Saturday, April 28, 2012

#5 on tour - Portland

Ive now departed from the 13 others and am on my own, my god silence is unbearable, i'm talking to myself! Its outta control.
Ive had some time to think and am confident my ADE buddies will hook me up as i cross america in search of knowledge, beer, golf and a laugh.
The two day briefing at apple was awesome. I love it when people present and they just "get it". The guys there just know their chocolates, any question no matter how complicated is answered with a reason and and any suggestion you just know they have already thought of it and either implemented it or they had ten reasons why it wouldn't work. So I had a few discoveries I will share what i can remember but don't moan if you already knew it.
So image capture was a biggie- you open it on your mac and plug in any iPad iPod iPhone and the camera roll opens up, u can drag and drop to your desktop or to anything, great if you are assembling photos or moves for a call story etc..
Photo booth does a lot of great things including movie in movie- great for news reports scene playing behind (silent) and person in foreground talking etc.. cheap nasty and fast, all good I say.
iBooks Author is very impressive, its easy as and the interactive books are a no brainer, you have to look into this as it is so powerful, if you are a classroom teacher you can use image capture to get everyones info get their photobooths as well and then drop them in and export as an ibook, this can go on you iPad/pod image if you wanna go school wide or just have forever in your school library.
iPhone Configuration Utility - download this little puppy and it will help you configure your basic image for your school owned devices, its easy to use and give u a start point. Most NZ schools are breaking licensing laws and syncing from 1 iTunes account, at this point in time the bulk licensing agreement is coming very soon which will please rubberchicken.
On the iPad
Notability seems miles ahead of the rest in note taking, doodling etc. great for NZ schools because it syncs to dropbox, which means free. It has a nice folder structure, allows students to draw, take a photo from inside the app, type, export, sync, etc.
iMovie on the iPad is pretty good, in fact its great, what we have to remember that these devices are mobile movie cameras, mobile animation studios, mobile recording devices, cameras. One amazing comment from a kid in a 1to1 iPad school, "there is more of me in my work than ever before" she was referring to her voice, her face, her ownership.

I am now sick of typing
More later

6 comments:

Mike Anderson said...

All alone in the US, good on you. Enjoying the posts. Mate how soon is 'real soon' for bulk licensing agreement? Travel safe and keep the updates coming.

memac@xtra.co.nz said...

Really enjoying your posts mate. Lots of good things today to show to grand kids and have them try.

Trust the rest of the trip goes well and hat you get moe golf as well.

Unknown said...

Enjoying the posts - that was a teaser about the VLP. Care to elaborate?
Love the comment from the kid - that's what it is all about for sure.
Dorothy

Podgorani said...

I think bulk licensing is not that big a deal. 1 cool thing is that if you do buy a school lisence they give you say 50 codes and you can hand out the code to students, once its used its done, so it can work for BYOD if you go that way.

the main thing is ownership, and taking these things home...

Anonymous said...

Enjoying the open-minded honest reflections! (Love the $5 stylus, too). "What about comparing disengagement to non achievement" - so true.

I'm particularly interested in how you see iP*ds used in the lower school setting for purposeful, non-gimmicky learning...

Matt O'Dowda said...

Have had the first sharing with staff. They are all over the great literacy tools - toontastic, lifecards and book creator have already been used. My kids have been animating their lego - great to see what a 5 year old can do at 6am when parents are sleeping!
Having our less able writers be able to orally tell and record their stories is awesome. iread idea of read, record, reflect and reread has been good too. Had a kid today saying - that didnt sound like talking, i need to do it again.
Done my BOT report in ibooks author - easy as!
Keep picking up useful stuff for us! Nice to be able to drive around without gps!