With the release of the iPad last month, my iSchool Initiative team and I dove in head first, discovering the new possibilities the iPad brought to education. After using my iPad in class I have to say there is a tremendous difference between the iPad and iPod/iPhone. With new apps, a screen with more visuals, and a full size keyboard, I now feel like the technology is finally here to transform education for the better.
For those of you who don’t know, I take my iPad (used to be my iPhone) and only my iPad to all my college courses. This post is to help explain some of the different ways I have been using my iPad.The first thing most people ask me is, “What apps do you use to take notes” and, “How do you do it?” There are two main ways I take notes, depending on the type of lecture. Here are examples of those two.
Cranberry flashcards - This application allows students to make intuitive flashcards. One of the great parts about this applications is that it is also web based and can be pulled up in any device with Internet access, also allowing you take make the flashcards on a computer instead, if you so choose.
In my political science class, I build flashcards as the lecture is going on, rather than taking traditional notes. This saves me the time of later converting my notes into flashcards to study. I can then study for my test anytime, anywhere and with flashcards. This app has been incredibly useful and has improved my test scores significantly.
Sundry notes - This app is better when you want to take more traditional notes. It combines text notes with images, drawings, audio, imbedding from google and wikipidia, and much more all in to one page.I use this application in my history class and absolutely love being able to combine multiple things into one page.
For example, when talking about the industrial age in class, I was able to type in my notes, insert images from google of what we were talking about, insert a wiki definition of a subject I knew little about, draw arrows connecting things, and a recording of part of the lecture. Overall, it’s been very valuable when it comes to cram sessions.
Another question I get asked a lot is, “How do you stay organized using your iPad?” I use one of my favorite college apps for that, called iStudiez pro. This is by far one of the best organizational apps for students. First you plug in your semester classes and times. Once that’s set up, you can easily add homework assignments, exams and projects with due dates that you can set to alert you days in advance. Because of this app, I now have no excuse to not turn in an assignment and I haven't missed one since.
These are just three of the many apps I have started using with the iPad. Follow my blog post and follow me on
twitter to here about more apps I use in the classroom. Don't forget to retweet this post!
I want to know what apps you have started using on the iPad. Please post comments and tell me all about them.
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