TeacherKit, the almost perfect teacher app!

So we've just finished the first week of school, and so have wrapped up our first week of using the tablets in the classroom. So far, the iPad is performing well - great even. Battery life, functionality and portability are all even better than anticipated. Last year we were using a combination of paper files and Lenovo laptops to do the same job - and the weight and battery life are both night and day improvements (no offense to Lenovo. They make a great product but it's apples and oranges).
So far, the app I've been using the most is a free one from ITWorx, it's called TeacherKit. It's a slick looking teacher app that will hopefully replace my paper attendance as well as my mark book.
So far I have set up my classes and entered some marks...manually entering each student into each class is tiresome, but we usually have to do that anyways in our alternative setting since we are not directly connected to a school board server. One of the many joys of working in a satellite site.

Also proving frustrating, I can't figure out how to produce any reports with it (monthly attendance reports would be great) but otherwise it works very well. The interface is very nice looking and so long as my pad is not loaded with excess stuff (I had to delete some movies) it runs well with little to no lagging. It would be nice to be able to move students from class to class, but the grade book is super easy to use and allows for a much more portable platform - useful for observational reporting (the bread and butter of the alt ed classroom.
I'll report back in a while, but so far this app gets a level 3. ;)

Networking for Dummies

Now that we have the pads and we've started to cull through the app world for useful apps for our program we are now preparing to sync our pads to iTunes accounts. The question remains, how and how many. If this process proves cumbersome, or unwieldy, it could stall out the project and in truth if this process gets in the way it may prove too much.

That being said, it seems straightforward from this vantage point. Our setup is as follows: we have a few desktops in our classrooms on which we have loaded iTunes (we don't want to have iTunes on the pads because it may prove too tempting for the students (and staff) and we want to keep the pads uniform, fast and uncluttered) and will hopefully be able to load books/apps onto those accounts. Then, the process of moving the chosen and vetted content onto all of the pads begins.

It remains to be seen whether or not we'll be able to accomplish this easily. It also remains to be seen of we'll be able to share a few accounts for 20 iPads. We've been told by other colleagues already working with iPads that apple is pretty good; that 10 pads per account is generally permissible. That would be great, but of not, it would be expensive and tedious to manage 20 accounts. We'll keep you posted, and if anyone has any advice/experience to share please let us know.

Math Ref

Math Ref is an app that contains 1400 mathematical formulas with explanations. Very handy app that includes calculator. This app could be used with any subject that includes math.

The Google World

One of the concepts we will be working with this year is the google universe. Is it effective to introduce our students to the google family of  applications?  StudentS often come to us with childish email addresses and no access to a personal computing device. With the google world we could look at setting up an adult. Email address that could be used for school and employment. As well,the google universe will allow us to introduce them to time management applications like calendars and reminders. Google will offer them a place to store work without needing a USB key, or any personal device through their email. The students can learn google drive, current, blogger, I google, and google+.

Hopefully, the google world will give students who do not have personal access to home computing a chance to experience all the possibilities the tablet world has to offer.

iPads. So then, why iPads?

So if there's one thing we're learning, it's that this process is all about decisions. Not "what am I going to have for breakfast?" type decisions - these decisions need to be weighed out and considered, because a plethora of other decisions will depend on these early ones.

In all honesty, the decision to go with the iPads was only complicated by one caveat. Ever since they were introcuded we have been taken with Google's suite of applications, namely Google Chrome (and their virtual favourites bar), Google Drive and Google Docs. The potential of sharing and accessing work remotely has great appeal to our population. As we were approaching our purchasing deadline there was lots of talk about Google creating iOS supported apps so we inevitably went with iPads anyways, more on that later.

When all was said and done, we chose to go with Apple iPads for this project fora few reasons:

1) Apple is universally regarded as having not only more, but superior apps, many of which can be easily tailored to education. iBooks, iTunes U, and Newsstand all provide potential opportunities for an Alternative classroom that from the outside seem almost too good to be true. One of the goals of this project will be to determine if these apps actually do improve the classroom experience for teachers and students alike.

2) The iPads offer a completely integrated package of hardware, software and networking setup and for a program like us, with little to no tech. expertise on site and limited opportunity to spend time learning new equipment, the user friendly (famous for not coming with an instruction manual) iPads won out.

3) Finally, the ease of ordering the iPad with our board (HWDSB) pushed us over the edge - after seeing an official release supporting iPads in HWDSb schools we decided to go that way. By ordering through the board purchaser we avoided any red tape regarding education discounts, we sped up the process of getting out money, and we should even get a deal on our HST.

As we've already stated, our first batch of iPads arrived a few weeks ago and we're still getting used to them and their unique iOS systems, but so far we're pleased with out decision. The Google Chrome and Google Drive apps are already installed and seem to be working well, and while we await Google Docs to be created/released we have found something that does the same thing (CloudOn - see app review elsewhere in the blog).

As always, we'd be interested to hear anything from teachers with similar experiences. Let us know what you think of the blog.

Zite app

The Zite app we believe will be useful for our students. It is a news app that over time you can mold it into following news stories and themes that are appropriate and of interest to out students. When you use Zite, you can create custom headings for its news search engine to find. These articles will be sent to your Zite. When you read them, you have the opportunity to ask for more from that author or along that theme. As well, you can state you didn't like the article. The app will continue to search for articles based on what you read and what your response were to each article. Eventually, you have a custom news source for your students.

Teacher Pal app

We were looking for a good app that you could use for attendance and other admin duties. The Teacher Pal app is very basic. It does allow for easy attendance and mark tracking. Though it will not be that advantageous to our set up as well will have to enter attendance into the school board system separately. Thus creating duplication. There is a PowerSchool app that is available and next year our board will be using that as their main data entry program. So hopefully, this will improved once that takes place.