iPad apps Part 1

I've now had the ipad for a week now, and have been testing out some apps. Here are a few starters.

Because I teach guitar, I wanted to get some apps that let me read sheet music on the iPad, here are two that I found.

1. forScore $4.99/http://www.forscoreapp.com/

 This is a PDF sheet music reader. While it's not free, the price is reasonable. This app allows you open music two ways. First if the file you want is in your Dropbox app, you can view it in Dropbox, and then there is an option to view in forScore. The disadvantage to this is that you have to have wi-fi access for Dropbox. If you want to store the file on your ipad's hard drive, you import the file using iTunes. This is a better way because then the app let's you create set lists of your songs stored in the program. 

This also has a built in metronome, both a visual and audio version. The one thing that drew me to this program is that it said in the description that there was an auto page turn feature. Well, it's not the best or easiest to use. You turn on the metronome and and the page turn feature. What you then have to do is program in the number of measures and how many beats per measure you need. Then you enter the number and go. Even when I set up a two measure intro, it seems like I couldn't count on it to turn right when I needed it. The second drawback was that it didn't didn't save the settings. Each time I turned on the app, I had to start over. 

The manual page turn can be done by swiping the page left to right or touching the right or left side of the ipad. It was very quick. It was almost too quick. Many times I ended up turning two pages instead of one. It turned out to be quite sensitive.

2. PDF Sheet Music Reader $2.99

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-sheet-music-reader/id370142351?mt=8

This is very comparable to forScore. This is actually the first one I purchased. I does basically the same thing. The reason I then bought forScore is that the page turn feature was very slow or unresponsive. I had to really push and swipe the page to get it to turn. You can also tap the right or left side of the page, but again very slow. 

Now that I have purchased both, and tried both, I think that I will use the forScore more often. Both apps do allow a draw feature on the score, both allow transfers using iTunes, and both have the built in metronomes, but the fact that the forScore page turns are more responsive to me makes all the difference.

I have been using the forScore to look at music that the students are playing as I walk around the room. I have also tried using the metronome as I walk around, and that has been nice because the students can listen to the metronome and stay together as I roam the room checking on students.

Secondly I will use forScore during our concerts. I can download the scores, program in a set list for each class, and carry all the music on the small little iPad, instead of dragging around a 3 ringed binder.

More app reviews to come! Stay tuned!

The ipad is here!

Just got an ipad for my class. I'm so excited. I have been browsing and trying out apps all week. I will update my findings and how I've been able to implement the ipad in my guitar class. So far the results have been good. Stay tuned!

Here are the basics:

I purchased the 64 gig, wi-fi only model. I plan on using this mainly in class, using the school's wi-fi, but I did purchase the 64 gig version so that I can download a lot of apps, and files when I don't have the internet. This version cost $699 + $38 for the official apple suede case. (A must I think).

Now you can buy the same model with the option of paying $30 a month for AT&T's 3G service, (which by the way is not covered under the iphone plan you may already have). But it costs $829 for that model. I really didn't think it was worth the extra $, plus another $30 a month for the data plan. (I will use my Droid 2 if I really, really need something on the go).

I will update later with some of the apps, and how I used them for my class later.

Teacher Tube

www.teachertube.com

About a year ago I had to take a video editing class for my Masters degree. I had always thought that having little videos of some of the lessons that I taught in class would be great. I was afraid of camera costs, uploading to YouTube (which can be questionable for middle school teachers), and of course time involved in creating, shooting and editing the videos.

After the spending some time with cameras and some basic editing software ie, Windows Movie Maker, I realized that the time issue wouldn't really be a big deal, and I found a SD video camera for $120, and most importantly our professor recommended using a site called Teacher Tube.

This site really is just YouTube for teachers however, there are some better advantages over YouTube for teachers.

1. The content has to be approved the Teacher Tube staff. (I found out to allow 48 hrs. turnaround was needed). This makes it safe for students and there are no worries for parents.

2. The site is free. Creating a membership is completely free. However one drawback to this is the ads. Now when I first started using the site there were just click able ads of the sides like many websites. The ads where mostly teacher related so that wasn't a real concern. What I really did not like is I started noticing that TeacherTube was putting 30 second commercials before all the videos. This can be kind of a pain. However anyone can create an account to skip the ads, so many of my students just created accounts so they could watch the videos without the commercials.

3. They allow you to upload more than just videos. You can add documents to accompany your video, such as quizzes, lesson plans or anything else you can thing of to go with your video.

4. Unlike YouTube they allow you any length of video as long as it is under 100 mb in file size. Most of my videos are 20-25 mb for a 5 min video, while the 10 min videos are around 40-45 or so. I have never found out that I couldn't upload a video because of size for length where on YouTube I was constantly editing down my videos to meet the 10 min mark.

When I first started doing the videos, I thought that I would use them as review lessons especially for students who were absent. But the I started getting the videos up a couple of days early for approval, and then I thought that there was no reason to have the students watch the video the night before our in-school lesson as homework. This turned out to be really good. My class lessons ended up being mainly reviews because most of the students had already learned the material, I just had to make sure they were doing it correctly. And a guitar teacher I was making the management of 32 students much easier because most students already knew what to do.

I really have liked the service overall, even with some of it's drawbacks, mainly being the ads. But overall I feel that this is a better video hosting site for teachers other than the obvious YouTube.

Drop it like it's hot!

This next post is about a great little piece of software that my brother told me about. It's called Dropbox.

This sweet little piece of software allows you to safely store up to 2 gigs of files for free! I was tired of taking my flash drive back and forth to school each day, and was looking for a way to sync files on my home computer with my school computer. I also wanted a service that would backup my files in case I ever lost my flash drive or it burned out. Dropbox ended up being that software.

When you go to the website you are asked to download their software. The installation is quick and easy. You can pick where to install the software, and I choose to install to the desktop so I can always see it and access it easily.

After the software installs, all you have to then do is add an email and password for the account. Then all you have to do is use the Dropbox folder just like you would any other disc or folder on your computer.

When you save to the Dropbox folder you will see a tiny little blue sync icon. That means that your computer is sending a backup copy of the file to the Dropbox online server. 

You can install Dropbox on as many computers as you want. The only difference is that when you install the software on a new computer, you say you already have an account, and that new computer will link to your online files and download copies to your new computer. Anything you then save on either computer is automatically synced with any other computers under the original account.

There are also iPhone and Android apps of Dropbox. I have it installed on my Droid 2, and can access all the files on my phone, even PowerPoints. I can then do some limited editing with the Quickoffice app on my phone, and then save the changes to my account.

2 gigs for free is great! They also have a referral program that allows you to invite people to join Dropbox, and when your invitee registers their email address you get 250 mb for free. They at first had a limit of up to 3 gigs, but they just upgraded it to allow you to get up to 8 gigs for free!

1st post!

I'd like to start out by talking about my classroom website. While I know that websites for teachers aren't really anything new, the company I use is for teachers directly. I've tried using Google sites, but was not really happy with the limited templates and page types.

Someone turned me towards a site called Teacherweb. Now while this site isn't free to use, it is very reasonable. I pay only have to pay $40 for a year subscription.

This site is really geared towards teachers and what type of pages they would use. You can create basic pages of text, where you can insert hyperlinks for other websites, or files for students to view or download. There is another type of page where I can create quizzes to be take directly on the site, and answers are corrected and sent to my email. A brand new feature called NEWSFLASH is a page where parents and students can subscribe an email or mobile phone number, and then I can send out messages directly to them. If you have some basic HTML knowledge, you can edit that as well, (I use that function for embedding videos directly on the site instead of hyperlinks).

Overall I think that it is a great value, and a great resource to easy create and manage a classroom website that is designed for teachers.

Check out my website at www.teacherweb.com/nv/cadwallader/guitar, or the main webpage www.teacherweb.com

New Blog!

This is a new blog to post new and old ideas of technology that I'm using in my classroom. I just finished my Masters degree in Educational Technology and I would like to share my ideas with you and let this be a place of collaboration for all teachers!