iPads vs Macs

Why use an iPad in the classroom, if you can use a Mac?

OSx vs iOS

This is a question that has plagued me for some time, and behind it lies the assumption that if you are going to use an iPad, then you should make sure that you're using it to do something that you couldn't have just used a Mac for. Of course this assumes that you have the choice of using a Mac or an iPad, for the sake of this discussion I assume a context where the students would use an iPad in the classroom exclusively in place of a MacBook or an iMac. After some initial scepticism, I now believe that these devices do have a unique contribution to make to the classroom; below I will attempt to outline my reasoning as to why I believe this may be...

Cost

Cheaper than MacBooks at about a half to a third of the price (depending on the model you buy), this means that you can get double or triple the tech for the same cost, especially important if you're attempting to get as many devices per student as possible. This can be the difference between one computer shared between four, or the difference between a classroom that is 1:1 or 1:2 compared to a classroom that is 1:2 or 1:4. It has to be said that iPads in particular lend themselves to a 1:1 context, as sharing them is not as easy as sharing a Mac, as they do not support multiple user accounts.

There are 'hidden' costs to consider, you most likely need to include a case, (I don't believe in screen protectors) a trolley for syncing/storage, and don't underestimate the amount of tech support required to sync and keep them updated, and the cost of Apps which is most likely much greater that that required for laptops etc.

Simplicity & Efficacy

iOS is a much simpler operating system than OSX, this means, especially with younger students, the operating system gets out of the way and students instead can concentrate on actually using the tech to learn, which is the point, right? Simply put, this means that students do not need to navigate through menus, create folders, filenames, organise files and folders and navigate the many additional conventions like full screen/windows, desktop management, that would be expected by using a typical desktop operating system.

Apptasticicity (Is that word? It is now.)

The plethora of applications available for this device at a low cost or even zero cost makes for an extremely powerful learning tool. Yes, there are also plenty of Applications on the MacBook and iMac, but the Apps on the iPad are cheaper, and especially focused on doing very specific things. One App for spelling, one App for TimesTables, one App for drawing—the list is long, too long for this post, see my other post that summarises the apps that are game changers in the primary classroom, apps like Explain Everything and Shadow Puppet that are utterly transformative and have no equivalent on the MacBook, to apps like Seesaw and iMovie, and GarageBand that offer affordances on the iPad that are unavailable with their laptop counterparts, and that are remarkable in terms of the simplicity of design, moving digital tools from the realm of advanced users to that of literally child's play.

The power of iOS apps versus full on computer applications is another major benefit. These are generally much, much simpler versions of their big brothers. Even the Pages App on the iPad is a much simpler pared down version of the full Pages application on the Mac. Often it seems to me that when using the full version of Applications on the Mac etc., most people are using 10%, maybe 20% of the capability of a program but the Apps on the iPad appear to focus on just doing the 10 to 20% that most people actually need. This means from a teaching perspective, we focus on the use of the tools in a way that is very effective and avoid getting sidetracked by less relevant or less important features that are not required for the task at hand.

Apps & Distractions

Funnily enough many people leap to the assumption that iPads will be a greater temptation for kids in terms of playing games, but with any decent Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, it is easy to control what apps are on any device, no apps that are games, no temptation. Any games there are on the device would have been installed by the institution, so of the educational variety, eg Squeebles, Khan Academy, Reflex.

On the other hand however, laptops present a much greater challenge in this regard. Not only are they capable of playing a wide range of high performance games (from platforms like Steam) but there are a plethora of Flash games accessible from any web browser, or/and through the installation of extensions, like Slither.io, Realm of the Mad God, Agario, Roblox, et cetera.

Control

Especially for younger students the freedom from having to control a mouse device to manipulate the cursor on the screen is a huge advantage, very few younger students have the necessary fine motor skills to control a device as (relatively) large as a mouse and often struggle to do so, especially managing left and right, and double clicking, never mind drag 'n drop. The iPad, by using a haptic touch interface completely bypasses all of these issues and is as easy for a three year old to control as for a 43 year old.

The iPad is a much more 'modal' device, that is, the user is focused on one 'mode' or application at a time, you don't have the problem (or some would say, the advantage) of having multiple Apps open and accessible and usable at the same time. With the iPad it is very much one thing at a time, better for teaching and learning.

Teacher have greater control; with Apple Classroom teachers can mute/lock/view all screens in the room at a glance or a tap. This is not a 'big brother' tool, but more of a ' teaching assistant', to help the teacher get a sense of the range of activity in the room, and to be able to intervene to assist students where necessary.

Tactility

Whether you choose to use a stylus or to use the digits that God gave you (no I'm not a big fan of stylii) it has to be said that it is a much more natural, authentic experience to 'draw' or ''paint' on an iPad and it has ever been or is on a Mac, even if you try to use the trackpad as a substitute surface. 'Screencasting' Apps in particular are absolutely revolutionary on this device; I really cannot see any App on the Mac that comes even close to offering the power of annotation combined with drawing and talking offered by apps like Explain Everything and Shadow Puppet et al. When this facility is applied to drawing, painting and image manipulation Apps, it takes on a completely new level of experience—with the ability to intuitively smudge and blur with tactile swipes and dabs there really is a sense of interaction with pixels which is almost is impressive.

Mobility

The portability of the device makes it particularly appropriate for capturing content with the on-board camera or capturing video, and then seamlessly knitting this content together in a meaningful way on the device with a minimum of hassle. Yes, this can be done with a MacBook, but trying to use a MacBook as a camera is something which would be impossible for small children to do and not advisable even for older students and adults. You have to bring the content to the MacBook whereas with the iPad you can bring the iPad to the content—particularly useful for field trips or subjects that are not portable, ie cannot be brought to the device.

Familiarity

Like it or not, many, if not most children these days, grow up interacting with touch screen devices. Whether this is an iPads shared by the family, or a Samsung Tablet/Phablet owned by them,  or whether it's one of their parents' smartphones that keep them occupied on long journeys and in restaurants (guilty as charged), one thing is sure. By the time they arrive in your classroom, the vast majority will already be extremely confident, adept at controlling those devices, possibly more so than their teacher. This does come with a problem—teaching them that while these devices may be predominantly used purely for entertainment at home, at school they are primarily tools for teaching and learning. That lesson takes a while to learn...

Organisation

The ability to group apps into folders very easily very much assists the pedagogical process as teachers can direct students to a group of apps that are focused on a particular skill, this is not often the case with a typical computer operating system.

No desktop. This saves a lot of trouble for the teacher, as the desktop paradigm leads to many problems, with a plethora of icons scattered across that virtual space - trust me this is the bane of my tech integration life. Students and teachers alike struggle with the organisation of files and folders and this often leads to work that is hard to locate or difficult to save in a way that allows the same files to be easily retrieved. Of course the question that follows this is, "When do we teach students how to use these operating systems? Surely that is also a important consideration?"

I would argue the older they are the more developmentally capable they will be. But it is clear with a even a fleeting glance at the desktops of most adults, that the complexity of managing and organising a laptop extremely challenging, so why would we impose this burden on children before they absolutely need to?

Sharing of student work is easy, utilising the Reflection App on a Mac (or using a classroom Apple TV). Sharing iPad content with students using AirPlay is as easy as a couple of clicks, and then the content of the student's iPad is beamed onto the board for the whole class to see.

So why would you ever use a Mac?

Using an iPad is often very much about working around the limitations, although it has to be said that what a techie person might call "limitations" is what an ordinary student or teacher might call a welcome relief from complexity. Put bluntly, a full powered computer offers so many options that it easily becomes overwhelming - the simplicity of the iPad very much restricts what is capable of being done, but for most ordinary people this restriction is a relief rather than a frustration. But, no the Mac is not dead, not for more 'demanding' users anyway. There are times when you really need to use the other 80% of features left out of iPad Apps. Here are a few of the aspects of an iPad classroom that require some patience:

Professional/advanced Applications

If you are one of those few people, (especially High School/FE teachers/students) who actually need to use more advanced applications, I'm thinking particularly here of high end video editing, production, design, VFX, 3D modelling, CAD CAM, and applications that can that model dynamic simulations like SketchUp, then using an iPad is far from satisfactory. All of these require a 'proper' fully featured operating system like that afforded by an iMac or Macbook, or even a PC! But, in my experience, that puts you in the bracket of the few people who know how to use the 80% of the capabilities of a professional app that are ignored by 80% of 'normal' computer users.

Less Robust Web 2.0 support

Web 2.0 sites like Prezi and MindMeister are arguably one of the foundational elements of what is commonly called "21st century learning" and due to the kind of cutting edge web technology these websites require, many Web 2.0 sites will will not function as effectively (if at all) on an iPad - although this is changing everyday. It should be noted that many of these sites (including the two mentioned) provide App versions of their content, albeit usually scaled down. The Google suite of Apps are definitely more iPad friendly than ever, but they still have frustrating restrictions, but these limitations wane with each passing year. If you really want to utilise Web 2.0 (bear in mind that most require students to be at least 13 years of age) you are still almost certainly better off using a Mac rather than an iPad.

iPads make it more difficult for users to share their content on third party platforms, eg, Google Apps, Sites or Picasa etc., most of these platforms cannot be exported to directly from an iPad and requires a mediating device, eg a laptop or desktop computer.

User Accounts

There is no support for multiple user accounts; this means that in practice sharing an iPad is much more tricky than sharing for example, a MacBook. Because all of the content created by users is shared on the same device this mean they will need to be particularly careful about respecting work created by others and not deleting content that does not belong to themselves.

No Flash support

While this is rarely an issue as more and more website shift over to content like HTML 5 etc, it is still an occasional problem, mainly on old (10-20 years) educational websites that have never been updated and so still rely on Flash as their media tool of choice. It is possible to get around this issue by using for example the Puffin Browser App, but it is still far from satisfactory.

Caveat Emptor

All of these devices are changing, fast. For for all I know the next release of iOS could well make all of my concerns history—the next App update could make a tool that was a fiddly frustration into a dynamic delight; the Google suite of Apps comes to mind, although these are still far from being as effective as their equivalents on a desktop operating system.

The bottom line to me is sometimes less is more (more often in my experience less is just less) and that is often the case with the choice of an iPad over a MacBook or an iMac - for the kind of things that we want our students to use these devices for, we need LESS - we rarely need a state-of-the-art computer, a state-of-the-art tablet may well be much a more appropriate choice.

Using an iMac or MacBook for just web browsing and word processing really is just using a Ferrari to deliver milk.


Thanks to Shaun Kirkwood @shaunyk for providing the impetus for this post and some great feedback.

21st Century Spelling

Spilling had never bin maw impotent

Spelling has never been more important, as my example above attempts to illustrate. In an age dominated by screens, misspelling is tantamount to an admission of idiocy—but the way we teach spelling needs to evolve to take advantage of the unique affordances and challenges of spelling in a screen environment. Please note that none of the words in the title are actually misspellings, but mistakes they are, and a right twazzock you will look if you spell in a way that is overly reliant on proofreading tools as a safety net. It's time we took account of the fact that in a world where screens are ubiquitous, the ways we teach spelling needs to evolve to take advantage of the unique affordances and challenges of spelling in a screen environment.

These days the likelihood of interacting via text with others in a digital environment is commonplace. Even more critical, people who misspell in these environments are generally assumed to be less intelligent, less articulate, and despite their possible intelligence/experience, any perspective they offer is then likely to be dismissed or demeaned if it is littered with misspellings.

It has never been more important to master the ability to spell correctly. 

Unfortunately most schools, despite the criticality of spelling in the 21st-century, still rely on 19th century strategies to teach spelling. This really does need to change. So, with that in mind...

Critical considerations:

1. Children (and adults) can only spell words they know, sounds obvious, but so many of the spelling lists that are used with students contain words they do not know, so could not possibly be able to spell, other than through guesswork, which leads us to... The corollary to this is the simple fact that the skill of knowing or suspecting that a spelling is wrong is an essential aspect of learning how to spell, especially in a world where checking a spelling is as easy as 'searching it up' in Google, or just asking your smartphone to spell it for you. 
2. There is a much greater validity to the skill of being able "guesstimate" in a TELE (technology enhanced learning environment), and ‘phonological awareness’ is more essential than ever, as an accurate phonetical estimation is relied on by computers to substitute for a correct spelling. A student who cannot phonetically 'approach' a word is unlikely to be able to approximate something that a computer can correct. Related to this is the critical importance of being able to spell the first half of a word correctly, most modern computing devices can now auto complete a word if a student is able to spell the first half of it correctly. Apple's 'QuickType' in iOS 8, and apps like "SwiftKey" utilise this approach very effectively, and the power of Dictation (speech to text) has never been greater, but it will still struggle with homophones (same sound different spelling and meaning). An alternative approach in a traditional 'spelling test' context is to award 2 marks to each word, one mark for being able to spell the word phonetically correctly, or for spelling the first half correctly, and 2 marks if the word is perfect. 
3. Stop using spelling tests for whole classes with lists of words, this is a nonsensical approach, considering the sheer quantity of words in the typical English dictionary, somewhere in excess of 400,000 words. The words that children learn should be unique and curated from their own literacy life, related to their own writing, reading and speaking, and viewing and listening experiences, or related to specific vocabulary that they are using/used will need to use.
4. Wordlists curated by students should be seen as a source of vocabulary expansion, not just for spelling. Becoming a personal thesaurus/glossary that they should review regularly when writing to enhance the richness of their prose; use it or lose it.
5. Listening matters just as much than looking (Riesenhuber, 2013). If you can see the word before you spell it, then you're not learning how to spell, you're practising short term recall. Listening is also essential for checking spelling, now computers have the option to speak any word you can type, select the word and have the computer read it out loud, is this the word you were trying to spell?
6. Less reliance upon "spelling rules" which are very rarely consistent, and in many cases can lead to a great deal of confusion. Like when students are asked to note the position of a certain vowel in a word and its impact upon other vowels or consonants within that word, also using acrostics like 'big elephants can always understand...' you get the idea, and of course they only work for one word… Instead focus on more reliance on building familiarity with the way words look and the way words sound, so 'look say cover write check' still works well as a useful skill/drill practice, (or better still: listen say type look) but with fewer words, more often. This is strongly related to the student's reading life as a synergetic enabler in their spelling life. This becomes a context where students are encouraged to see words as 'friends' and building a large community of 'familiar faces' ie, the more they see these words the more likely they are to be able to spell them, or arguably just as important in the 21st-century, to recognise when the word is not spelt properly, ‘it just doesn't look right'. We see words like faces? Yes, believe it or not, this is exactly what neuroscience (McCandliss et al, 2003) has taught us, more on that phenomenon below... 
7. Skill drill tasks (practise makes permanent) should also be related to an activity that reinforces their comprehension of the meaning of the word, so ideally students should also invent (not copy) a sentence that uses the word, or even better, more than one of the words in the same sentence, that clearly demonstrates that they can use the word/s with an understanding of it/them. After all, what is the point of learning how to spell a word if you don't know how to use it? For some students it might be better for them to make an oral recording of them speaking the sentence rather than writing a sentence, if the writing is a challenge to reluctant writers, as the focus is on understanding meaning, and oral recall can be just as effective for building meaning, this is especially important with homophones.
8. More recognition of the kinds of spellings that are particularly tricky in a screen centred writing environment, this means a greater emphasis on distinguishing between words with similar sounds and different patterns, homophones, homonyms, homographs and heteronyms.
9. Making smarter use of digital tools to facilitate this kind of practice, while spelling games that are built on skill drill using pre-set wordlists are useful, but you should also encourage spelling drills that are built on individually curated wordlists. However these kinds of Apps are not very common, but at least one that does this very well is Squeebles SP, more on this below...
10. Use any text app or word processor to spell check, before using a teacher. This could be a simple as a notes app on a mobile device, this will enable students to check spellings without the tedium of using a dictionary. Then a far more appropriate use of teacher time is to review spellings for careless mistakes, or more likely mistakes resulting from misconceptions about phonetics/word structure, especially spellings that alter the meaning of a sentence. Students need to be empowered to build habits of capturing/collecting words that they know, but cannot spell in their curated lists. The point is, it is better for the student to attempt to type the word in a text application and have the computer suggest corrections than it is for them to try and search for it in a dictionary. While the latter is still helpful, the former is a better cognitive process for learning the spelling of a word, and is also more relevant/likely as an activity or skill set in the 21st-century. Very few adults look up words in a dictionary, most rely on the prompt given by the computer in a word processing environment. Even better, if this list is 'situated' or cloud synced (Google Doc, iCloud Notes) they can access, add to and augment that list from home or school. 
11. Encourage students to learn how to use the "define:" search term in Google, effectively turning any Google search window into a handy Dictionary, eg - define:magnificent
12. Digital technologies are changing which words are traditionally understood to be "tricky" words/sneaky spellings… so for example any word typed in a text environment will automatically switch the 'ie' in a word like receive. These old-fashioned spelling rules just further complicate matters. “I before e except after c” works for only a handful of words. It has so many exceptions (like the words “science”, “sufficient”, “seize”, “weird” or “vein”) it is another rule and laborious chore we could do without.

Don't teach, facilitate

Neuroscience over the past decade* reveals fascinating insights into the way our brains learn words. Studies indicate that we use the same parts of brain (both left and right) to process face recognition that we use to process word recognition. So much so in fact, that as we move from early childhood into adulthood and become more proficient in word recognition, our capacity to recognise and process faces is diminished—such is the veracity of the connection. 

The parts of our brain (The Visual Word Form Area) that recognise and process faces are the same parts that recognise and process words. This emphasises the fact that spelling is primarily visual and aural, so a rote learning, rule based model is less effective than building an awareness of the unique formation of every word through familiarity, not drilling lists.

Even more fascinating, the VWFA area, "when volunteers listened to spoken sentences, all their brains showed similar responses." When we read, we recognise words as pictures and hear them spoken aloud, we literally “hear” written words in our head (Dehaene & Cohen, 2011).

Words are fundamentally processed and catalogued by their basic sounds and shapes, through visual and aural practice. Think of the way we learn to recognise faces, and pronounce words—certainly not by processing and practising lists of them, we learned them through exposure, and continued feedback, and it just so happens that screens are ideal for immediate, context specific feedback, in way that spelling on paper can never hope to provide. Provide lots of opportunities for students to learn how to spell through this kind of exposure, not through drilling them in lists that have little or no relevance to their own reading, writing, listening or speaking experiences. 

Squeebles Showcase

Squeebles Spelling - multimodal drill and practice

I'm not usually one to emphasise a tool, but from time to time a tool emerges that has affordances that are ridiculous to ignore, Squeebles Spelling is one of those. Digital tools like Squeebles can transform spelling practice by making traditional equivalents pale in comparison, consider the following:

Flexibility

Click to see Squeebles in action in 2BSc! 

Kids can 'masquerade' as a parent or teacher to curate their own lists, careless errors are mitigated by the built in spell check—obviously this feature is not activated when they are actually practising! Alternatively, there are a wide range of built in word lists to choose from that cater to all skill levels.

Multimodality and meaning

It's not enough to spell a word, they need to know how it sounds and understand the meaning. In Squeebles kids can record the sound of the word, as well place it in a sentence, eg "Pear. I like the taste of a pear better than an apple. Pear." Better still make it fun by having the kids make up silly sentences, as long as it shows they understand the meaning anything goes! This makes the activity aural and oral - this way the kids say the word, hear the word, and see the word. 

Immediate feedback - differentiated

No need to wait for a teacher to collect in all the spelling tests, then wait a few days to get them all back, even then, actually acting on the spelling errors is a chore, never mind tracking these over time. Squeebles provides immediate feedback, but even better keeps a record of any errors in a collection called 'Tricky Words' that reflect the words that this individual is struggling with.

Motivation

Last and maybe least, Squeebles 'gamifies' the successes into mini games, so kids feels a tangible sense of reward, over and above the real reward—improved spelling.

Further reading

http://doverliteracy.blogspot.sg/2014/09/individualised-spelling-practice.html

http://mrsevonsthirdgrade.blogspot.sg/2014/08/words-thier-way-spelling-11-classroom.html

http://smartblogs.com/education/2014/02/03/5-reasons-to-teach-spelling-handwriting-in-the-new-year/

A summary of the neuroscientific research is available here, with links to the original sources.

Chevillet, M. A., Jiang, X., Rauschecker, J. P., & Riesenhuber, M. (2013). Automatic phoneme category selectivity in the dorsal auditory stream. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(12), 5208-5215.

Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (2011). The unique role of the visual word form area in reading. Trends in cognitive sciences, 15(6), 254-262.

McCandliss, B. D., Cohen, L., & Dehaene, S. (2003). The visual word form area: expertise for reading in the fusiform gyrus. Trends in cognitive sciences, 7(7), 293-299.

Maths, Automaticity & iOS Devices...

Using iOS devices such as iPads for 'skill+drill' is something we generally discourage in school, where we would rather these technologies are used for creating and collaborating, along with the many other skills that are described in the UWCSEA profile.

You see, skill+drill Apps don't need a teacher, what they do need is a device, time, and perseverance; so what this is, is an excellent productive activity children can easily engage in at home. This kind of practise builds the kind of 'automaticity' (instant recall without hesitation) that is fundamental to confidence in numeracy. Knowing mathematics facts frees up the mind to solve more complex math problems.  If a child has to struggle to solve 8 + 3, they have no mental energy (or desire) left to grapple with the types of problems that will increase their capacity as a mathematician.

In my experience spanning over twenty years, I find that teachers commonly (and traditionally) facilitate this through a relentless torrent of photocopied worksheets, something I myself have relied on over the years. However since the advent of the integration of digital technologies, I really struggle to understand how having kids complete a photocopied Maths worksheet can ever be seen as better than the kinds of differentiated, adaptive, multimodal practise offered by Maths apps, and Maths sites like Khan Academy. If teachers ceased to set these tedious sheet as homework, they could free up the time to plan better lessons, no need to 'mark', instead use the time to analyse the data—where are they struggling? Where are the gaps? Where should they go next? What group of kids do you need to conference with tomorrow?

Automaticity is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern or habit. It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practise.
(Wikipedia)

So while I generally discourage skill+drill in school, I can see its value at home. Below I have included the collection of Maths Apps we use (sometimes) at school that I believe are particularly powerful for this kind of learning, learning through practise. 

This is a small selection, no doubt a Google search would turn up many more, although I doubt they will be very different to these.

Top Tip: Ask your child to take a screenshot of their score after first attempt, then compare their progress after a week or so.

Disclaimer

These kinds of Apps are basically teaching mathematics in old ways using new technology, albeit amplified. 

Chocolate covered broccoli...

These Apps are essentially worksheets on steroids, so while your kids may be more engaged in the short term, don't expect this to last. These tools are essentially 'chocolate-covered broccoli'. That’s what designers of educational games call digital products that drape dull academic instruction in the superficially appealing disguise of a game, using the trappings of games “as a sugar coating” for what would otherwise be unappetising content—in short don't treat these games as a replacement for 'proper' games like Minecraft, but by all means treat them as replacements for worksheets.

What these Apps do offer that worksheets don't are features like, interactivity, capacity, range, speed and automatic, accurate, reliable responses at the speed of light.  These unique features make a contribution to the teaching and learning process, in that they motivate and interest children by interaction, allowing them to change the work in progress and facilitate a variety of paces of working.

We sometimes think of being good at mathematics as an innate ability. You either have "it" or you don't. But what these Apps can encourage, is what we call a 'growth mindset' it's not about ability it's about attitude. You master mathematics if you are willing to try.  Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for 30 minutes to make sense of something that some people would give up on after 30 seconds.

Drill & Practise

"Of particular interest is the effect of drill and practise – and despite the moans by many adults, students need much drill and practise. However, it does not need to be dull and boring, but can be, and indeed should be, engaging and informative. Drill is a euphemism for practise: repeated learning of the material until it is mastered – this is the key ingredient in mastery learning, [...] and of deliberative practice. It does not have to be deadly, and a key skill for many teachers is to make deliberative practise engaging and worthwhile. Luik (2007) classified 145 attributes of drills using computers into six categories: motivating the learner, learner control, presentation of information, characteristics of questions, characteristics of replying, and feedback. The key attributes that led to the highest effect included learner control, not losing sight of the learning goal, and the immediate announcement of correctness or otherwise of the answer to the drill." (Hattie, 2013)

Many computer games are basically invested with high levels of drill and practise and many students can be thrilled and motivated to engage in these often repetitive tasks to attain higher levels of skill and thus make more progress through the game. Computer games include much engaging drill and practice with increasing levels of challenge that usually is mastered by overlearning or undertaking high degrees of drill and practice. So often, the evidence has shown positive effects from using computers to engage in deliberative practice, particularly for those students struggling to first learn the concept." (p 224)

Hattie J (2013). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

Is Cloud Confusion Driving you Crazy?

Ridiculous name, revolutionary technology.

With the exponential increase in 'cloud' capacity, it is becoming increasingly critical to rely on this powerful technology to ensure that all of our essential data is safe, and accessible, from, well, any screen with an internet connection. With the multiplicity of devices in our lives, this functionality is pretty much essential.

This is more of a blessing than a curse, BUT.

There's always a but.

Now I know Benjen Stark said "You know, my brother once told me that nothing someone says before the word "but" really counts… (GoT)

But...

The fact is that despite it's magnificence, the 'cloud' can cause a huge amount of confusion, so let's just break this down a bit.

What's the cloud?

Essentially, the 'cloud' is a rather dubious name for describing any of your data which is not just stored on your actual device, instead it's stored on a remote server (very much on the ground) that pulls and pushes your content to your devices over the internet. 

How many clouds?

Well, as it turns out there are quite a few forms of cloud technology, but the ones of most interest to us at UWCSEA, are Apple's 'iCloud' and, well pretty much everything even vaguely Google related from 'Drive' to Google Photos et cetera.

Cloud confusion...

The confusion stems from the fact that we all need to separate our home and work life, not to mention that the school's user agreement clearly lays out expectations that there should be clear boundaries between personal and professional use of UWCSEA devices. Anyway, no one really wants to see those pictures of me in a bikini on a beach in Magaluf, allegedly. So whether you realise this or not, you have cloud accounts associated with every Google account, and they are completely separate, as it should be, the same is true for any Apple ID you use (more below on that).

In our hyperconnected world, digital objects have inherited the property of stickiness. Photos end up everywhere and it takes not only the knowledge of how all of the synchronisation works to understand where, but also a determined approach to 'e-Cleaning' to make sure that they are not in places you didn’t expect.

If you're confused, don't feel bad, this stuff is CONFUSING for everyone, why? Two reasons: 

The first is that people don’t know, or understand, what happens to their digital property when they tick the “backup everything to iCloud/Google” check boxes. 

The second is that Apple, and Google (and other cloud providers, eg DropBox, SkyDrive et al), in their eagerness to make the process as simple as possible, do a really bad job of explaining what is going on, and importantly, what can happen if things go wrong. It just 'works' apart from when it 'just works' in a way that you don't want it to work... 

Go wrong? What do you mean 'go wrong'!?

Well if you mix up your accounts with your devices you can end up accidentally having the 'cloud' hoover up all of your photos and videos that you're taking on your phone/tablet/laptop/desktop and adding them to your online collection, if you share that collection with other people (they are private by default) then that audience can see everything, you might be surprised at the kind of content your device has helpfully uploaded in the background for you... 

Don't Panic!

This problem really only relates to your 'rich' media, specifically photos and videos; you can happily access work/home email without any conflict, although I'd still use separate apps to minimise confusion, see below.

Solutions?

You can only have ONE cloud account associated with a mobile device*, you can sign in and out, but this just gets more confusing, so as a general rule, pick one and stick with that. So are the photos/videos on your phone more work or home related? If so, use the home cloud account, but don't use that device for taking videos/photos for work use, unless it is temporary, ie email/transfer them to a device dedicated to work use, and delete them afterwards.  Is your Pad more work related? Well sign into a work cloud account—which is most likely the UWC Gapps account, but then don't capture media for home use on that device, unless it is temporary, ie email/transfer them to a device dedicated to home use, and delete them afterwards.

Isolate with Apps

By dedicating specific apps to work/home you can mitigate the confusion, eg (assuming an iOS device here) Use the Mail app for your home account, use the Gmail App for work, use the Safari app for home browsing, use the Chrome app for school browsing...  This separation breaks down with rich media though, as the apps generally link to your device camera roll, which is shared across the entire device, regardless of the account an app is associated with.

Kids/Hubbie's/Wife's content mixed up with yours? 

Welcome to Apple ID vs App Store

Many of you want to use the same Apple ID on multiple family devices, so that if you purchase something from the App store you can install it on any device in the family without paying twice, that's fine, but don't confuse this with sharing the same iCloud account. 

WHAT? They're different?

Well, yes... and.. no.

You can use the same Apple ID for iCloud AND for purchasing things from Apple, especially the App Store. But these don't have to be the same, and if you want family members to be able to download stuff you've purchased you will need to separate their Apple ID (iCloud) from your Apple ID (App Store).

See? I told you it was/is confusing.

So in my case, scenario, all of the devices in my house can use MY Apple ID in the App Store to download things I've purchased for myself, or for them. BUT 

(and it's another big but)

Everyone in your family should use their OWN Apple ID on their own device, these can (and should be) be separate, that way everyone in your family keeps their 'stuff' separate from yours, but you can all download content from the same App Store account.

You can use a shared account for App Store, & an individual account/s for iCloud

Family Sharing

After years of using the above method to stay sane, Apple finally conceded that there is an issue and rolled out Family Sharing' last year, this should hopefully simplify things, unless you like me use more than one App Store account (I have one in Singapore and one in the UK), as Family Sharing is restricted on onto App Store, ie if you set it up using the Singapore store, all accounts have to be in the Singapore store, even if you leave and move overseas... Which means you need to have an active credit card account for that store. ...

Which is why I don't use it. However it could be JUST what you need, in which case click here, to follow Apple's guidelines to setting this up for your family. Also note, if you use Apple's Family Sharing method to set up Apple IDs for your kids (under 13), they will have to use an iCloud email account, not their school account, this is fine, but you may need to explain this to them...

Smarter iCloud Settings

If you're one of these teachers who is fortunate enough to have had an iPad provided for you by the college, for lots of reasons, including:

• trickledown learning—becoming familiar with device by just using it—you use it for personal reasons, like making a home video, but this skills you up, so you can use the new found skills with those apps with your students with greater confidence
• enabling you to easily explore and learn how to use apps you want to use with your students, and new apps
• to allow you to more easily capture evidence of learning (or the opposite) for your own planning and prepping purposes
• to more easily facilitate recording and assessment, without the many limitations posed by paper based systems, using apps like Numbers, Notability, iDoceo et al.

The problem is this means you will have a load of content (if not all of it) in your camera roll which is student/college related, if you use the same device on holiday, well, all of your snaps will get mixed up with your school content - not ideal. if you connect this device to your iCloud account all of your personal media on other connected devices will also all stream into the same camera roll all 'polluting' the stream. 

You could easily solve this by just not connecting your iPad to your iCloud account, the problem with this is being connected to the iCloud is really useful, being able to sync all your Apple content from other apps like Notes, Pages, Safari bookmarks et cetera can be really useful, not to mention all the content on iTunes you might have purchased. So how can you have your school iPad connected to your iCloud account and avoid this? Easy, just go into your iCloud settings and switch off Photos, done. Everything in your camera roll is now only content you captured with this device, you can still transfer it to other devices using email, Airdrop, apps like Send it Anywhere. If you install the Google Photos app, it will sync all your camera roll content to your college GApps account, so it's all easily accessible from your laptop—winwin! In fact using the suite of Google Apps (Google Drive, GMail...) is another easy way to keep your work/home life separate on the same device. 

Settings - iCloud

You can turn any/all of these off

Final Advice...

I hate to break it to you, but we have really reached a point where trying to manage the entire scope of your digital life on one laptop is increasingly untenable. My advice? Get a dedicated device for home, and keep that content completely separate for the device you use for work. Simple. If you are a family with loads of video/photos, and media being captured and shared by everyone (our home as 2 adults, 2 kids, one helper, and 5 laptops, 5 iPhones, 5 tablets, and one desktop) then I'd advise you to purchase a dedicated desktop computer (I like the iMac, surprise, surprise) with the BIGGEST hard drive available. That is where all family media is stored, all other devices are dedicated to that individual's content only; so any 'family' content is temporarily on their device, and is transferred to the BIG MAC ASAP.  That's it.

*On a laptop/desktop, you can have more than one cloud account, but they would need to be associated with different user accounts on that machine, you probably need to see IT Support, or a DLC to help with this... 

Explain Everything (with Google Drive)

Using Explain Everything with Google Drive on the iPad is an incredible combination. It's not always a great idea to ask students to work from blank screens, it's often useful to give them all a head start by setting up a slide or two for them.

This way they focus on the learning intention, rather than wasting time faffing about with finding the right image, or typing in text that you've just written on the board.

Here's a short video to show you the process:

As you can see from the video the steps are as follows:

1. On your iPad in Explain Everything, set up the slides you want your class to start with.
2. When it's ready, export the project to your Google Drive as a project (not as a video), it will be an xpl file. 
3. You should be able to save it straight into any folder in your Google Drive, like a folder you've already shared with your class.*
4. Now you can just ask your students to open the file in their Google Drive app, when they do, they'll have the choice to open it with an app, they choose Explain Everything, 
5. That's it, now they have their own copy in Explain Everything, ready to learn.

Method #2

Unfortunately (at time of typing) an update from Google Drive has rendered the above steps redundant... :(

The good news is that the good folks at Explain Everything have provided an alternative workflow that is not very different:

1. On your iPad in Explain Everything, set up the slides you want your class to start with.
2. When it's ready, export the project to your Google Drive as a project (not as a video), it will be an xpl file. 
3. You should be able to save it straight into any folder in your Google Drive, like a folder you've already shared with your class.*
4. Go to the Explain Everything home screen and choose the 'document' icon from the top left corner. 
5. Select GDrive and they can find the project in the shared folder.
6. That's it, now they have their own copy in Explain Everything, ready to learn.

*It doesn't have to go in a folder, if you want you can just share the project file directly with the class, just as you would any other  file/Google doc.

iPads for Learning (not just skill-drilling)

It will not have escaped the notice of many parents that iPads are quickly becoming a popular tool for enhancing teaching and learning, especially here at the Dover Campus, where iPads are now ubiquitous in the Infant School and Grade 2, with shared trolleys of iPads in Grades 3-5.

What is perhaps less obvious is the why, the how, and the what do we use them for?

As revolutionary as iPads are, they suffer from one particular affliction, they remain, in the minds of many, if not most of our students and parents, gaming devices, or 'skill drill' devices, where 'content is king'. Which has it's place, but it is important to understand that in our school, this is rarely if ever how they are used.

Concepts are Critical, not Content

It's pretty well established now that learning in the new millennium is no longer predicated on a model where we expect kids to fill their craniums with content, devoid of any authentic context within which to actually use that content. Instead educators across the globe are shifting to a focus on key "thinking tools"—key transdisciplinary tools (or cognitive skills), that encapsulate how creative minds think effectively across a range of domains.* These "tools," or habits of mind, comprise a framework for trans-disciplinary creativity and can serve as the basis for the kinds of curricula that are essential for the "conceptual age" (Gardner, 2007; Pink, 2005). Concept based teaching facilitates deeper learning,  that builds competencies that are structured around fundamental principles of a content area and their relationships rather than disparate, superficial facts or procedures (Pellegrino et al, 2013). While other types of learning may allow an individual to recall facts, concepts, or procedures, deeper learning allows the individual to transfer what was learned to solve new problems.

Is there an App for that? Who cares?

That sounds a bit harsh, but at it's essence is my awareness that any App that is content focused is likely to be fraught with all sorts of problems, like issues with language, appropriateness, complexity, not to mention the sheer amount of Apps you would need to juggle if you are going to try and locate an App for every possible area of curricular content.

No, in our school, they are not about content, or consumption, they are about conceptual learning, through creating, capturing and reflection. They are devices for capturing learning that is driven by overarching concepts, devices that allow us to permeate our classrooms with what we call:

Capture Culture

This means that as teachers we need to make sure we focus on ensuring that they are used as learning devices, as devices that capture learning; if there’s ONE thing that sums up what we're trying to establish it’s this - we are building a capture culture - that’s it, everywhere, all year long.

Capturing what they can do, can't do, could do, thought they could do but couldn't, couldn't do but now can, and so on.

So, as strange as this may seem, considering the plethora of Apps on the App Store, the Apps we really focus on are not the usual suspects, the 'skill and drill' 'educational' Apps, no, we focus on Apps for:

• capturing
• screencasting
• annotating
• image/video/audio creation

Depending on the age of the students, the Apps may focus discretely on one of these attributes, or as the students become more proficient, combinations of more than one, sometimes, particularly with our older students, all four.

This means that despite the wide range of Apps we have available on our school iPads (click here to see the entire collection), we actually focus, most of the time on a handful of Apps. Apps we call our...

Core Apps

8 Essential Apps for Capturing Learning

Less is More

There are several critical aspects to this strategy:

• We can focus on developing expertise with a few tools, rather than feeling overwhelmed by hundreds
• We can use these Apps 'iteratively' for formative assessment—using the same Apps over and over again, in different areas of the curriculum. 
• We can reduce 'cognitive load' for students, so that they can focus on pedagogy and curricular content, rather than constantly learning how to use lots of new tech tools (Apps).
• Where there is considerable 'cognitive demand' in learning a more complex App, the investment is worthwhile, as the students will eventually be able to use these core tools throughout the year, with little or no teacher support.

App Rationale

1. Camera/Photos: take photos and screenshots, landscape/portrait, camera flip, edit the photo, enhance, video (only in landscape!), trim video, use legs to zoom (get close to the subject!) manage the library (ie, delete the rubbish!);
2. Drawing Pad: drawing, painting, stickers, annotating over an image, different backgrounds (handwriting, maths), basic word processing - ideal for the introduction of keyboarding skills.
3. iMindMap - Mind mapping made easy, pinch, zoom, connect/disconnect, add images—ideal for tune-ins, and seeing understanding develop over the course of a unit of learning, by revisiting and revising at regular intervals.
4. Shadow Puppet EDU: like Doodlecast, but less 'kiddy', this app allows kids to insert images from the camera roll, and also to use multiple slides, and point and/or draw.
5. Explain Everything: Does everything all of the previous apps do, all in one app, albeit a more complex environment. The steeper learning curve pays off with the sheer amount of uses it has. It also allows typing, and annotating/recording over video.
6. iMovie: A surprisingly simple way to stitch together images & video, straight from the camera roll, no import needed. Text and voice over can easily be added as well. Particularly powerful when combined with the other content exported from the other Core Apps.

Progression

Apps are introduced progressively, and cumulatively, consolidating use of all the Apps at each grade level, so that by Grade 2 all students are confident, competent, and most importantly independent users of all the Core Apps.

Contrary to popular myth even very young children benefit from the appropriate use of screens. So students start in K1 with the Camera App, just learning how to take photos, the Photos App to browse their efforts, and eventually creating art work with Drawing Pad, and simple screencasts with Shadow Puppet. By the end of the year the K1 students can also record static video (not moving the iPad, just concentrating on recording video while holding the iPad still).

In K2 the students broaden their repertoire to include Shadow Puppet EDU and Puppet Pals for story telling. In G1 they consolidate and develop their expertise in the first 6 Core Apps, ready to progress to the more 'advanced Apps' in G2.

Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access

Choose what you want to restrict, then triple click to activate.

Guided Access

There are going to be times, especially with very young learners that you might want to restrict their freedom on an iPad, like maybe locking the iPad so they can only work within one specific App. With a feature called Guided Access on iOS devices, that is literally as easy to activate as triple clicking the home button. Instructions on how to set that up here.

Next Steps...

So many Apps - but why?

Now we do have many other Apps, other than the Core Apps on the iPads, there are many reasons for this, but mainly because the Core Apps form the foundation for everyday use, much like the iPad version of pencils and paper, they can be used for almost anything, in any curricular area. But much like other traditional tools, the curriculum often presents very specific, unique opportunities for the use of Apps that are particularly suited to a particular curricular context, or a specific skill focus. To extend the analogy, these would be like inviting students to use paints, board games; rulers; manipulatives, and of course reading books—not relevant to everything, but still powerful when used in a focused, directed, pedagogically appropriate way, by a skilled teacher.

I have outlined a few of the main contenders that are not Core Apps, but are still magnificent when used in very specific contexts.


Puppet Pals/Toontastic
Sock Puppets
Keynote
Pages
Google Drive
Book Creator
Comic Book and or Strip designer
Skitch (annotate over images)
iMotion (Stopmotion)

Organised around curricular focus:

Read & Narrate:

Epic, MyON, Raz Kids

Spell: 

Wurdle, Spell Blocks, SqueeblesSP, Wet Dry Try

Maths:

Brain Tuner, Bugs & Numbers, Addicus HD, SqueeblesDV, Bugs & Buttons, Maths Drills, Numbers, Pick–a–Path, SqueeblesTT, SqueeblesAS, SqueeablesFR, Teaching Graphs, Khan Academy, SparkleBox

Control & Code

LightBot, Daisy the Dino, Hopscotch, Tynker, Move the Turtle

Draw & Paint

Drawing Pad, Brushes, Skitch (image annotation)

Story

Toontastic, PuppetPals HD, Sock Puppets

Explain

Educreations, Explain Everything, Doodlecast, Popplet, Mind Meister

Create

Comic book, Comic Life, Strip Design, iMotion, Keynote, GarageBand, Pages, Minecraft PE, Pic Collage for kids, Book Creator, iMovie, Adobe Spark (Page, Post, Video), iMindMap... 

iPads, Video & Frustration

Not all video codecs are equal, and many of the most common formats that play fine on a desktop operating system like that on a Mac or a PC, often will not play on an iPad which is, shall we say, very fussy about what it will, or will not play.

So this means that just because that video you've inserted from Google Drive into a Google Site, may play beautifully on your Mac/PC, but that does not mean your iPad will play it.

Simple solution? Anything on YouTube is iPad friendly, so uploading your videos to YouTube (or Vimeo) and then inserting them into your Google Site will work, on any device; and as we're an educational domain, no dodgy mosaic or ads, unless you are using Blogger, in which case, you will see a 'video mosaic' at the end.

Like this one:

So you could have two videos, one inserted into a Google Site, and one from YouTube, and the first one will not play, even though it is the exact same video, before it was uploaded (and converted) it to YouTube.

To see this phenomenon demonstrated on a Google Site, click here.

The good news is that sharing a video straight to your YouTube account straight from QuickTime is very easy, and will do all the converting for you:

Kill your Calendar (over the Holidays)

I don't know about you, but I don't particularly appreciate it when my iPhone AND iPad AND MacBook bleep in cacophonous union to remind that I have a meeting at 8:00am, when it's 3:30am in the UK, especially not when I'm suffering from jetlag, and that is now the end of THAT night's sleep, thank you very much.

Well, getting your school calendar to take a holiday when you do is not difficult, when you know how, but isn't that often the case?

Here's how:

As your calendars are in 'the cloud' you can safely delete them from any device, and just restore them when you get back. So go to ...

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars

Now select the account that has the calendar you wish to kill, and you will see this:

Slide the switch to kill the Calendar

This is the part where people panic, it's OK, just delete it. Trust me. 

All it does is turn the calendar off, not quite so scary sounding is it? 

Now all you have to do is reverse this when you get back.

Chocolate, Broccoli & Minecraft ECAs

No doubt some parents are wondering, "Why is the School offering a Minecraft activity as an ECA?  Why is the Minecraft App on the iPads? There are many reasons why, but a short answer would be; for the same reasons we offer a Chess ECA. Of course the main motivation for this is the cold hard fact that I am a gamer, I love gaming - contrary to popular opinion I do not believe it is 'addictive' - although it is extremely adept at creating a 'flow' state that can easily be interpreted as addiction... So, as this article states so well, 'Stop Worrying, and Learn to Love the Cubes"!

I definitely believe that gaming has a great deal to offer. But this is not the post for this subject, this one is:

http://doverdlc.blogspot.sg/2012/03/video-games-violence.html

So where was I? Oh yes, that said, if I'm honest, Minecraft is not my kind of game, but it is a rare kind of game that both my son (Grade 5) and daughter (Grade 3) LOVE. It is a game they can play together, but very differently, and therein lie the benefits... I'm very wary of attempts to try and make any game 'educational' - this kind of gaming invariably has the attraction of what is known in the industry as 'chocolate covered broccoli'. 

Despite this, as a teacher, I could not resist the desire to attempt this anyway. For example I persuaded students to build a virtual maths museum, with exhibits that showcased ratio, basic 3d shapes, right angled triangles etc. but... But no matter how much metaphorical chocolate I covered it with, it was still broccoli - and I thought, do we do this with Lego? Channel their creations? "Hey kids why don't you build a Maths museum out of Lego?" No. We let them play, and let them take it where they want, just let them play, be creative, cooperate, collaborate, and that's good enough for me... 

All that said there are some great examples online of teachers who have been able to kids to create some delicious chocolate broccoli with it, even without realising it.  A colleague of mine in the UK let some of his students model homeostasis in Minecraft,  But the essential element here is that it was their idea, the teacher didn't even know what Minecraft was. He does now.

And that's what I love about it, it was student centred; their ideas, their motivation, he was the catalyst... That's what I'm looking for. That in a nutshell is my rationale for Minecraft, when people inevitably ask 'Why?' - almost all the reasons you could give me for the value of playing with Lego, can be said of Minecraft.

Or to quote a sentiment commonly being expressed about '21st Century Learnng', we are preparing students for a future in which the 'three Rs' are embedded within the 'three Cs', communication, collaboration, and creative problem solving *(Thornburg, 1998). Minecraft is one example of students doing precisely that.

Think Lego, but with unlimited bricks, space, and best of all, no need to demolish it all at the end of each session. 

Some examples from our students:


The Minecraft game is available on almost all game platforms, even iOS. In fact playing Minecraft on an iPad (or even iPod touch or iPhone) is the easiest (and cheapest) way to play it, and multiplayer could not be simpler, up to 4 players, in the same room, on the same wireless network, that's it.

Nitty Gritty for teachers/parents who want to know how MinecraftEDu works:

Minecraft EDU runs on a computer and is very similar to the full Minecraft game, but allows the teacher to have total control. The students in the classroom play within an arena contained on the teacher's computer - and the teacher governs the game, with total control over what the students can and cannot do. A big plus for us is that Minecraft EDU does not require you to use the wild wild web of the internet, it can use the private WiFi network in your classroom. 

This is the critical, especially with Primary School aged kids, it's the difference between sending your kids off to play in a public park (a public Minecraft server online), or to play within the bounds of your school playground (a private Minecraft server on the teacher's computer). 

Once the teachers quits the server running on their computer the kids have to stop playing, but all work is saved, until the teacher reopens the server, when the fun and learning can begin again. 

So, how does it work?

Launch MinecraftEdu, by clicking the icon once it is installed on your computer:

Then you will be presented with some options:

First you will need to create the 'playground' or arena (map) for the students to play in, by clicking 'Start MinecraftEdu Servertool' And Start the server... 

Now a window will open with an IP Address the students can enter to gain access to your playground. Something like this:

Now Students can launch MinecraftEdu, only they choose the top option 'Start MinecraftEdu' (not Minecraft!) Now they used to be prompted to login with their own Minecraft account - but this caused problems if they did not have one, The good news is that Minecraft EDU has been updated so a Minecraft account is no longer necessary to play on a 'LAN' that's a Local Area Network, ie not on the internet, just on the WiFi in your classroom. To do this they choose Multiplayer, and then Direct Connect, where they can enter the IP address for your server (mentioned above).


That's it! Your role is now primarily pastoral, medicating disputes, quarrels, 'griefing' (vandalism) etc. Let the technology fade to background and allow the focus to fall on the freedom to create, communicate and collaborate*.

Of course, once the kids are playing, it would be nice for you to visit as well - you can join the game as teacher - nice. Just click the MinecraftEdu launcher again, and choose the top option 'Start MinecraftEdu'. 

Most important? Despite your own proclivities - take an interest in what they are doing - just as you would if they were playing Lego.

Want to read more? Read this.

* David Thornburg, Director of the Thornburg Center and Senior Fellow of the Congressional Institute for the Future, suggests that the familiar "Three R's" of education be supplemented by a new set of "Three C's." Thornburg (1998) writes that the skills of communication, collaboration, and creative problem solving are all critical in this new information age. But even these Three C's are not enough, for, as Thornburg adds, other equally important skills include technological fluency and the ability to locate and process information.