Progress Report Season

I had a lot of hope during this progress-report season.  The iPad has been a versatile, portable device allowing me to take pictures of student work, take video of their presentations, and record audio of conferences.  I think this three months has seen me procure way more assessment information than I normally would.  My thought back in October was, "This is going to be great; I can show parents EVERYTHING their child is doing."


Ah, then there's the "IF." If I only had more memory space.  If I didn't have to export files to my personal laptop.  If I could find an app that could manage all of the data.  What was originally going to be me opening up each student's Evernote "note" to show to parents became the traditional "this is what is happening in our class, this is what your child is doing."  Actually, this was the year that students directed their own interview, but that's another story.  Back to my wishes and reality, part of the issue is Evernote.  It's a good app.  However, when I learned that it couldn't hold video, I needed a resource for storing video to include with Evernote.  Another teacher informed me about Vimeo.  It is a web portal for storing video which you can access through an http address.  Upside?  I have a place to store all that video instead of my own laptop.  Downside?  Unless one decides to pay to upgrade their user status, they're limited to uploading only 5GB per week.  With recording presentations and evidence of collaborative problem-solving, I could bump up against that barrier in one day...easily.

I am leaning toward purchasing the annual Vimeo upgrade.

Conferences did go well.  Parents enjoyed listening to their child talk about their learning, their strengths, and their chosen areas to improve in.  They also appreciated watching and listening to recorded evidence of their learning.  It wasn't as "tablet-based" as I would have wanted, but it was the best set of progress report interviews I've ever had.

Syncing and Growing Pains

The learning curve in this project is quite exciting, if frustrating. We now have most of our hardware in place - the most exciting of which, at least for this avid typer, are the various bluetooth keyboards we are trying out with the pads.

We only have a few different kinds - one that is also a case, one made by HipStreet that the pad sits in, and two wireless apple keyboards. We're testing them out to see which we prefer, in different applications, in case we decide we would like more. And so far they are working well. Or, should I say, well-ish. One issue we're starting to realize is not uncommon is syncability (I make up words all the time, it's a condition) - the ability for disparate software and hardware to work together with the iPad.

For instance - we are using the Cloudon app as a cloud based storage space and document generator. We like Cloudon because it not only allows you to view .doc/.ppt/.xls files, but you can create them as well (you can't do that with the pads while using Dropbox/Google Drive - so far as we can tell). However, the first time I tried to use the HipStreet keyboard with Cloudon - it was essentially a non-starter. After a while I realized that you need to be very particular with the order in which you do things for the keyboard to work - and the arrow keys (something I desperately miss on the touch pad keyboard) are always a little funky.

I'm sure this will improve - with lots of parties involved (Cloudon people, apple people, HipStreet people) there is sure to be some communication woes - but as the pads become more of a known commodity in our world, and as accessory companies have longer to play with them, I am sure these inks will get ironed out. In the mean time we're finding the best combinations and running with them.

The BIG news is that our pads are now in the hands of our students - which will speed up this whole learning curve in a big way as well, I am sure. Wish us luck!

Has anybody experienced any "syncing" problems with other apps/accessories? Just curious. 

Blogging away

One thing that has been a nice addition for us. Is the integration of blogs based on our subjects. These blogs are led by the teachers and contain assignments for the students to work on. As a background many of our students do not have the ability to come to school everyday. The reasons could vary from parenting duties, employment to mental health issues. These subject based blogs allow for students in those situations to keep up with their studies. It also lets students work ahead if they choose or catch up if they miss school for various reasons.

Need a date?

Part of this project has been trying to improve productivity between my peers and myself.  We are a small team of four who have little time to meet throughout the week. Since we are also a program that has limited support administratively, it is imperative that we communicate and be organized as a group.  There are student intakes, course add/subtracts, counselling, graduation ceremonies and all around administrative duties to be done. The best way to do this is through productivity apps.

We started to improve our productivity through the google suite of software.  The reason for this was two fold. One, we were introducing the google suite to the students as it is a free web based software so it is something they can all use for life, no matter if they own technology or not.  While doing this we became more immersed in the programs ourselves. From that point it was an easy extension to see the benefit of the google suite for our productivity as a staff.

Though we use the google software regularly, there were some issues synching it to the iPad. The one area that stood out was synching the staff calendars to each other and the to individual iPads. The issue that became apparent was that items put into your google calendar synced to your iPad but items entered into your iPad calendar did not sync to the google calendar.

The solution was to get a calendar app that did this. After reviewing a few apps I ended up purchasing the app "Calendars". It is a simple install and syncs great to the google calendars. It is a great app for overcoming the Apple vs. Google software battle.