Vancouver College Tech Blog

Thursday, 11 December 2014

Check out this video @VanCollegeNews students & staff wearing fake moustaches in support of men's health

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=aZ70lQyeu28

#vclearns

Google Unseats Apple In U.S. Classrooms As Chromebooks Beat iPads

By Anthony Wing Kosner

As of the third quarter of 2014, Chromebooks have displaced iPads as the most popular new devices shipping to U.S. schools. This is a huge win for Google in a market historically dominated by Apple and Microsoft. According to the Financial Times and IDC, “Google shipped 715,500 of the low-cost laptops into US schools in the third quarter, compared with 702,000 iPads.” Even more striking, the $199 and up Chromebooks have gone from zero to a quarter of the educational market in only two years.

The iPad is the fastest-growing product in Apple’s history, but that growth is clearly slowing. As recently as a year ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook claimed that “iPads make up 94 percent of the market for education tablets.” As impressive as this is, this statistic obscures the fact that tablets have not been as useful in the educational setting as promised. While Apple has been pumping iPads into schools, Google has gotten many of the same schools hooked on its free Google Apps for Education Suite.

Once students and teachers are used to working in the cloud, Chromebooks make a lot of sense. Microsoft is just now getting to the same level of functionality with its Office 365 service—but it’s free for the students, not for the school. Apple’s own productivity apps, Pages and Numbers, have had less traction than both the Google and Microsoft equivalents. In April, Cook complained that Microsoft’s delay in releasing Office for the iPad was partially responsible for the slowdown in sales.

google-chromebook

The $199 price point also makes the Chromebooks attractive to schools compared to $379 for a 2013 iPad Air (after educational discounts.) Microsoft is trying to compete with the $199 Stream netbook manufactured by HP. This is a step in the right direction, as are the Surface tablets with their snap on keyboards.

The lack of an integrated keyboard in the iPad makes it less and less useful as children get older and need to be able to type for longer periods of time. This also points to a larger issue concerning tablets as educational devices. Despite improvements in this regard, tablets in general and the iPad in particular are loved as media consumption devices first and productivity devices second. Apple’s aggressive pairing of its devices with the iTunes Store has turned many school iPad programs into wholesale promotion of gaming to children.

As someone on the parent side of this equation I can confirm that many students do not appear to be making use of the awesome computation power of these devices. Instead, they are primarily used for gaming, video watching and social media with the occasional Google doc or sheet thrown in. Having entertainment so close at hand in an educational setting is counterproductive to the development of focus and concentration.

I discussed this with Daniel Goleman last week at the Learning & the Brain Conference in Boston. His new book Focus, The Hidden Driver of Excellence, and indeed the entire conference, serve as a rebuke to the novelty seeking that the iPad inspires in students. The tablet itself could have been neutral in education, but Apple has marketed the iPad as a pleasurable device more than a useful one, and that association has stuck even in school classrooms.

It’s not that Google is all-business, but its Chromebooks do not have the same baggage of association with fun and games as the iPad and hence may be better suited to getting kids to concentrate on the task at hand. The Chrome Web Store has games, yes, but they are nowhere as prominent as on the Apple App Store. It would be easy to make Google’s win in the classroom be purely about money. Free apps and cheap netbooks are certainly appealing to embattled school districts. But I am suggesting that there may be more to it than that. Google’s emphasis on utility and data may be more in sync with the needs of students today than Apple’s promises of creative individuality and fun. Get to work, kids!

Sunday, 7 December 2014

Blended Learning: Working With One iPad

Working With One iPad (Transcript)

Kristin: I will load up three or four problems and I'll have them in pairs. I'll hand them the one iPad. It is possible to actually use one iPad and get this done in a class, 'cause that's all I have. And I'll say, "All right, you teach him how to do this problem." And you can get help from the person next to you if you need it. It's okay, it's a team process.

Student: MD is twenty-one and D equals RD.

Kristin: When they're finished, I save it and then I'll pull up a problem very similar to it, and I'll hand it to their partner. And say, "Okay, now it's your turn, you do the same thing."

Okay, this is a question. Make sure you read the question carefully.

Student: Thank you.

Kristin: Okay.

And they hand it back to me, I make sure it's all saved and then I move on to another pair.

EMBED CODE Embed Help

DOWNLOAD ON ITUNES iTunes Help

Contact media@edutopia.org for video permissions questions or other assistance.

Producer: Kristin Atkins
Field Director: Sarita Khurana
Editor: Julie Konop
Production Coordinator: Julia Lee
Camera: Drew Perlmutter
Sound: Juan Ordonez
Graphics: Cait Camarata, Jenny Kolcun, Scott Hartwig
Production Assistant: Ricardo Rivera

My class has one iPad. Just one. But I have found ways to put this single iPad to use in such a way that everyone in my class benefits.

Having mastered one app -- the Show-Me app -- I have been able to create podcasts for my students, allowing them to access my help on their assignments while they are at home or when I am unavailable for face-to-face teaching or tutoring.

After I became comfortable with using this app, I began to brainstorm ways I could use it within my classroom. One technique is to have my students create their own podcasts. The process looks like this:

First, I take pictures of selected problems that align to the standards I am teaching. Then, I load the pictures into the Show-Me app on my iPad.
After direct instruction, I pair students based on their levels of confidence in solving these types of problems. The goal is to match up a confident student with a student who is feeling less secure about the lesson concepts.
I choose a problem for the more confident student to teach to the struggling student, I hand the iPad to that student, and I walk away to let the student independently make a podcast without me hovering nearby. During the recording of the podcast, the first student, solves a problem, explaining the process to the less-confident student and recording all of the work, step by step.
The pair of students lets me know they have finished, and I choose a similar problem for the less confident student to teach to her partner. This student then teaches her partner, explaining each step.
After one pair finishes, I move to another pair of students in the room and repeat the process, using the same or similar problems. While the iPad is making the rounds from pair to pair, the rest of the class is working on either pencil and paper assignments or online activities related to the day’s lesson.

With help from my technology coordinator, I learned how to project the podcasts that my students made onto my whiteboard. When students volunteer to show their podcasts publicly, everyone in the class receives additional opportunities to learn problem solving which may be different from the “teacher’s way.”

Although the idea of students teaching each other is not new, utilizing this app as the means to do so provides additional benefits beyond the immediate process.

Students talk through each step of their problem-solving procedure while they are recording their podcasts, increasing their understanding of the mathematics through their detailed explanations.
Students learn how to analyze and critique each other’s work and engage in classroom discussions about different ways to solve problems.
Using the iPad increases my students’ engagement and participation in class, as they all want their chance to use the technology. My students are more motivated to show what they know, and they learn to provide assistance through difficult steps as their partners are working through their problems.

I have found that I can use student-produced podcasts as formative assessments. Being able to save their work allows me to watch their podcasts later. I can view the podcasts throughout the week and ascertain the standards with which my students are struggling. I make notes while I am reviewing their podcasts so that I know in which areas they show strength and can determine areas to be addressed during individual teacher-student conferences. If I notice that many students are having similar difficulties, I use that information to help me plan for future instruction.

Having only one iPad has not limited my ability to use technology effectively with my students. It is a great tool for analyzing what my students know and can do, and it definitely increases their participation, motivation, and success in the mathematics classroom.

@E_Sheninger: 11 Effective Ways to Use Twitter in Education via @@medkh9 http://t.co/NJaVQjg8rA

16 of the Best Study Apps For the Plugged in Student

Saturday, 6 December 2014

Apps for Creating Social Narratives

Social narratives, video modeling, social stories...which app do I choose? I get this question from time to time and my answer is always the same..."It depends on what you want to create."

Do you need to add video? Do you want to add audio? Do you just need something simple with a few pictures and some text? Do you want your student to develop the social narrative with stickers, picture symbols and drawings? Once I have created a social narrative, how am I going to share this with the student? There are several apps available that can be used to create a social narrative. Deciding on which app to go with can be tricky. Last week a colleague of mine used an app to create a social narrative with some video modeling embedded into the story. She loved the app she was using but was frustrated that she was forced to record audio onto each page; she just wanted the audio from the video clip to act as her audio within the book. The app she was using was great for creating stories where you needed to add audio to each "page" of the book, but wasn't really fitting her need for this particular social narrative. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a comparison chart of social narrative apps to see which app would fit the need of the task at hand?

This wasn't an easy process. There are so many story creator apps available through iTunes that it would be impossible to include each and every single one that could be used to create social narratives. I made my comparison chart with one qualification in mind- it HAD to have the ability to add text to the pages. The comparison chart below does not include every app that can be used to create social stories; it does include apps that I have used and think are worth taking a look at. Their features vary, their sharing options vary, their costs vary. Hopefully this will help guide others as it has helped guide me in choosing the perfect app to create that specific social narrative you have in mind for a student.

Social Narrative Apps Comparison Chart- Download Here

Teaching Ideas

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/maths/contents_allfouroperations.htm

All Four Operations:

Maths Karate - A wonderful way of reinforcing understanding of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division vocabulary.
Inverse Operations Triangles - Printable triangles which can be used when showing children how operations are linked to their inverse. Contributed by Scott Evans.

Addition and Subtraction:

Maths Facts Outfits - Make Maths fun by using outfits to review simple facts!
Adding and Subtracting with Pegs - Use pegs and a hanger to show that addition can be done in any order but subtraction cannot.
Addition and Subtraction - Can your children add and subtract the amounts shown? Contributed by Sherrie Bendjedidi.
Turnover - A fun addition / subtraction game using playing cards.
Finger Slide Ruler - Use a ruler within your Maths lessons to support addition and subtraction.
Fact Families - Use fact families to help children to understand the links between addition and subtraction.
Playing Card Points - A fun competition between children and teacher... who will win?
Adding and Subtracting - A PDF worksheet which asks children to add (and subtract) thousands, hundreds, tens and units from a set of numbers.
Addition and Subtraction Word Problems - A PDF, contributed by kate Beaumont, involving addition / subtraction word problems
Addition and Subtraction (Yr6) - A SMART Notebook file containing slides for reviewing addition / subtraction with Thousands, Hundreds, Tens, Units and Decimals.
Addition / Subtraction with Rounding (Yr5) - A set of addition and subtraction questions, where children can use their rounding skills to help find the answer. Contributed by Vicky Bing:

Multiplication and Division:

Multiplication and Division by 10, 100 and 1000 - A grid which can be used to support multiplication and division by 10, 100 and 1000.
Multiplication / Division (Yr6) - Five days of teaching input in these Smart Notebook slides. Covers multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100, multiplying by near multiples of 10 and 100, and multiplying by doubling / halving.
Inverse Multiplication / Division - Information and activities are included on this worksheet, which shows how multiplication and division are inverse operations. Contributed by Sian Carr.

Maths Operations Resources:

All Four Operations Banner	All Four Operations Banner Includes labels for each operations
Four Operations Vocabulary Cards A handy set of cards showing vocabulary related to the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.	Four Operations Vocabulary Sorting Ask your pupils to record words and phrases related to each of the four operations. They can then refer to these during independent work.

Don't miss our other resources: