Powering Your Classroom with the iPad, Part 2

This is part 2 of the Powering Your Classroom with the iPad series.

Perhaps the most accurate way to assess the particular classroom uses of the iPad is to look through Apple’s PDF manual, “A Guide For Using iPod Touch and iTunes for Teaching and Learning” We can think of the iPad as a larger, faster, and more innovative version of the iPod Touch. Since the iPad will have access to Apple’s App Store, you can download the thousands of educational applications suggested in the iPod Touch teaching and learning manual. For example, there’s the Graphing Calculator app, which enables students to generate bright, rich images of complex equations. For physics and chemistry teachers, the Periodic app provides an interactive platform that will make learning the periodic table easier and more fun.

Besides being hooked up to iTunes and Podcasts, where you’ll be able to download and access documentaries, speeches, and more to enhance your classroom lectures, the iPad also enables you and your students to create and share presentations through Keynote or PowerPoint. With Garage Band, the class can also record narration to go with presentations.

The effective uses of the iPad in the classroom will multiply as educators adapt to this exciting new technology and find ways to innovate their teaching methods accordingly. As Robert Reynolds notes in his article about the iPad’s future in education , the ultimate educational use of the iPad and similar technology will depend entirely on how students respond to it.

This guest post is contributed by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited online colleges . She welcomes your comments at her email Id alvina.lopez@gmail.com .

Technorati Tags: iPad | education | learning

Powering Your Classroom with the iPad

This is part 1 of a two part series on ideas for using Apple's new iPad in your classroom.

The much anticipated release of Apple’s iPad, a mobile device that’s situated somewhere between the wildly popular iPhone and a full-fledged MacBook, has educators speculating over the many potential uses of the iPad in the classroom. According to Mike Elgan of ComputerWorld, “Starting this year, kids will learn to read, write and count on iPads. They'll watch TV, movies and cartoons on iPads. They'll do social networking, play games, and even color in virtual coloring books. By the time these kids reach middle school, they will have been using multitouch user interfaces almost every day for eight years or more.”

The most exciting new feature offered on the iPad that’s related to education is iBooks. This application will deliver books wirelessly to the device, much like the Amazon Kindle. Using iBooks in the classroom will be extremely effective in teaching reading and comprehension, especially for elementary grade levels.

For those students who are having difficulty connecting written words with their spoken counterparts, plug the iPad in to your projector, view any book, and then use the VoiceOver command. The book will instantly be read out loud, providing both visual and aural stimulation to your students. It is not yet clear at this time, however, if all iBooks will be able to be converted to audio books using VoiceOver. Nevertheless, any written text on your iPad is VoiceOver compatible, and it speaks 21 different languages. This will certainly be helpful for ESL teachers and students.

Next week: Teaching ideas for the app store and the iPad.

This guest post is contributed by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited online colleges . She welcomes your comments at her email Id alvina.lopez@gmail.com .

Technorati Tags: iPad | education | learning