LJ Cog

Posted from my iPad or iPhone - mini-thoughts and understandings about edtech, all aspects of literacy and literacy pedagogy - Cogs drive wheels - wheels move us forward and also backward - tweeted at #edlj by @e_skymac

A way to learn with iPads?

People learn by teaching. So what if you created an avatar, and instead of you taking a test, you have to teach an avatar, and the avatar takes the test? Let’s assume the avatar doesn’t do well. You don’t come back and say "Oh my God, I’m such a moron." You say, "Hmm, what did I do wrong? Let me go back and learn and teach it again." Now you have this avatar which is the personality that you want in a friend, that you’re connected to. Now you’re teaching and learning.
from Why Experts Can't Solve Big Problems - http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679589/why-experts-cant-solve-big-problems

Posterous on its own

(download)

Posterous.com blogs too. I like the large keyboard for young students. I like the easy inclusion of photos. I don't the lack of preview or that location services need to be on for multiple photo uploads. No list tool. No drag and drop, just copy-paste.
Lots of uses for the classroom:
Journaling
Writers workshop
Textual response (I uploaded a pic of a paragraph so I could demonstrate parallelism and asyndenton used by Bradbury)
Visual process recording
Back-flipping
Brainstorming

I like the almost instant publishing, which makes this a tool for collaboration in real-time.

Blogsy in the iPad Classroom

BlogsyI won't pretend that using Blogsy is as simple as claimed.  I have managed to enter this image, reduce it and place it. On the other hand, I followed the directions for the Blogsy bookmarklet and it has not worked. I do enjoy the ability to access image search and Google from within Blogsy. That will probably be the most used application of the app, next to just blogging.  This is a $4.99 app, so I would suggest bargaining for a district license. 

Students need blogs.  Free Google blogs are the best bet when students are 13+.  District Google accounts that include email are the safest way to go.  Even passwords can be monitored.  Younger students (generally below grade 7) should use Posterous private accounts, which the teacher creates. A classroom blog is another way to go. 

How would I use Blogsy?
  1. Responding in blog posts to: a web text, an image, a class discussion, a presentation 
  2. A creative "shoot & write" lesson
  3. Recording a science experiment
  4. Back-flipping a class lesson
  5. Student reading journals (especially nice with Posterous)
  6. Group study and planning sessions (collaboration)
This is not a necessary app, but for schools using the iPad as a 1:1 solution, I would highly recommend it.