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Getting Started with the iPad: Teaching

2 Sep

A slide from this morning's class on the 2Screens app.

Update: I’ve written a newer post about teaching with the iPad, if you’re interested in seeing how some of my later experiments worked out.

My first effort to teach using the iPad wasn’t entirely voluntary. The DVI-to-VGA adapter for my MacBook Pro failed, and because I couldn’t get a new one in time for my class this morning, I spent a frantic 45 minutes before class buying two new apps, tweaking my morning lecture to be compatible, and testing connections to be sure everything would work.

So, my complete list of technology employed in this morning’s class?

MacBook Pro, iClicker base and USB cable, iClicker instructor remote, iPad with dock-to-VGA adapter, 2Screens iPad app, iPhone with Bluetooth activated, 2Screens Remote iPhone app.

Whew! I arrived to class 15 minutes early to hook it all up.

This list of technology is not really what I anticipated when I first planned to teach using the iPad. I thought it would be pretty seamless: make my Keynote presentation with embedded videos, animation, etc., as usual; sync it to the iPad; connect it to the projector, and go, with my iPhone as the remote.

I forgot a couple of major issues along the way, though, and didn’t know some other key facts. The biggest drawback I wish I’d known is that the iPad doesn’t simply project whatever is on the screen. Only apps that have that capability will project. You can’t project items purchased from iTunes (thanks, Apple!). Apparently the YouTube and Netflix apps do project, but I haven’t tried them myself yet.

An obvious and class-specific problem: I use iClickers in this large class of 120 students to take attendance, give quizzes, and do participation activities. I can’t connect the iClicker receiver base to the iPad (no USB port and no compatibility). Therefore, the laptop still has to go to class with me anyway.

Also, I have iWork ’08 on my MacBook. The iPad version of Keynote only accepts files saved with Keynote ’09. This means I have to request an upgrade from my tech support folks. In the short term (very short, this morning), I have to export my Keynote file to PDF (losing all the video, transitions and animations), then flip through the PDF using an app called 2Screens.

2Screens ($4.99) is not bad. There’s very little explanation in the help menus or website about how to use it, but once you muddle through, you can show a PDF or PowerPoint file easily. It didn’t like my Keynote file this morning, and I’m still trying to figure out why (it may be too large). You can also draw on the slide, and your doodles project on the screen.

A screenshot of the 2Screens Remote app on my iPhone.

The 2Screens Remote app ($2.99) for the iPhone worked well for me via Bluetooth. There’s no preview of the next slide, which is annoying when you’re in the back of a lecture hall and wonder what’s coming up next, but a positive factor is that the Bluetooth connection still functions from that distance. Connecting via Bluetooth was easy – probably easier than the routine I hear that Apple’s Remote app requires over wifi, when you’re on a secure campus network.

My overall presentation experience was a little rough. I have also read online that Keynote on the iPad doesn’t even save all the characteristics created in the full version of Keynote, which may be a frustration even once I get upgraded to iWork ’09.

For some presentations, I could get by with the combination of tools I tried today, but for classes or other times I’m using lots of media, the iPad may not cut it yet.

On other fronts, I’ve had more success. I am enamored with the Attendance app ($3.99; suggested to me by Marcus O’Donnell), and am about to start using it not just for taking roll, but also for tracking group participation and selecting random students to harass, I mean question, in class. It creates groups for you as well based on imported CSV files (e.g., what Blackboard will export from your roster). I’m going to test that function this weekend now that add/drop is over.

A marked-up reading I assigned to some independent study students.

I’ve also had a great time using iAnnotate ($9.99) as a PDF reader and note-taker. I love being able to read, highlight, underline and create notes right in the app. These features have already saved me over 100 pages of printing this semester, helping me justify the app’s cost.

Three of my "notebooks" in the Chapters app.

Finally, for various other purposes, I’m finding the Chapters app ($3.99) extremely useful. I have a “notebook” for each of a couple of committees I’m on, one for class prep notes for my graduate seminar, one as a personal workout log, and so on. It’s cleanly designed and functional. I like that it dates each entry, but you can change dates to be past or future, so I can plan future classes and enter notes in advance. (Mismatched dates would drive me nuts.) I am thrilled to move toward paperless class sessions and committee meetings.

Gee Ekachai also pointed me to this resource for academics wanting to use the iPad productively, created by a professor at Marquette. There are some great tips there.

Have you found other ways to integrate the iPad into your teaching? Have solutions to my problems? I’d love to hear about them.

Resources for Grad Students

25 Aug
kid to do list, list, Be happy and go home

Ah, for the days when our to-do lists were so simple. From Carissa Rogers on Flickr.

I originally posted this on the course site for my Introduction to Graduate Studies in Mass Communication class, but thought I’d cross-post here as many who visit this site are likely interested in some of these resources as well. These are all books, software, and tools I discussed with my students on the first night of class. If you have other resources I should add, let me know in the comments!

Grad School and Academic Life

To-Do and Project Management

Time Management

Reference Management

Writing Tools

Higher Education News and Job Listings

Academic Job Search Resources

Miscellaneous

“The Branded Professor”

22 Jun

Photo by c__ on Flickr.

I recently had the opportunity to provide a guest blog post for the University of Venus, a blog focused on the concerns of Generation X women in higher education. I addressed an issue I’ve written about briefly here before: the increasing use of branding terminology both in the classroom and for academics themselves. I’m crossposting here and hope to see more discussion of these issues. Let me know what you think in the comments!

As a relatively new tenure-track professor in journalism and media, I teach students skills and critical thinking for a profession that is in a state of redefinition. One of the ways journalism educators are trying to increase their students’ job opportunities is by encouraging them to develop a “personal brand,” through which they establish themselves as a rising professional with a unique voice and style. They then publicize that personal brand through multimedia blogging and social media, in hopes of impressing prospective employers with their initiative and distinctive qualities.

I do think that this is an important strategy for my students, and I feel I’d do them a disservice not to discuss it with them and help them to establish themselves professionally online. This semester, I required students in my introductory media writing class to get involved with Twitter and also to set up individual blogs. I hope that those who excel in their online work will have opportunities to find jobs in their desired profession, and will be better situated to compete with students from larger, better-known programs. It seems unfair to not help them position themselves for their futures in this way.

I have struggled a bit with the implications of this approach, however. What does it mean to encourage my students to think of themselves as brands? I emphasized to them in class that they must be authentic and honest in their online writing and self-presentation, and that they had to prioritize their sense of personal integrity and ethics above all else. They could not be someone online who they weren’t in the real world. But still, the frighteningly corporate language of branding permeated the discussion.

As a faculty member in this field, I have also felt a need to “brand myself,” especially in these turbulent budgetary times. Not only do I want to shape a coherent public and scholarly identity, but I want to remain current with the changing norms of media and journalism practice, and so I practice what I preach to my students. I also have a blog and a Twitter account, and I focus these on professionally relevant topics – usually on changes in the magazine industry and the role of journalism in communities, which are also two of my research interests. However, these topics are not always organically arising creations of my soul, if you will. As an undergraduate English major and a lapsed poet, I am torn between desires to produce work that is professionally oriented and to create work that is more expressive of my experiences and emotions.

As a result of these conflicts, I identified with Mary Churchill’s recent UVenus post asking whether we as faculty are “merely playing the game[,] or have we become the game?” I am tentatively feeling my way through the challenges of equipping my students for a world where some degree of “playing the game” seems necessary, even for the chance to enter into such a potentially game-disrupting occupation as journalism. I also want to continue to use the online world to build my own public communication skills and engage in discussions of my field of study and my profession.

I think that this kind of engagement, through social media and other communication opportunities, is critical for someone who wants not only to teach about important societal issues in the classroom, but also to contribute to change on a larger scale. Attempting to establish myself online as someone with a voice and some expertise in my field gives me a bigger platform from which to speak.

Unlike my students, though, I have no one to remind me to remain true to myself and to monitor the integrity of what I do and say. That responsibility falls to me alone.

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