Apple in Education Awards 2015 - mind-blown!

The yearly Apple in Education Awards was announced on Tuesday night!
As always I walked away with a an inspired feeling of FOMO! I am definitely missing out!
I wish I was in education right now!
I wish I was a student again!

The possibilities! The creativity!

This year there were again entries from Grade R to Grade 12.
70 schools from 9 provinces participated.
1156 projects were received which were judged by local and international judges.

Here is one of the winning entries:
Exploring the Sciences in Everyday Life - Thomas Granig from The Ridge School
"Gravity and beyond"



You can check out the rest of the winners here: Apple in Education competition 2015.

Christine Greig from Parklands College won in the iPhoneography part of the competition with her "Selfiest Self" portrait! Stunning!

Judge Bernard Viljoen (from "I was shot in Joburg") with Christine Greig

Lindsay Durell from Parklands College won the iTeacher award, and it was not difficult to guess, because she was on stage with many of her students!

Lindsay Durell

The following are links to the rest of the entries. If you have time, it is worth looking at all of these! And wondering How The *Genius they did it!

- Expression Through The Arts: Gabriella Fedetto from St Stithian's College: Lovely

- Bring to Life Your Favourite Historical/Literary Figure: Matthew Thompson from St Andrews: Winston Churchill

- Shape of my world: Luca Genovese from The Ridge School: The Shape of My World

- iTunes U in the Classroom: Brett Udal from Hilton College


Well done to all the winners and the teachers who make this happen! You are stars!!


Which one of the projects are the most mind-blown to you?

iPads for teachers in the primary classroom - Tal Slome

Tal Slome
iPad Facilitator at ThinkAhead Education Solutions

I was invited to attend Tal Slome's workshop about Apps in the primary classroom. It was specifically designed for teachers using iPads in the classroom.

I love attending these sessions, because I always pick up some great ideas for my own iPad, as well as great apps to download for my preschooler.

Tal Slome's Prezi is here: Subject specific apps for the primary classroom

There are great apps that are being covered for each subject. An app guide is freely available on ZA Books, the South African school books that are available for download on the iPad.


The suggestions to find great apps are a good reminder of how to proceed. How many times have I not downloaded an app, to delete it after just one use. It helps to do your homework, or to make use of  subject-specific guides.

How to find good apps:

- App or iTunes store reviews. 
Remember to check whether the review is from the developer or the user. The developer's view would of course be much more positive!

- Internet
Do a search on the Internet

- Word of mouth 
It helps to ask around and to hear what others are using. On social media, from colleagues and from professionals.



There are great resources for teachers on the web. Parents and home-schooling parents can also make use of it.

Materials and app finders:

- Teacher's Pet : the apps can be found here: Teacher's Pet: Apps & Games
These are great resources to keep handy, especially for assignments.

- Apps Gone Free:
This is a great app to use when searching for top apps that are available for free.


I am planning to play with some of the apps, and give some feedback here on the blog.
The apps are here: Tal Slome's Prezi 


iFile:

I love the suggestion of making use of  iFile. It is $3.99 on the app store, but it is worth to file all your documents and file formats in the cloud.
It accommodates Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, Box.net, SkyDrive, SugarSync, AFP (Mac Shares), FTP/FTPS, SFTP, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Rackspace CloudFiles, CloudApp, PogoPlug, WebDav, Amazon S3, Ubuntu One Files, ownCloud, 4Shared, also using Amazon S3: DreamObjects and UltiCloud.



Related posts:

- Connecting to the past, delivering the future - with iPads in the classroom with Joe Moretti

- Choosing iPads for your school - Fraser Speirs

- Book Creator great for learning and fun

- Book Creator adding to the learning experience in South Africa

"Connecting to the past, delivering the future" - with iPads in the classroom by Joe Moretti

Joe Moretti demonstrating the Augmented Reality app Aurasma

International keynote speaker Joe Moretti, an iPad education expert, demonstrated to teachers on Monday that the use of technology should not surpass the pedagogy in the classroom.

The number of teachers attending the event showed that the vast majority of them has been in the classroom for 20 to 30 years. They are experts in their special fields and experts in teaching. Their knowledge and experience are paramount when adapting to a new environment of using technology in the classroom. Combining that with the children who are digital natives with the use of technology, it makes it easier to make the switch.


Joe Moretti suggested that if there is only one iPad in the classroom available, the teacher already has access to many new teaching methods.

"Connecting to the past, delivering the future"
The pedagogy is still essential for teaching in the future!

New teaching methods with an iPad in the classroom

- Connecting via wireless mirroring to type and show what they are busy with on the iPad. It is not necessary to stand in front of the Black board any more. The teacher can move around with the device in her hand. She can type and draw while moving around. She can ask the students to show what they are doing on the device.

- The camera can be used to record in class, and there are no struggles when saving and searching for the files. It can be uploaded to be made immediately available to all.

- The use of Pages (Microsoft Word) and Keynote (Microsoft Powerpoint) makes it very easy to update and convert the presentations on the iPad. All the previous Word and Powerpoint documents can be uploaded to Dropbox and accessed via the iPad.

- Book Creator is one of the apps that is very easy to use, and it has a myriad of applications in the classroom. It can be learned in 5 minutes. Sound, videos and images can be uploaded as well, and it is very easy to upload it to iBooks.

- SHOWBIE is a great way to share and receive files from students. It has unlimited storage and unlimited class size. It is also free.

- iPad as simulator: There are many ways that the iPad can be used as simulator in the science fields. It can take the students into the human body as well as into space. One microscope that's connected can be shown on all iPad devices in the classroom. The Globilab was demonstrated as a wireless data collection device that makes K-12 science experiments mobile and immediately available.

- Special needs children: Settings were demonstrated to lock the device into a specific app, especially when working with autistic children that gets distracted easily.

- Augmented Reality is a great new way to make old boring posters and learning material coming alive in the classroom. Aurasma was demonstrated as one of the apps to use.

A dinosaurus coming alive on the screen via AR

As always I got very excited when I saw all the endless possibilities and creative uses of the iPad in the classroom. I wish I had an education like this, and I wish my children will be able to have access to this technology!



Related posts:

- Book Creator great for learning and fun 

- Choosing iPads for your school - Fraser Speirs

- Ipads in Education - I want to be a teacher now #iPadSamG

Apple in Education Awards 2013 - the winners! #iPadlearningZA

The 7th annual Apple in Education Awards 2013 arrived on Wednesday. It is designed to award excellence in the classroom. But it does more than that. It challenges the teachers and learners to excel in being creative in their use of technology to enhance their own learning.

I love seeing the finalists and the winning entries! But I must mention that I think that each of the entries in the competition deserves to be mentioned, and especially the teachers who have made a special effort for these kids to be able to take part!

I see this as a positive step towards a future in education where we will be able to address imbalances in the standard of our education, compared to the standard of education globally. The winning entries showed that government schools that implemented the same technology were on par with the private schools!

A few interesting facts, figures and announcements were made:

• The second edition of the Education App guide has been launched, and there are over 100 000+ education apps that are available to use.

• ZA Books have now over 1500 South Africa titles 
• There are great apps that are free on new iPad purchases: iWork productivity apps: Pages, Numbers and Keynote and iLife creativity apps: iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand.
• From Grade R - Grade 12 have submitted entries in this competition.
• There are entries from 32 subjects in the competition.
• 56 schools have submitted entries.
• 783 projects were entered.
• The judges were independent from the schools and the learners.

Donnay Torr announcing the winning entries for
the Curriculum Projects Grade 5-7

I had the privilege to be a judge in the category Curriculum Projects Grade 5-7 with Donnay Torr and Karen Walstra. It was very difficult to decide on the winning entries, because the entries were all very creative and innovative. Luckily we had a list of criteria to measure and compare our marks of the different projects.

Grayston Preparatory School winning entry being shown

The winning entry from Grayston Preparatory School deserves their win!

Congrats to the winners of Curriculum Projects Gr 5-7 >Grayston Preparatory #iPadlearningZA @SAPixi @KarenWalstra pic.twitter.com/teTnxOd5BB
— Karen du Toit (@karentoittoit) November 27, 2013

The iTeacher of the year from Gugulesizwe Primary School (I missed her name, unfortunately!) successfully introduced her learners to using the iPads as a way to introduce English as the language of learning and teaching in the school. 

I am sorry I don't have more information about the other winners and about the learners. I was hoping to find some more information about this competition on the web, but so far it has not been made available.

Congratulations to all the enthusiastic teachers, and especially the creative students! 

The students are showing us that there are no limits on education! 

Give them the tools and technology, and they will embrace it with enthusiasm and with positive results!

Related posts:

- Apple in Education Competition Awards 2013 coming up #AppleinEd

- Apple in Education

Book Creator great for learning and fun

Moshoeshoe Primary School pupil presenting her ebook
created on Book Creator

An app that came up during the visit by Fraser Speirs about the use of iPads in schools, is the Book Creator app. It is one of the apps that is part of a suggested learning set of apps being pre-loaded on mobile labs of iPads in schools in South Africa.

Moshoeshoe Primary School is an example of a school that has implemented iPads in their school through corporate sponsors and iSchoolAfrica. They use Book Creator very creatively in the English Second Language classes.

We also played with the app. It is a lot of fun for own personal use, or maybe for that book you always wanted to write. Little Missy dictated her story to me while I recorded it. I could add the video in the book, and wrote the rest of her story, with photos attached to it. The first book is free, and after that you have to upgrade to create an unlimited number. At $4.99 (about R37) it is not a huge amount.

We will be making more...

The creators of Book Creator picked up on my mentions of Book Creator in previous posts, and asked me to write a guest post.

 

The guest post is here: Book Creator adding to the learning experience in South Africa

Apple in Education Competition Awards 2013 coming up #appleined

The yearly Apple in Education Competition awards is happening at the end of this month. 

I was extremely honoured to be asked to be a judge in one of the categories. 

The aim with these awards is to reward creative use of Apple in teaching and learning!

I was expecting to see great projects, because I have seen the previous year's winners at the Apple in Education Awards, but I was blown away with the creativity! Again!

The venue was at the stunning new iLounge in Juta Street in Braamfontein.

Thr iLounge has a great view of the city with Mandela Bridge.

Each category was judged by 3 people. Each of us sat with all of the projects in a category, and gave our own marks and notes on each of the projects. After that we went through all the projects again, and it was extremely satisfying to see that the individual thoughts concurred to select the best three.

The children in the category Gr 5 - 7 mostly made projects in iMovie, and we had one Keynote presentation to judge as well!  It was so inspiring to see what they are able to do!

I can't wait to see the projects of the final winners in all of the categories! The projects come from schools all over the education spectrum; from government to private schools.

It made me excited again to think that this type of technology are helping - and should be implemented more - to level the educational standard in South Africa!

I wish we could put this in all of our children's hands!


Related posts:

- Why iPads? #iSchoolAfrica

- iPads at Moshoeshoe Primary School - changing the South African education landscape #iSchoolAfrica

- Chosing iPads for your school - Fraser Speirs