Apple trick – Dictation using Mountain lion

One of the very useful, but perhaps under utilised features of mountain lion is the dictation tool. Once its switched on the world of dictation is opened. Switch it on by going to system preferences > dictation and speech and switching dictation on you can also select your language type. From here it’s really easy [...]

Apple iPad Volume Licience

FINALLY…. …. Apple announced that volume licences will be available in a number of new countries including New Zealand. The list is: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand – http://www.apple.com/nz/education/volume-purchase-program/ Spain, UK, US This is great news for the large number of schools that are adopting the iPads as their preferred learning device [...]

Musing about ipads/tablets

One of the reasons why iPads and android tablets have flourished is the ease of access to applications. Whether you go to the App store or the App marketplace (https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/?pli=1) you have access to a huge range of applications at a reasonable cost. One of the advantages that I see with Apple’s model, is the [...]

Ideas for iPads

The iPad and other gesture based tablets have capture the minds and fingers of many in education. Whether its in pre-K or senior classes these intuitive devices are making changes to how teaching and learning occurs in the classroom. The combination of ease of use, cost effective applications, simple navigation and user friendlyness plus a [...]

iPad apps for learning

This is a very useful site with a great list of different iPad applications sorted by subject areas and then these are broken down in to different categories. The applications are both free and paid subscription/purchase. For Example – Language Arts apps has sub categories for literacy reading practice hand writing spelling grammar graphical organisers [...]

Evolution of the textbook

Educause has just released their latest Seven things presentation. This particular release and update is “Seven things you should know about the evolution of the textbook“. To keep in them this publication is available in pdf and ePub formats. They detail the changes that are now available in the electronic format compared to the traditional [...]

Blooms and iPad Applications

I just got tweeted a nice diagram showing iPad applications against different levels of Bloom’s revised taxonomy. Its a good and well considered diagram and I like it. Some applications there that I haven’t seen yet and I will have to look up. The only thing I would say is that the applications are just [...]

Thought for the day

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They are not fond of rules. And the have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About [...]

Learning English

We currently have a lovely exchange student staying with us from Japan. She has a good but basic english vocabulary but often struggles composing sentences etc. This is not at all unexpected and she is doing a brilliant job. While communication can sometimes be difficult, some things she has completely mastered, the iPad for example. [...]

Our Apps book is out

For the last year, Harry and I have been working on the ipad applications book for high schools. The Book is called Apps for learning, and is published as part of the 21st Century Fluency series with my Colleagues Harry Dickens, Lee Crockett and  Ian Jukes. This book has been a huge amount of fun [...]