Tuesday Tech Tidbit

While geeking out on Twitter, I stumbled upon an amazing Apple Distinguished Educator who publishes slick videos on YouTube that quickly and easily demonstrate how to more effectively use the iPad in the classroom.   Jacob Woolcock is a computing and digital learning teacher in the U.K.  His iPad QuickTips YouTube channel provides viewers with easy-to-follow videos (often less than 2 minutes) that demonstrate an educational concept on the iPad.  His videos include tutorials on: iMovie Freeform Keynote Clips I appreciate how easy it is to follow these videos and then directly apply them to classroom usage.  If you are interested in brushing up your iPad skills or designing creative projects for your students, you should visit: https://www.youtube.com/@iPadQuickTips Have a wonderful summer! 🌞

Apple prides itself on including an impressive array of accessibility features that make the iPad user friendly to people of all abilities.  They are continually adding accessibility features, which can often be found under Settings > Accessibility but also in other places.   Accessibility settings allow users to adjust some of the following interfaces to make the iPad more universally usable: Vision VoiceOver Zoom Hover Text Display and text size Motion Spoken content Audio descriptions Physical and motor AssistiveTouch Touch accommodations Voice control Pointer control Hearing Live listen Sound recognition Background sounds Subtitles and captions Live captions General Guided Access Accessibility Shortcut I recently started to tinker with the Shortcuts app, which is included on all iPads and iPhones.  Shortcuts allow users to get tasks done quickly or through automating multi-step processes.  Apple offers an entire section of Accessibility shortcuts within...

Recently I stumbled upon a very handy website that contains step-by-step guides on how to use some of the most creative features of the iPad. Dr. Tolu Noah is an Apple Educator who creates iPad tutorials .  These help guides provide visual assistance on how to use some of the impressive multimedia features on the iPads.  Some of the guides include: Creating digital whiteboards using FreeForm Animating text and shapes in Keynote Using the Clips app to create engaging videos Using the Notes app for planning and preparation Personalizing lectures with Live Video in Keynote Screen recording Creating QR codes Although these iPad guides were created for higher education, they are definitely relevant for K-12 as well.  I hope you find some good pointers in here.  Please reach out to me if you get a burst of inspiration and wish to implement these features into a lesson or project.  Follow the link to view the iPad Guides: https://www.tolunoah.com/ipad-guides

Canva for Education has recently teamed up with OpenAI to introduce Magic Write , a writing assistant that uses artificial intelligence to help you generate ideas.  Magic Write is similar to ChatGPT in the sense that you can type a request and receive answers.   For example, you could type: " Write me a lesson plan about the Normandy invasion for 10th graders that aligns with Ohio's Learning Standards for Social Studies and includes a video project " OR " Compose a parent email that informs everyone that permission forms for the field trip to the McKinley Museum are due by May 20th. Discuss what students will learn at the McKinley Museum. " Follow the links above to see the results!  Pretty impressive. 🤓  You can easily tweak the text to customize it further.  But look at the time you saved because you didn't have to start completely from scratch. Magic Write is only available to teachers in the Canva for Education platform.  Don't worry; your stude...

Many teachers share slideshows with their students that demonstrate learning concepts.  These are particularly helpful when students want to access information from a past lecture or a tutorial.  Apple's amazing slideshow production app, Keynote, offers a simple way for you to add live video to a presentation. With Keynote's Live Video feature, teachers can insert themselves into a presentation so students can see and hear what they have to say about a presentation.  Instead of just reading text on a screen, students get to see and hear their teacher.  You can also use the rear camera on your iPad to record live footage of a concept you wish to demonstrate in your presentation.  This is a great way to bring students up to speed if they missed an important lab.   When used in conjunction with screen recording on your iPad, you can create movie presentations for your students or professional learning communities.  Quickly make tutorials that contai...