Update

Just a quick update. Unfortunately, SlideRocket is going to cease to exist as of this December.

Scanning on the Ipad

I am teaching a course called Digital Media and Methods, a foundation course encompassing the digital technology utilized in the design field.  The lesson this week was Capture and Production (essentially how you convert an object with physical dimensions to digital dimensions so it can be used in a design product [ie website, brochure, etc.]) The technology in our computer labs is pretty extensive scanners, projector, computers, cameras—so I didn't need to use the ipad for this lesson. But I wanted to try to incorporate its use in the classroom.

Two devices used to "capture" are digital cameras and scanners. Turns out, the ipad has the capacity to take pretty good pictures using the built-in camera.  And most of the free scanning apps I found allow you to scan in documents as a jpg or pdf that can be emailed or uploaded to cloud storage (drop box, icloud etc.) This is useful, however, the file formats created are images not editable text. To be fair, a flatbed scanner does the same thing. 

However, there are apps that can convert images to editable text. I found a free one called Image to Text OCR which creates editable text from images. Once scanned and emailed it, you receive the image and a text file with the editable text extracted from the image.  Pretty useful…maybe not for this lesson, but I have a lot of hard copy notes that I want to convert to and editable digital form for use in my lectures. This app may help me attain that goal.

Hi all,
Sorry that I am delaying in keeping you posted! My problem is that when I start surfing then it takes so much time and I am sure you all are suffering  from "no-time" syndrome that is our society problem so .... Any how as I was reading your posts, it shows that you all are enjoying your IPad as much as I do! Thanks to CTLT for awarding it to me.
The course that I am planning to specifically use IPad will be offered in spring. But so far I used this sweet device for my other courses presentation , easy communication  when I go to conferences and reading research papers. I really enjoy using the Pages, still exploring Keynote!
It is light , accecable and user friendly device ....stay tuned;)

Today's my day for blogging, so what do I have to tell you... I have been very successful using pocketcloud to get remote access in my ERP class to the Infor Visual ERP Server. I have been pulling up the modules and able to display individually to each student. Very intriguing and helpful. I have been using socrative in every class, students like participating using their phones, hopefully they will be better prepared for future classes in anticipation of the quiz I am having. I have been successful in using angel which was a problem before my update. Recently I was having issues with sending through pages and doc's or word or pdf's but was given some assistance. I had problems with my login when downloading apps since I had three different requests for app installs with three different id's and passwords only one being mine but now this has been taken care of and I understand better. Strange when updating I only had one id and password which was mine at all times. Glad this has been taken care of. I still have an issue using the IPAD with MYMISLAB from Pearson since I can not open assignments in that system that are Microsoft Access, they do not open. The excel and word assignments do but not Access. Hopefully we can figure away around that. My students are not very good with either excel or access so these exercises are needed and required. Been playing around with teamviewer which is an awesome tool. I will be using it in every classroom, very thrilling since I was trying to use reflector..to no avail. Thank you That's all for now.

Here's a guest post from my colleague Marla Johnston. She's one of the new faculty members in the Department of Psychology and she is a delight! I hope you enjoy her  blog post about her use of the iPad in her Psychology courses. 

For a long time, my experiences of iPads were twofold: 1) it kept my children quiet on long car rides (I love you, Angry Birds!), and 2) it was great for surfing Pinterest or Facebook on a lazy Sunday morning.  But this semester, I decided to toss my old way of lecturing, embrace technology more fully, and make my iPad mini my new classroom best friend.  The results have been a blast!

All of my class presentations are done in Keynote for Apple.  It’s like PowerPoint only for the “cool kids.”  I come in the classroom, hook up my iPad mini to the podium and I’m good to go.  I have every lecture presentation there in front of me with the touch of a finger.  I’ve discovered all sorts of fun tricks in Keynote like embedding videos and using the tools of the program to make my presentations visually more interesting.  One of the things I love about presenting off my iPad is that I can switch from Keynote and have access to fantastic Apps in class.  For example, there is an amazing App called “Brain 3d”.  It allows you to view different parts of the brain from all angles and it even has an information toolbar you can open on the side that gives details about the function of a particular brain location.  Being able to show Apps like this allows my students to have a more hands on experience of the lecture and it allows me to more fully share my enthusiasm for a particular topic.

In addition to course material related Apps, there are also Apps for attendance and grading.  One of my favorite Apps is “Groovy Grader”.  If I use a non-scantron test and score it, “Groovy Grader” tells me at a glance what the grade is when you get 34 right out of 45.  My iPad is the keeper of grades, lectures, attendance, and even notes about my students if need be.  For years I taught the old fashioned way.  Overheads and the document camera were my old stand bys and they definitely worked.  But now that I’ve made the change, there is no turning back.  The ipad is intuitive, elegant, and really allows for a level of sophisticated presentations that newer generations of students have come to expect.  I’m excited by what I’ve learned so far and even more excited to learn what else I can do with this fantastic classroom tool!

I bought my reading ap from the i-tunes store- my first ap! Called "Fluency Finder," it promises to do what I need, but now I have to figure out how to work it. Here's the link if you're interested in this application for your classroom: http://www.fluencyfinder.com/ The description: Announcing FluencyFinder 2.0! The “everything app” for reading fluency assessments – including one-step reading comprehension and data-sharing email features! FluencyFinder is an indispensable reading assessment tool for teachers, parents, and ESL students. Here's the phone from the ad, but the image of the ap won't show up. Ah, something else to learn!

And by the way, I use Grammarly's grammar corrector because even English professors occasionally makes grammar errors.

Some Application Suggestions

While I try to finish a more elaborate case study, I wanted to share some iPad apps that I find to be extremely useful.

Write for iPad

Write for iPad is a handy note taking and composition program. Can use it pretty well writing CSS and HTML. On a Mac, there is desktop version of the app that updates with your iPad. Uses DropBox and iCloud syncing, among other amazing capabilities.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/write-for-ipad-beautiful-note/id638171770?mt=8

Instapaper

Instapaper is a great way to save and store web pages for reading later offline. It supports iPad and desktop OSs.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instapaper/id288545208?mt=8

SyncSpace

SyncSpace is a great program for remote iPad collaboration. Two authors can work simultaneously via wifi. It depends on your connection speed, but I tried it with a friend who has a very slow connection and it worked pretty well. It's free for a limited version. Get a copy and give me a call if you want to try it out.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/syncspace-free-zoomable-shared/id530089254?mt=8

SlideRocket Player

From the web page:

"Show your stunning presentations on the iPad with the SlideRocket Player! Simply download a SlideRocket or Powerpoint presentation to show it anytime, anywhere, online or off. Share presentations across the table or across the globe. You can even invite someone to view your presentation from a simple link. Plus, built in analytics let you know when and where someone's viewed your presentation. All your presentations go with you wherever you go."

Design presentations in PowerPoint or online at sliderocket.com, which has handy composing, formatting and sharing options. Display them anywhere from your iPad.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sliderocket-player/id462996758?mt=8

Inspire Pro

If you have an artist in creating any kind of imagery on your iPad, Inspire Pro is amazing.

Used in conjunction with the Sensu brush stylus (https://www.sensubrush.com/) and experience the best digital painting experience without spending thousands on a Wacom tablet.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inspire-pro-paint-draw-sketch/id355460798?mt=8

I believe all of these have free versions or versions with limited capabilities.

Inspire pro is about 5 bucks. The Sensu brush is relatively expensive, depending on which one you choose, between 25 and 45 bucks. Well worth it if you want to REALLY experience digital painting.

This is just to check if my account is working. Will write later in detail.

Hi colleagues, I found the workshop on Friday very useful. I use I Annotate and is worth the money but wished that the College took initiative to get campus license for all!!? Also I will welcome if anyone has seen a stylus for drawing using the screen for hand writing engineering equations.
Happy IPading ( new word not yet in the dictionary)
Mir

Back on schedule

Hello .  I am just beginning to use some of the pictures I have taken to create some cases for my students,   It is really very time consuming to do so but it will be worth it.  

I have shown the students some videos that I took of the instrumentation in the laboratory and they really enjoyed seeing it in addition to discussing it.  


I attended the SLN workshop last Fri and learned of some apps that I will be exploring in the future.   Once I have had some time to explore them, I will share the ones I like.

I also have had some difficulty with updating and using some of the apps that came preloaded on the iPad.    I tried to download a free article to the iBooks but it asked for an apple password that was not mine.   There was no way to switch to my apple Id either.    Who do we contact to resolve this?

Upcoming Workshop Oct. 22nd

On October 22nd, I will deliver a presentation based on my experience at the Edtechteacher workshop—The Ipad Classroom that was held in July at Harvard University Law School.  The workshop will provide attendees with an overview of the potential rewards of utilizing Ipads in the classroom. The focus of this presentation will be utilizing the following apps in our classrooms: Socrative, Notability, and Explain Everything.  It would be helpful to know how familiar people are with these apps.  In addition, we will ask that all attendees please come to the workshop with your own iPad and iTunes account.  We also recommend that the following apps be installed on your iPad and that you experiment and explore these apps prior to our workshop.  Please do let me know how familiar you are with the apps listed above and below.

• iBooks (free)
• Educreations (free)
• Explain Everything ($2.99)
• iMovie ($4.99)
• SoundCloud (free)
• Socrative - Teacher & Student app (free)
• Notability ($1.99)
• ScreenChomp (free)
• Evernote(free)
• Skitch (free)
• Penultimate (free)
• VoiceThread (free)
• Animoto (free)
• Fotobabble (free)
• Diigo (free)
• DropBox (free)
• Google Drive (free)
• Box (free)
• Flipboard (free)
• Feedly (free)
• TouchApp Creator ($3.99)

Farmingdale State College Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology: Wow

This semester I am not teaching the course CRJ230 Biometrics and Identity Theft I proposed to use the iPad for. However, I saw their some updates and wanted to install them. Unfortunately, there is an existing appleID in the iPad I do not have the password.

I created a new ID, but the existing one still pops up for the installation. Not sure exactly what to do.

What is the password for it (ID: ipadctlt15 or something like that)? Doe anyone have the password so I can do the updates?
Thanks.