iTunes U update: It’s now push AND pull

Okay.

It’s a Monday, it’s summer, and my brain is still working to wake up. So much of what you’ll read below is from an official Apple press release concerning the recent update to the mobile iTunes U app.

My own words on the subject?

If you have Apple devices in your building, you need to be using iTunes U as an instructional and learning tool. It’s a great way to push content out to students and, now with the recent update, pul content in from kids.

iTunes U – together with the free iTunes U Course Manager – helps you create courses including lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and more for your face-to-face students as well as students outside your classroom. With over 750,000 individual learning materials available on the iTunes U app, iTunes U is the world’s largest online catalog of free educational content from top schools and prominent organizations. You can access the work from thousands of educational institutions hosting over 7,500 public courses.

The new in-app updates

10 tasks every iPad classroom should be able to do

The Educational and Mobile Learning site highlighted a great step by step iPad task tutorial by the folks over at iSupport. They outline five tasks that “every modern teacher” should be able to do and use in their classrooms.

It’s a great list:

• A PDF
• A presentation
• An interactive book
• A podcast
• A movie

I really like how they put together an easy way to see how using iPad tools can lead kids through low level to high levels of thinking and doing.

But the list isn’t comprehensive. And it might start past the point where some teachers are right now.

So I’ve added five extra iPad basic skills that I think every teacher using iPads needs to have:

6 social studies iPad apps you need to fall in love with

I’ve had a ton of fun over the last few weeks, working with teachers across the Midwest on the best ways to integrate iPads into their instruction. I’m convinced that teachers need both content-neutral and content-specific apps to be successful. Content-neutral apps such as Pages, Notability, and Paper 53 provide the tools you need to create and share products.

Content-specific apps can introduce and reinforce the stuff in our curriculum. Find six of my latest content-specific favs below. Some free. Some not. But all so cool, you’ll fall in love.

7 ways to use your iPad in the social studies classroom

Have iPads? Getting iPads? Confused a bit about how to actually use iPads?

You’re not alone. Tons of schools are jumping on the mobile tablet bandwagon. But they often jump on without giving teachers a whole lot of training. The infographic below – created by Tony Vincent and posted on his awesome Learning in Hand site – can be a jumpstart to learning more about how the iPad can impact teaching and learning. (Head over there and get the large six page version or a huge 24 page version.)

It highlights seven ways that you can use iPads in the classroom:

Infuse Learning vs. Socrative vs. Clickers

I like the Clickers. Don’t love ’em but . . . yeah, they’re okay. I mean, they do some cool stuff but they’re expensive and can be difficult and time-consuming to set up.

What’s a Clicker? Good question. There are lots of different brands out there but they all work basically the same – a Clicker is a hand-held device that allows students in your classroom to give you feedback, answer questions, and vote in response to questions that you provide.

The technical term? Student Response System.

And if you have a set of Clickers and you have a system for using them that works for you, stick with it.

History Geek Week Day Three: Mobile Devices and student voice

After the Beyond the Bubble session, my day is officially over. I really don’t need anything else today because that session was so useful.

But there are still some good sessions being offered today, I suppose. So I’m sitting in on a session about using mobile devices in the classroom and am learning / sharing about what this looks like.

Some cool conversations. The other cool thing? Two Kansas people are part of the panel.