Easy to Use!

I just wanted to say how much easier it is to use the iPads, vs laptop computers for students here at school.  The fact that they don't have to log on to the computer (and probably try 6 times), and wait for their "personal settings to load" saves probably about 6 minutes per class.  It is INCREDIBLE!
I have been using these for videos each day in class, and it is so much faster than dealing with the laptops!

Google Drive (the App)

This week, instead of having my students complete a worksheet on spectroscopy and ground vs. excited states of electrons, I asked them to read a technical (complex) text and answer a series of questions in paragraph form. The impetus for this came after a discussion with Maria Vowles who commented that her IB Biology students (seniors) struggled with 'answering the question' in an essay. Often times students will simply rephrase the question several times rather than answer it. They'll dance around the answer without ever actually getting to the point.

Enter Google Drive for the iPad. I flipped the lesson on the topic of Ground vs. Excited state so the students had a background of the topic. I handed out an article on 'Taking Apart the Light' and instructed them to read the article and, instead of simply answering four questions at the end of the reading, to construct a thoughtful response via Google Drive. They all read the article and tapped a response on their iPads. A paragraph is probably the extent of writing that I would expect students to compose without an external keyboard.

Once they had composed their answers, I asked them to share the document with me and allow me the ability to COMMENT on them. Then I could read their paragraphs, comment on them, and grade them all electronically. I'm trying to get into more 'e-grading'.

As many of you know, Google Drive allows you to create folders to organize your shared documents. This is crucial with 90+ paragraphs to sift through.

The drawbacks of the App? Right now, you cannot comment on shared documents AND you cannot view comments. Instead, I have to read and comment on the documents on my laptop of home desktop computer. I submitted feedback to Google on this. Not holding my breath for the update. However, I think it's a pretty slick way for kids to create content and cut down on the papers that I have to shuffle.

Flipped Infographics

Here are a couple of Infographics showcasing some statistics and history of the Flipped Classroom. I thought you might enjoy it. I've posted the second one to my web site as a source of information for parents who might be curious or dubious of the Flipped model.

Here is a link to the second Infographic.  The Flipped Classroom

Deconstructing Keynote (or PowerPoint)

So Markette turned me on to an article a couple of weeks ago entitled 'PowerPoint is Evil' by Edward Tufte. He basically said that,

Audiences consequently endure a relentless sequentiality, one damn slide after another. When information is stacked in time, it is difficult to understand context and evaluate relationships. 

He goes on to remind us all that we need to 'Respect our audience' when giving a presentation or teaching a lesson. I'm as guilty as anyone for using PowerPoint (or Keynote for us Apple people) to present lessons. At this point it's out of habit rather than based on any pedagogy. I can tell when students just can't take any more notes. They ask ... 'are we taking notes today'? Yes, I think notes are vitally important in helping students retain and be able to refer to important information, but I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't a better way, like Flipping.

To this end, I've been attempting the Flipped Model Vicki and Molly have had so much success with. I've been using Doceri to record 'Screencasts' as well as something new I discovered while reading an article in iTunes U. I'm recording right in the application Keynote (desktop version) in short, 5-8 minute, sessions. I've had to totally redo them to make them flow nicely, but I think the quality has improved. I have even started putting in little 'Easter Eggs' to check if students are watching to the end. When the kids get to class the following day, I give them a 'Ticket-in-the-Door' consisting of 1-3 short questions that are EASY if they watched the video, but painful if they haven't. The 'Easter Egg' becomes a bonus for them ... just to get them in the habit.

1. I create the Keynote.
2. I record my voice while manually advancing slides and transitions.
3. It's SHORT ... no more than 10 minutes and that's pushing it.

Here's the link to one that I did this week:  Allotropes

Today I did a lesson on Periodic Table Trends (I know, riveting) that I typically do with a Keynote. However, today I used only parts of that file and instead had students use their iPads to discover these trends on their own. The free App EMD-PTE is a periodic table with MUCH more information available for students to explore:

• atomic mass
• weighted atomic mass
• electronegativity
• atomic radius
• ionization energy
• state of matter

I would state the trend and loosely guide them to discover it for themselves with the tools in the App:

Electronegativity of the Elements

Ionization Energy of the Elements (Silver is shown).

In this way, THEY see what happens to the electronegativity and ionization energy of the elements without having to listen to me drone on about them. They OWN the information. They make the connections to what we're learning in class and in lab. AND they are playing with a chemistry app. What's not to love about that?

Stem & Leaf

The only class I am not "flipping" my classroom for is my Intro to Stats class.  These kids need more active learning in class and are probably the kids I trust most to use the iPads on a daily basis.

Today I had them work on some online questions, these were not graded, collected or recorded in any manner at all.  All students worked SILENTLY on the questions, and only one student asked how I was recording their answers.  I gave students a time limit on answering the questions, and then gave them a one question quiz afterward; this worked PERFECTLY!

I had found the questions on a site called "Mathopolis".  HOWEVER- I had posted the link on my website so students could go directly to the questions that I intended them to answer, and it did not take them to where it was supposed to.  So I had to revise their directions, and make sure every student was able to get to the correct place- so first set it was a FLOP.  By 5th set I had figured out how to get students there in as few as 5 clicks! Blah!

Another fun thing that I did, that doesn't really involve iPads, was I had the students make themselves into a human stem-and-leaf plot.  We used the stairs in the back of the building, I put the "stems" on the railings, and they were the leaves.  I took a picture of them, and then when we were back in the classroom projected the photo so they could make their stem-and-leaf plot on their paper.  It was really cute. Below are the pictures of my little Gremlins.

Pen & Paperless?

Paperless Essay Grading

Like Mike, I've been exploring apps for the purposes of note taking and I've been a proponent of GoodNotes mostly because I've tried other note taking apps (Notability, Bamboo) and they just don't work as well. With GoodNotes, I can mark up PDF documents, create new notes, and import photos. This got me thinking ... if I have students type up a response (essay, concluding paragraph, lab report), I can have them email me a PDF and I can grade it by importing it into GoodNotes. Here's a student example from this past month:

Now I can take this file, export and email it back to the student as a PDF without ever having to print the document. If I wanted, I could attach a rubric or any number of additional pages with comments and send them all back to the student.

Styli ---- that's right, the plural of Stylus

The next hurdle is the writing instrument. Styli come in all shapes, sizes, and degree of quality. Last month I purchased 30 styli from Amazon for about $10. As you might imagine, they didn't last very long. Students are hard on them and the quality just wasn't there.

For my own, personal use, I've been experimenting. I think I've tried about 6-10 different styli and have three that I am currently working out.

• LYNKtek TruGlide (www.lynktek.com):  $15.99

• This stylus has a microfiber tip; quite different from the typical rubber-tipped styli. Quite sensitive and responsive.

• Pogo Sketch (now the Pogo Sketch +, Ten One Design):  $10.99

• This stylus has one of the more rubber-ized tips, but it's small enough that I like its responsiveness. I've found that I have to use more pressure to get it to write, but if you're heavy-handed with a pen, this might be a good choice for you. It's also less expensive.

• The Racer (Best Stylus):  $40.00

• Certainly the most expensive stylus I've tried, but it is BY FAR the most sensitive. I barely have to touch the screen to write smoothly. This would NOT be a stylus for students, however. It comes with a cap and velcro strips to 'reactivate' the tip should it get squished or laden with finger oil.

I have always had a screen protector on my iPad, mostly out of fear of scratching the glass. However, screen protectors significantly decrease the sensitivity of any styli. Therefore, I removed mine (and it was an expensive one) and am working with these styli on the bare glass. So far the results have been fantastic. All three work well, with The Racer being the most responsive.

As far as a class set of any of these, the Pogo Sketch + would probably be the best bet. Any styli would require a bit of education on our part to ensure longer lifetimes of the pens.

They make the movies

I flipped my classroom for this unit, and decided that a good way for them to practice solving exponential equations was many many practice problems. The only problem is that there is one of me to answer a million of their questions.

Solution: each of them make one video solution of a selected problem, and within minutes we have a collection of 25 problems with video solutions on a "class page". We used the app "ShowMe" and it was virtually seamless. Patti was able to snag some good videos of the kids recording and practicing. If you want to try this, ask me for more details on creating accounts, etc.