Well…here it is!
My final vision project is a blog about iPads that is geared towards educators who are interested in using iPads in the classroom. This blog could also be of interest to parents as well as intermediate to high school students who want to learn more about the interesting apps that are out there and how they can be used. This will be an ongoing project for readers to check out when wanting to learn new and exciting apps. I have launched this blog with six posts about: why we should use iPads in the classroom, how we can implement them, a number of great apps you can use and some troubleshooting for common issues. I am really happy with how it has come along and I look forward to adding to it and sharing it with my colleagues. I would love for you all to have a look and share your comments! :)
I think that with this blog, I have created a resource that will motivate teachers to want to use the new iPads that we have just gotten at our school. It will hopefully help to eliminate some feelings of anxiety of overwhelmingness of where to start. This resource will help to guide those who are not as familiar with this new technology. I structured my blog in a way that is very user-friendly and straightforward and tried to feature versatile apps that teachers will be able to use across a range of curricular areas. I also provided some things to think about before implementing them and some troubleshooting links that will hopefully be helpful. I think this information will be really helpful at this time because we haven't implemented the iPads yet and therefore, this will be a useful resource before we launch these new tools in our school.
Blogging was a completely new concept to me at the start of this course. But, because we have been doing them on a weekly basis, it came so naturally to me when I started my final project. Being familiar with the program, allowed me to dive in with a little more than my big toe in terms of playing around with style, colour schemes, etc. I found with the program itself blogger.com, I didn't have any major issues. I found sometimes that the font would randomly change or the spacing would be off or the colour would be different in different areas for no reason. I assumed there was probably an easier way to fix that, however I would just go back and retype or change the spacing in the areas that needed it and it seemed to work out fine for me. Yay!
I found that I struggled with which apps to focus on because there were so many out there. I know that this will change as I continue to add to it, but I wanted to make sure that I was featuring ones right off the bat that teachers would be interested in and want to use. I also wanted to feature very versatile apps so that everyone would find at least one idea or app that could be useful for them. While I was featuring certain apps I would come across others that were similar that would be worth mentioning, but I found I didn't want to focus on too many that were the same. It would be worth doing a post on apps that have similar end products, but are maybe at two different user-levels such as beginner vs. advanced. An example of this would be comparing Strip Designer and Comic Life.
As for the layout, I am happy with the end result however, I would possibly consider changing the font next time. I did show it to a few people and most said that it was clear and easy to read, but there was one who felt it wasn't the best choice. I think that next time, I would maybe choose something that would be more clear. I just felt that this one fit really well with my whole scheme and added a bit of a different spin on what we are used to seeing on a blog.
I will be the first to admit that YouTube is a site that I don't use often enough. When creating my blog, I found that it was super useful in giving me an excellent visual or walk through on how an app works and what an end product looks like. I know that personally, when I am trying something new like experiencing a new app, I want to know right off the bat what the end result is or what it can do. I find that can be hard to explain in words and therefore, the YouTube videos were really helpful for this. I think that readers will appreciate having these as an added resource to look at when exploring new apps.
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| Image taken from mcleodisd.net |
This is my LAST project in my FINAL course of the teacher-librarian diploma program!! WOO HOO!!!! I would have to say that this course was the most relevant for me in terms of where I am exactly in my career right now. I really appreciated how the course was structured because I am a very structure-oriented person and I really liked how each lesson built on the next and how we slowly worked towards building our final project. I think that this is something that will continue to remain relevant to me because I will continue to build on it. I see a lot of value in it and hope that my colleagues will as well. I look forward to adding more apps as new ones are released and working one-on-one with teachers to help implement these into the classroom. The feedback that I have received from friends who have read it has been extremely motivating because they have seen value in it. I love that I can become a lead person within my school in this area and I think that it fits in perfectly with the role of the teacher-librarian. This course has encouraged me to incorporate more technology within my own teaching and in partnership with my own vision, has helped me to dive right in with a project on something that is so new to our school. I think that once we launch these new iPads, I will have even more ideas on what I can add to my blog to help guide teachers. Overall, this is a great ongoing learning opportunity and it is something that I am fully excited to be a part of!
Here's a little celebration video as a note to end on:
Ross playing "Celebrate" by Kool and the Gang on the bagpipes
References:
YouTube. "Friends - Ross Playing the Bagpipes with Phoebe Singing".
Online Video Clip. YouTube. 18 February 2012.
