Get the most out of the Apple devices in your classroom! Our district now has numerous iPads and iPods available for classroom use, especially at the elementary level. Now, our job as teachers is to put the devices in the hands of the students and help maximize their learning! iPad usage will be maximized when we can have students using their devices for production more often than consumption.
Apple recently rolled out an update to their operating system with iOS 11 and with it came some great new features that can be used in the classroom. Here are 4 new features that you and your students may find useful, as well as some other changes you may notice.
1. Scan QR Codes with the Camera App:
1. Scan QR Codes with the Camera App:
There are many QR code reader apps available for download, but now there’s no need to worry about finding one or whether it will work when you need it to. With the new iOS 11 update, the camera app will act as a QR code reader. All students need to do is open the camera app and point the camera at the QR code. The camera app will scan the code and provide a notification to access the content.
2. Record Your iPad Screen
This is a quick and easy way to have students document their learning on an iPad. We have a wide range of apps available that students can use to explain, analyze, describe, and/or draw what they are learning. Now they can also use the record feature to record their screen and voice too. Recorded videos will be saved right to the Photo app and can then be shared! This is also a great feature for those teachers who are incorporating flipped learning into the classroom. If you need help adding the record feature to the control panel, check out the video below!
3. Annotate screenshots
If a student is working in an app and has completed something to share with the teacher, he/she can take a screenshot and annotate over the image. A screenshot can be taken by pressing the home button and the power button simultaneously. Then when students click on the screenshot, which appears in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, a menu pops up with writing/drawing tools. Students can mark-up the image and then share with the teacher, including through Google Drive.
4. Scan Documents and Annotate
With iOS 11, you and your students can now scan documents with the built in Notes app and can then use the markup feature to annotate over what’s been scanned. Worksheets, graphic organizers, and other documents can be scanned by students using the iPad and then they can annotate over the document to complete their work. The scanned documents can be shared with other apps and with the teacher, which would be a great fit for those using Google Classroom in conjunction with the iPads!
Additional changes you may notice with iOS 11 include a floating dock for frequently used apps, augmented reality capabilities (with recently released apps), ability to use a split screen, and drag & drop for pictures, text, and links.
Check out this 4 minute video to see some of these new features in action:
If you need any help accessing these new features, please ask! Have you noticed anything new with iOS 11 that you really like or something you don't? Leave a comment and let us know!
I finally got iOS 11on our iPods and am disappointed. Tim Henry and I have been playing with augmented reality apps for his chemistry units (chemistry 4D) and once I updated the iPod, it stopped working.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, since the automatic updates don't work on iPods and I manually update them, we had 12 that were being super cranky and refusing to update. The app still worked on them. (Thank goodness Tim's activity was a group activity).
I also had some issues with the stop motion app (not letting kids create new videos) shortly after the update, but it's been better in the past few days.
I hear your frustration! At the elementary level, we had a bunch of the iPads start updating in the middle of a teacher's lesson. Sometimes the initial roll out of an update (especially one this big) doesn't go as planned. I know they've already released updates for the update to fix some of the bugs. I also think some of the apps themselves need to play catch-up to keep up with the new version of the iOS. Glad you were able to stick with it. If there's anything we can do to help, let us know!
DeleteThese are wonderful! I love that I can scan a worksheet and post it right to my Google classroom as a PDF. I'm also glad we don't have to have a QR app anymore.
ReplyDeleteThese are definitely two of my favorite new features! Definitely a great way to make the devices themselves more productive! Thanks for posting!
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