Tag Archives: ipad

More Teaching Ideas for the iPad

7 Jan

The Atomic Web Browser app - an iPad alternative to Safari.

I’m excited to start my first full semester with an iPad at hand, ready for use in the classroom. I’ve found some ways to work around the frustrations I encountered in my first attempt to teach with the iPad, so here are some of my new strategies and plans for using the iPad during teaching.

Projecting the Web

I’ve downloaded Atomic Web Browser for 99 cents, which will project web content through the VGA connector. This is a major advantage over Safari for iPad. I also much prefer the tabbed browsing offered by this browser to the page system in Safari, as it’s more convenient both for casual reading and for pre-loading a selection of web pages prior to the start of class and easily switching among them. It also supports multi-touch, which is nice when you’ve become accustomed to that capability elsewhere.

Blackboard on the iPad

Starting up the Blackboard Mobile Learn iPad app.

(Setting aside the variety of problems with Blackboard itself for a moment…) The new Blackboard Mobile Learn app is much improved from its previous versions, which for me were essentially useless. You can do a lot of what you can on the web through the app at this point, so administering your class activities on the move during class time (or from your couch at home) is now much more feasible.

Teaching Writing

The iCardSort app in action.

I’m not teaching a writing course this spring, but I can see how some apps I’ve started using for myself are going to be very helpful in working with students on their projects. For example, iCardSort, a free iPad app, can be used to show students how to brainstorm and organize their ideas for a new project. Outliner (currently $4.99) can be the next step in the process, generating a clear outline for the project that can be easily manipulated. (I use Inspiration for outlining on my laptop, though I may move to something with a better UI sometime soon.)

Using the Outliner app for one of my own research projects.

For the more visually oriented, a mindmapping app like iThoughts HD ($9.99) might be a better option, though I haven’t tried it myself. iThoughts HD will apparently also project through the VGA connector, so an all-class brainstorm session for writing projects or other topics is an exciting possibility. Unlike a whiteboard activity, the iThoughts HD session can be saved as PDF and shared with the class in a more permanent form. (Hmm – I may have to buy this one after all.)

When I do teach writing again, I’m also really looking forward to being able to walk around the computer lab with the iPad and immediately locate and show students examples of things we’re working on. For example, I could go find examples of anecdotal leads in online news stories for a student who’s unsure about how they’re used – without having to borrow the student’s computer or project the example on the classroom screen through the instructor’s station, which would distract everyone from their work.

Demonstrating Multimedia

Another great aspect of having an iPad in the classroom for someone teaching journalism and communication is simply the ability to show students some of the innovative new ways media professionals are preparing content for the iPad. If I hadn’t been able to use an iPad through my university, I’d feel very much left out of this rapidly developing area of the industry. However, I’m happy to be able to demonstrate these new products in class and discuss them knowledgeably with students as someone who keeps up with the field and uses these new products daily. The iPad has been a great asset in this way for me as an instructor.

Memorable Moments with iPad Magazines

10 Sep

A sample magazine shown in the Zinio iPad app.

What moments stand out most in my first few weeks of magazine reading on the iPad?

  • Positioning the iPad carefully against a pillow on my stomach while lying down, then carefully moving a fold of shirt out of the way so the pages wouldn’t hit it when I turned them. Yes. Really. Old habits die hard.
  • Flying immediately to jump pages, rather than getting lost in a jumble of un-numbered ad pages at the back. In the Zinio app, I tap the blue-outlined link to the continuation of the article, and I’m magically there. Ah.
  • Buying digital single copies of magazines I don’t subscribe to, just because I want to see how they look.
  • Trying hard to find digital subscription options for all my favorites, with about 60 percent success.
  • Being annoyed by digital subscriptions that cost more – sometimes far more, even double – than the discounted faculty print edition subscriptions that have spoiled me. (Economist, I’m looking at you.) Come on – help me be greener, without bankrupting me.
  • Wanting to tweet articles from digital replica magazines with no means of doing so easily. If magazines want to replicate the solitary experience of reading print, they’re doing a good job with these digital editions…but I’m used to social reading now, and I miss it when it’s not available.

My transition into digital reading has been an interesting experience, and it’s really just begun! I’m trying to be aware of my physical, psychological and intellectual reactions as I proceed further into the world of digital magazine readership. Have you noticed any side effects or unusual responses in yourself?

Starting Out with the iPad: Reading

25 Aug

It hasn’t transformed my life. But some things are changing.

I got my iPad last week, a few days before the start of classes. I immediately procrastinated on finishing my syllabi by spending the better part of an evening setting it up with apps and files.

I’ll focus in this post on how the iPad has changed my experience as a reader so far, and follow up next week with a post about using the iPad in teaching after I’ve had a few more classes to test it out.

Screenshot of my Pulse setup; these are the first 3 of 20 feeds I've chosen.

News. I set up the slick Pulse app with feeds of local news from my local newspaper, the state news from the Sacramento Bee, investigative stories from California Watch, and a variety of other tech, higher ed, and knitting topics. (Yes, there is such a thing as knitting news.) These feeds, in combination with a perusal of the New York Times, BBC and AP apps, pretty much satisfied my morning news needs.

I experimented the first morning after setting this up by reading the newspaper after completing this iPad news routine, and found in it little I’d missed – the obituaries, letters to the editor, local lifestyle news. And, I can tweet an article from my local paper directly from Pulse without having to go to my browser, find the story (if I can), copy and paste the URL to Twitter, etc.

I am still debating whether I want to continue my newspaper subscription, but probably will out of loyalty to local journalism. That loyalty is still victorious over my desire to be more green. We’ll see how long it wins out.

Magazines. This one is an easier call. My magazine subscriptions are all going digital ASAP. As they expire, I’ll shift them over to the digital versions. I think almost all of my subscriptions are accessible digitally, and since most of them are digital replicas anyway, I don’t feel I’ll miss much besides the weight in my recycle bin. Even those I used to keep around – such as the occasional copy of Yoga Journal for a particular sequence, handy to have in print by the yoga mat – can be more easily stored and located on the iPad, which sits on the floor just as well.

Books. I bought one book on the iPad through the Kindle app. I am a heavy user of my local library, which efficiently brings requested books to my nearest branch. The free use of library books is much more appealing to me than the purchase of digital books from Amazon or Apple (especially for guilty-pleasure fiction I will never re-read). The one book I bought has a library waiting list of 600 people at the moment, so I was willing to spend $8 for the Kindle edition to avoid months of delay.

Using the iPad. I find it comfortable to read on the iPad, despite its weight and backlighting. I like that even with my severe myopia, I can make the text big enough to read without glasses – something I haven’t experienced comfortably since about sixth grade. The only challenge is reading on my dining table, where I have to turn the overhead lights off due to glare on the iPad’s shiny screen. Otherwise, I love having so much reading material on one device.

How has the iPad changed your reading experience? Am I the only one ready to end the print subscriptions, despite a lifelong love of print magazines? Please tell me I’m not the only traitor to the medium out there.

International Magazines on the iPad: Where, When, How Much?

14 May

Photo by Ethan Hein on Flickr.

My iPad should be here any day. I’m looking forward to testing out the magazine apps that have been released. Though I’ve been underwhelmed by demos I’ve seen so far, I think we also have to give the magazine publishers a little credit: after all, the iPad has been available for, oh, a month now? For an industry that’s rather set in its ways, the response of many major magazines within a few months to this new medium has been somewhat remarkable. They have a long way to go to truly innovate with the tablet format, but at least they’ve made a start.

One of the things I’m most interested in for magazines on the iPad is the possibility of greater access to international magazines. I recently wandered the magazine shelves at a bookstore and pondered the variety of English-language publications from abroad that I’d love to buy, but that cost $12-15 for the imported paper editions. It would be fabulous to be able to access many of these on an iPad or similar device for a lower cost than the print edition.

An example: I’m a knitter. I especially like the British knitting magazines for their sense of style. Not that I’m a fashionista, but some of the American knitting magazines seem to be tailored (no pun intended) for an older audience, whereas the British publications I’ve seen include patterns and ideas for younger knitters. One of my favorites – The Knitter – is available at a local big-box bookstore for about $13 per copy. A U.S. subscription would cost over $100/year, which would be save some on the bookstore cover price, but still too pricey for this knitter.

Screenshot of The Knitter magazine, as shown on Zinio's Web-based digital replica.

I investigated on the Web to see if I could get the magazine in an electronic edition for less money. It would seem that an electronic edition of a British magazine could cost me the same as an electronic copy of an American magazine. I found I could buy a digital replica-style subscription to The Knitter via Zinio – a company that assists publishers in creating digital editions – for the grand total of…wait for it…about $100/year.

This makes no sense. Why wouldn’t a publication take advantage of the low cost of digital distribution to build its readership overseas, as well as within its own country? Surely it would make no difference whether a digital-edition reader is in the U.K. or in the U.S. Perhaps there is an advertising angle or other concern that I’m not considering, in which case I hope someone will set me straight in the comments. I have ordered yarn from a British supplier (yes, I am a dedicated knitter!). It would seem advertisers, especially those with online stores, would be happy to reach an international readership.

I’m hoping that magazines around the world will rapidly innovate to create new multimedia products – beyond just digital replicas – and then will make them affordably accessible to global audiences. Not only would doing so make it possible for their magazines to be read more widely, but it would also increase the flow of information around the world, in multiple languages and with a variety of topics, and that’s always a good thing.

The iPad, Magazines, and the Persistent Print Simulacrum

28 Jan

Photo by me. Just imagine that my iPhone is really big. There. An iPad with magazines around it.

I know it’s early yet in the discussion of how print media will adapt for tablet platforms like Apple’s iPad. But one thing I hope will eventually develop for magazines in particular is a movement away from the reliance on a simulacrum of the printed page.

Almost every iPhone app I have that involves prolonged reading of text asks me to flip a “page” with my finger to move on. It’s not the motion that I object to, but rather the notion that my reading on this new platform has to be a simulation of turning paper pages in an actual publication. Do the app developers think so little of us that they imagine we can’t understand any other sort of interface?

No, of course not; and users have easily adapted to the iPhone’s unique set of controls. And now it’s time to start doing some serious reimagining of what print content will look like on a larger touch-enabled platform like the iPad. Magazines, with their emphasis on creative design, can be the leaders in this effort.

We can go beyond just thinking about fitting a paper page’s content onto the screen of the tablet and worrying only about usability. Instead, can we imagine a magazine as something other than ads, departments, columns, a feature well, etc., all pre-ordered for consumption front to back? The manipulable and customizable nature of a magazine on an iPad can go far beyond the print magazine simulacrum.

Maybe the iPad magazine’s table of contents will be like the queue on Hulu that allows viewers to program their own order of video consumption. For fashion magazines, features could be added that allow you to try on models’ clothes, hairstyles and makeup by touching and moving them around atop your own uploaded picture. Ads could be “torn out” with a multi-touch swipe and saved to a portfolio or shopping list (making readers’ responses more measurable at the same time). Recipes, articles and so forth could also be saved and arranged like the photo albums shown in the iPad preview. And I’m sure there are a thousand other ideas even better than those.

I know Conde Nast, Time and others are already working on iPad-specific apps for their magazines. I wonder how they will move beyond the print simulacrum to take full advantage of the tablet. As a magazine fan, I’ll look forward to seeing what they develop, and I hope it’s truly innovative.

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