iPad literacy & Disciplines

Chinesepad offers different settings, including practice mode, tutorial mode and users can also choose either simplified character or traditional character.

It allows beginners not only to learn how to say a word but also to offer them a chance to practice how to write characters by demonstrating on the iPad.

Essentials free app offers couple hundred vocabulary with pronunciations and meanings, so learners can easily follow the app to progress, however it mainly focus on helping learner building vocabulary and pronunciation and it does not show learners how to handwrite the characters. In addition, it only offers traditional version, which means learners who have been learning simplified characters might find it is hard to use it.

Learn2play is a very integrative app. It is organized in different themes, such as fruit, sports, animals and so forth. It offers two different modes to integrate with the app. First One is to present a picture with different objects and learners can tap the different objects to see how to say in Chinese and then the characters will pop out. Second mode is to say different objects in Chinese and then students can paint them. If they paint the wrong ones, the app will make a sound to tell students they did not get the right answers. Students can use the first mode to learn the new words and then move on to the second one to check and see how much they really understand after the first mode. It offers a chance to repetitively practice until students fully comprehend it. The whole process is interactive so students might find themselves actually enjoy the learning. 

Spelling Test is a simple app for teachers to design an electronic test instead of paper-based one. It allows users to type in words and record the pronunciations. A designed test lists words on the left, and recording on the right side. Students who take the test can listen to the recording and then write down the spellings. If students do not give the right answers, the app will show the right answer immediately. This immediate feedback helps students remediate right then and by showing the correct answers further reinforce the learning process. However, when I tried to use this app to design a Chinese character test, it does let me record the sound and type characters, but when it comes to taking the test, the app doesn’t recognize the characters and the recording. 

Dictionary is a free app that I have been using in my daily life for almost two years. I mainly use it to look up the new words I encounter. It offers two types of phonetic symbols and one of them is IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)  which is what I was taught in School. It offers sound recordings, meanings, examples, synonyms, antonyms, origins and translator. In addition, it has Word of the Day and How Word Blog. The Word of the Day send users a new word or phrase everyday, which can help English learners build up their vocabulary. The How Word Blog explains how the word has been used and how the word evolved. I think Dictionary can be beneficial for both non-native and native English speakers.

Another dictionary that Ben and I use a lot is the iCED ABC, which is a Chinese dictionary. It is mainly designed for non-native Chinese learners. But Sometimes I use it to look up some Chinese idioms and phrases in order to teach Ben how Chinese people think differently. It really helps the communication between my husband and I.

Show Me is such a great and user-friendly interactive app. It allows me to create my own short videos and share with people. It can record my sound and what I write on the screen. I think this is a great tool for teaching students how to write Chinese characters. I have been designing a series of short video for Ben. I also use it to record a short video to send my friend birthday wishes. Recently I have a chance to help a Chinese girl who cannot speak any English. I am going to use this app to design short video lessons to teach her English. Here is the link to one of the lesson Color I made. But it does have its drawback. I can only use one page at a time so if my video requires a lot of demonstrations, then I have to spit my lesson into different parts. Overall, this is a great tool!

Storykit is a really neat free digital storytelling app. Users can use camera to take pictures or import pictures from photo albums to the editing page and add texts to go along with the pictures. They can also add audios to record the story. After this, users can also use paintbrush to draw. It is also a really interactive app. Students can use it to create digital stories. It is so easy to use that all students need to do is to add a picture from photo album or taking one with embedded camera, write text, record story and if they like, they can use brush to paint on the page. After this, students can start reading or sharing stories with others. Students can also go back and edit it again. Overall, Storykit is a simple, easy app that even young little kids can learn how to play. More importantly, it engages students in creating, writing, and learning.

iPad Basics

Keynote and PowerPoint are both presentations creating applications. They both offer basic features, such as adding new slide, choosing different slide layouts, adding Shapes, Table, Charts, Animations, transitions and so on to meet the users basic needs. They both carry a lot of theme choices for business, wedding and so much more to meet different users’ needs. One of the differences between Keynote and PowerPoint is that Keynote offers the Share button to allow users to share the presentations with others, while PowerPoint doesn’t have this feature.  Keynote features a wide array of templates and transition effects.

I have used Keynote on the iMac; however, this is my first time to try the Keynote on the iPad. Because its multi-touch technology, it feels so different than using Keynote on the Mac. Keynote on the iPad offers a lot of simpler features but enough to make good presentation. The animation effect of Keynote on iPad really amazes me. I can create sophisticated animations using the same objects on two slides; change the position, size, rotation or opacity of the objects; when I finish presenting, I only need to simply pinch anywhere on the slide. I can also tap the tools button and choose Share and Print, and then I will be able to email my presentation or copy it or iTunes on my Mac, in Keynote, PDF or PowerPoint format. At last, I can use iCloud to store my presentations and keep them up to date across my iPad, iPod. Any new presentations or changes I make will automatically appear on my other iOS devices.

iBooks and Kindle app both are free and each is linked to its own dedicated store. There is a significant difference between the two apps. Amazon’s selection of books is far more than Apple’s. Both can be customized and modified the text to suit my needs. Like the Kindle app, iBooks offers its own brightness slider. The two apps take strikingly different approaches to design. iBooks attempts to recreate the feeling of a real book, while Kindle skips details, and just shows the text starkly bare. The Kindle app displays what percentage of the book I’ve read and the actual page numbers. By contrast, the page number on iBooks will change entirely if I switch to a larger font. But iBooks has a tiny line of text that indicates how many pages left in the chapter I am reading, which is a wonderful way to see how close I are to a good stopping point. Since both apps are available on iPad, I have both of them. I cannot only download free books from both iBooks’ store and Amazon but also find the cheaper deal out of the two.

Rover is the browser especially designed for education on iPad. Some educational games require Flash enabled browser. Because iPad cannot open Flash content, in order to browse content with Flash, users have to use Flash-enabled browser. Rover does allow me to access Flash content, however, gestures don’t work well and lag causes delays and problems for interactive sites. It does not support other common web plugins like Unity and it takes tons of bandwidth, if whole class uses it at the same time, it might significantly slow down the Internet speed. The Safari is an Apple designed browser to allow users to browse the Internet. It does not support Flash content. Personally, I prefer using Safari because it does not take as much bandwidth as Rover and can access to the Internet faster. I would like to keep the Rover just in case I need it to access some Flash contents.
           I have registered an Box account and upload some pictures and files to my account. Box can be a great cloud storage. There are Box for iPad, iPhone, Android and more. I can view, manage, and share all of my files while I am on the go using Box from my computers and mobile devices. I can also import my contacts from my email account and collaborate with people on Box. Box does not only offer a great cloud storage, but also provides a platform for collaboration. By adding collaborators on Box, I can send them email, message to collaborate tasks. 

Tablets in Education

There are more and more schools are engaging in eReader and eBook programs, but how do they decide which kind of tablet they want to use, as there are so many out there. There are so many factors that will affect the final decision.

One of the top reasons is the economic advantages, no matter is Nook, Kindle, iPad or other tablets, they all offer digital books. Compared to traditionally printed textbooks, online textbooks can drop the cost of a textbook by 50% or more, and eliminates the problem of lost or damaged materials. Ultimately it saves school a good amount of money on textbooks.    

Almost all the tablets offer digital books, then what other factors that affect schools decision. I find out one of the reasons why some schools choose Nook is because of its support.  In the article, "Our Nook Adventure", the author thinks Kindle is a better device, however, she still chose Nook, because of its support. Barnes & Noble provides 3 separate trainings the librarians and goes to schools for hands on support. In contrast to Barnes & Noble’s hands on support, the Amazon is astonishingly ignorant or indifferent, according to the post, Why we don't Purchase Any More Kindles at the Unquiet Library. The experiences of the librarians tell me that not only the tablet itself but also the customer service that come with the purchasing will affect schools’ decisions.

From the post Clearwater High Gets Their Kindle, I can see that Kindle’s lightweight, remarkable legibility, Text - to- speech feature, holding more than a thousand digital books as well as bringing great saving for schools are important factors that lure schools to by it. As mentioned in the post, the prices of the digital books are cheaper and students can buy insurance to cover damage or loss of the Kindle. Overall buying Kindle can benefit school with huge amount of textbook savings. iPad has all the features mentioned here, but why do some schools still choose kindle? Partially because its cheaper compared to iPad, another reason is that Amazon offers more book titles.

Even though iPads are more expensive, there are still so many schools that choose iPad.  Why? There must be something more than just economic reason. Multimedia creativity and a wide array of apps might be on the top list reasons. iPad integrates the reading, writing, and arithmetic literacies with display visual literacy and critical thinking. The article, 55 Ways to Use an iPad in the classroom., shows how many different and interesting ways that iPad can be used in the classroom. For instance, students can use iPad to practice math skills with Super 7, and to take note with SoundNote. The teachers can use the ShowMe to keep track of students’ learning. I downloaded the ShowMe app and use it to create some videos about how to write Chinese characters. Here is one of links, ShowMe. It is a great app. Teachers also can use Socrative Students Response System to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games. Another app GoClass might be very useful for teachers. It is for creating short lessons and delivering them to students.  In another article iPads Only Algebra Course, the school who implemented an entirely iPad-based Algebra curriculum saw how students dramatically gain in engagement in learning. The iPad application gives students step-by-step animated instruction, instant feedback on practice questions, the ability to writ, record, and save notes and access to more than 400 videos tutorials. Teachers can monitor performance via Wi-Fi, with real-time, student-specific feedback.