferences
Keyboard. international keyboards, shortcuts
Typing: keyboards, split keyboards, easy way to access numbers and symbols, caps and caps lock, foreign accents

It was great to have lots of ‘oh, now that’s cool/really useful’ moments during the hour as most of these functions were not known. Biggest hits: swiping between apps, not having to leave the regular keyboard in order to add numbers, setting shortcuts for commonly used phrases, turning off annoying notifications,

We finished by downloading the Flipboard app and adding the school’s Daily Bulletin as an RSS feed, as well as showing the group how to set up their own pages on subjects that interest them.

The group was really keen to meet again and explore further, parting comments included ‘I didn’t really want one of these devices, now I can see a whole new world opening up!’ That’ll do me for feedback…

Had 15 students apply to be tech leaders in Year 7 this week, 8 boys and 7 girls, so looks like we will have 2 in every department..with one spare! Looking forward to letting the kids know and start working with them..