In this update of on the wire I have a couple of interesting articles and the odd infographic to share 1. BBC Future – Why your brain loves to get feedback – http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130226-why-your-brain-loves-feedback An interesting article on the importance of feedback. This supports the research from Professor John Hattie in his book Visual Learning about [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I have been enjoying this summer break and having a little technology downtime. However the kids have been playing quite extensively on the iPads as the weather has not always been conducive to swimming and playing around outside. We have a wide selection of games on the iPad for the “kids” enjoyment and a couple [...]
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 [...]
The headlines read as “School’s iPad plan could ruin Christmas. I struggle with this, because it is not accurate or fair reporting. If you actually look at the Orewa college website the parent do have an option of buying the product over a two year period, rather than outright – http://www.orewa.school.nz/uploaded/file/downloads/CycloneComputers.pdf but this aspect is [...]
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. [...]
I love seeing so many school starting to adopt technology and recognising that the use of technology can be motivating and engaging, especially in light of the “More ladders,fewer snakes” report from the independent think tank the New Zealand institute - http://www.nzinstitute.org/ What is critical is that the presence of technology by itself is not a [...]
