Waffle Bytes

Happy Friday before Thanksgiving to everyone!  Here are this weeks Five Friday Finds, some websites that teachers might find useful in their classroom or curriculum.  As always, feel free to share with others. General BBC - School Radio Audio resources for primary schools. ELA   Science Papers "Quick tutorial on reading scientific papers." Mathematics A Maths Dictionary for Kids 2011 by Jenny Eather   "A Maths Dictionary for Kids is an animated, interactive online math dictionary for students which explains over 600 common mathematical terms and math words in simple language."   Science   Science-class.net Resources for elementary and middle school science educators (though I thought many could be used with high schoolers, as well), including activities, labs, slideshows, graphic organizers and a variety of other categories organized by content area (astronomy, biology, chemistry, ecology, forensics, geology, health, meteor...

Another presentation I've done a couple times on iPad management (brilliantly creative title, no?) that might be helpful to those just starting out with iPads in their school districts.  Please note that I only know how Apple, iTunes, iCloud, and all other services/companies/products work in the United States.  I don't know if all of this holds true elsewhere... Setting Up iPads in a Shared Environment presentation ( iPad in the Classroom Conference October 2011, Educational Technology meeting for local districts November 2011) This does include some for both iOS 4 and iOS 5.  There is no guarantee that any of it still works with the quickness that our user agreements for iTunes, iCloud, and everything else related to these changes!

Since I've done this presentation a couple times now, and eschew paper printouts I figure it is time to share it out with others here. I Have an iPad...Now What? (Presentation from Berrien RESA August 2011, and Michigan State University Ed Tech Conference November 2011) What's in here? Tips and Tricks Ways/sites of Finding Apps Suggested Apps (ok, most of these are really my favorite apps...but it's a place to start!)  For those of you looking for this since Saturday, here it finally is!! (The show and tell is so much better than the static presentation, but maybe someone will find it useful...)

Here are this week's Five Friday Finds; as always, feel free to share with others. Happy 11/11/11! General Sketchpad   Draw online using this easy to use sketchpad. ELA LetterPOP Easy to create online newsletter site; because it is online, you can add digital content, including videos.  Can be distributed in a variety of ways. Mathematics   The Ambleweb - Totally Mental Machine Online 10 question game to test your mental arithmetic skills. Science Space Shuttle: The complete missions   Eight minute YouTube video by NatureVideo about NASA'a space shuttle program.  Shows clips from all 135 missions, including the two lost, in chronological order.  See Nature News Special: Space Shuttle for more. Social Studies Archiving Early America Access an array of primary source documents from 18th Century America.

There are cases where an organization (such as a school) may want to mass deploy out iPads that are identical - or clones - as they will not be used as an individual device.  Here was our method for accomplishing this using iOS 5. What is beautiful about doing this with iOS 5 is that the "tether-free" ability lets a person managing the iPads do this in whatever location they are in - they no longer have to collect the iPad in a central location OR carrying around a laptops with the backup on it.  Beautiful and a whole lot simpler! ( Please Note:  Apple has now informed me that there is a hard 10 device limit on syncing with the cloud.  You will have to create multiple identical accounts if you want to use this method for more than 10, noting which devices sync with which account.   This does not work for devices running iOS 4.  I will do a post for cloning in iOS 4.) Create the Master Copy Turn on a device and set it up exactly as you wish all ...

Here are this week's Five Finds; as always, feel free to share with others. Have a great weekend! General Online Converter Select your target format; upload or enter the URL of the file; set some optional settings; and convert file.  Converts: audio, video, images, documents, eBooks, and creates archives. ELA The Grammar Gorillas   Online game where the user helps the gorillas identify parts of speech. Mathematics Decimal Darts Online game where user has decimal values at the top and bottom of the dart board.  Must select values to pop the balloons located in between with darts.  Requires Shockwave. Science Quickstarts   Demonstrations that students or teachers can perform in a science classroom; easy to put together and require 3-5 minutes to perform.  Organized by grade level and curriculum strands (Canadian, but many are similar to US ). Social Studies The Secret Annex Online   "Discover Anne Frank's hiding ...

Sometimes it is necessary to change your Apple Account ID to a different email address. For instance, we have had situations in schools where staff members have used their work emails (which become your Apple Account ID) to create their account for personal use.  Two situations that have happened around here that have required them to change to a different email address: They leave for another job, and the email account tied to the Apple Account is deactivated. The school deploys iPads and the teacher is told to use their school email to create an Apple ID for redemption of any apps purchased by the school. This is very simple to do in iTunes. Hereʼs how: Open up iTunes, go to the iTunes Store, and make sure you are logged into the account you wish to change. Hover your cursor over your account name, and a downward pointed arrow will appear: Click on that arrow to see a drop-down list; choose Account from the list: You can see your account details.  At the top...

In our area, many of the local school districts have a subscription to Discovery Education.  Often teachers wish to have their students access some of the content they have marked for their lessons/curriculum, but not in a whole group/class setting.  Yet they do not have a need for their entire class to be "enrolled" into the system.  One solution for doing this is using a generic student account.  Here are the directions I put together for setting this up. There are times that you may want to make materials on Discovery Education available to students without actually downloading it. One possibility is to create a generic student account for your class (or classes). While you could create an entire class, for most purposes a single generic student account will work. Hereʼs how: Go to Discovery Education and login with your account   Click on Classroom Manager (located towards the upper left side):   Select My Classes   If it is your first ...

Why you will want to establish an ‘App Store Volume Purchase Program’ (VPP). The VPP allows educational institutions to purchase apps in volume and distribute the apps in the form of redemption codes to their users or those that maintain the iPads. For many apps, if you are purchasing 20 or more of an app, you get volume discount - usually 50% off; if an app does not show the discount, you can contact the developer and request it (many will turn on that feature if they know about it) If you work for a non-profit (such as an educational institution!) you are not charged sales tax on any of your purchases through the VPP There are four different types of accounts involved in the VPP. o    Authorized Purchaser (not part of VPP, but necessary if using vouchers for purchasing) •Authorized Apple purchaser for the district – from Apple: “ This should be the person who is your normal procurement person for any Apple products and authorized to buy product on beh...