-Relevance: Does it do what I want it for?
-Customisation: Is it easy to individualise for my learners?
-Feedback: What kind of feedback for the user does it provide?
-Thinking skills: What level of thinking skills is it encouraging?
-Usability: How easy is it to use?
-Engagement: Does it pull the learner in?
-Sharing: How easy is it to share the results/content?
Our special education department has been using assistive technology since the 1990s. We have used (and in some cases still use) talking photo albums, Go Talks, Dynavox, Big Macs, and Smartboards as tools to improve learning.
The iPad has combined all these into one reliable, portable, easy-to-use package.
I am still a beginner in terms of integrating iPad apps into my teaching. I am using the iPad for three distinct purposes: for communication, creative and problem-solving projects, and skills and drill practice.
My favourite apps at the moment are:
Creative/Problem solving
iSequences shows three or four pictures of a story (e.g. waiting your turn or painting a face) and then poses a follow-up question, asking either 'what happens next?' or 'how do they feel?' Answers provide choices in picture form.
Book Creator
This allows students to easily create their own books using video and photos.
Maths Slide
This is a competitive skills-drill basic maths operations game for two players and is highly motivating.
Communication
Grid Player is a simplified free version of Prologuequo2Go and a great way to see if this format for communication is going to work for your learner.
Scene and Heard
A brilliant app (the full version costs $60) that I think has revolutionised communication, especially for non-verbal visual learners. It allows you to simply create multiple areas within a photo and add verbal and video content. For example, you take a picture of the learner in their food technology class and record three or four bits of information related to different bits of the photo; the student can then share this with friends or put it into their home school diary.
Skill and drill
Articulation Bee -- for practising articulation of beginning and ending sounds in memory game and bingo formats.
Number cloud
A missing-number game -- you slide the missing cloud into the sequence.
MoneymindNZ
Finally, a New Zealand money app -- easily customised.
Sentence builder
This app enables students to drag words down in order to match a pre-recorded sentence. Good customisation of sound and pictures.
The iPad is certainly one of the most significant technological innovations I have seen so far because it is easy to use, immediate, has robust software, and no paraphernalia.
Briony Johnson:
Scratch, Blender & Robot C
Briony is Head of Digital Technology at Bay of Islands College.
Scratch
Over the last three years, we have been using the programme Scratch for our Years 9 to 11, ending with AS 91075 to plan the game and AS 91076 to create a game.
Scratch is a really easy-to-use application that has a colour-coded interface, and the students quickly get involved with learning how to move sprites and change backgrounds.
Although it looks deceptively simple, the games that I have seen over the last three years have been endlessly complicated, varied, and bizarre.
What I like most of all about Scratch is that it forces the students to think about gaming from the point of view of the active creator rather than the passive player.
With its elementary loops, variables, and broadcasts, Scratch allows for migration up to Robot C at Level 2. We are currently looking at Stencyl, which seems to be a more complex Scratch-type environment, or DragonfireSDk to create apps at Level 3 next year.
Blender
Like Scratch, Blender is a free programme to download. It allows you to create three-dimensional images and animate them. There are many tutorials on YouTube, some good, some dreadful, which help you through the steps required to produce animations and also how to use the camera and lighting features.
I have recently found a free iPad app called VSB Blender, which is a series of very well-explained tutorials.
Using Blender makes you think differently. It can be frustrating. The students have had to do a lot of problem-solving when they discover tools and effects beyond my knowledge. However they are fully engaged.
Robot C
Last year, we had to move our programming from AS 91076 at Level 1 to AS 91373 at Level 2, moving from basic to advanced programming skills. Modules with parameters that are text-based are stated on the standard, and so sadly, Scratch could not be used. Casting around for a suitable replacement, I discovered the whole Vex Robotics Movement and blew the entire year's budget on two robots and 30 seats for Robot C.
The students had previous HTML coding experience from Level 1, and were used to the concept of loops and variables from Scratch, so it was just a case of taking a few further steps into the world of functions and parameters.
I will continue to use Robot C at Level 2 but am keen to explore Stencyl, as it creates apps and has coding capability behind the drag and drop interface.
Steve Copley:
Edmodo
Steve is head of digital learning at Tauranga Boys' College.
Edmodo is an amazing online service that allows me to extend my classroom beyond its physical walls. It is a means for me to keep in touch with my students, set tasks for them to complete, track how they are progressing, provide feedback and much more. Students enjoy using the service.
Every class I teach also has a 'virtual' Edmodo class. My students set up their accounts in their first lesson, and from then on, all homework is set via Edmodo. Students turn in assignments through it, avoiding problems with 'lost' or 'forgotten' books, and I can generally review work and provide feedback before the following lesson, which the students appreciate.
The service is continuously updated, with new features added regularly. The team behind Edmodo have always sought feedback from teachers, and act upon it to improve the service.
-EDUCATION GAZETTE
