Arizona Department of Education

Mobile Learning to the Rescue - Superhero HOlding an iPad

Using technology no longer requires sitting at a desk. Laptops, tablets, phones, and the cloud give us mobile superpowers! Students and teachers have a wide-range of tools to help them be creative and productive, and the technology is more accessible than ever. Technology can engage and empower students in the classroom, and can it can help students make the most of their strengths and support their needs. Tony Vincent is your guide as you explore QR codes, accessibility options, apps, extensions, and study aids.

Mobile Learning uses whatever technology is at hand. Using technology no longer requires sitting at a desk. Laptops, tablets, phones, and the cloud have made us mobile. Students and teachers have a wide range of tools to help them be creative and productive, and technology is more accessible than ever. Every individual is different, so it’s great to know that there’s such a large variety of websites and apps that can engage and empower students in and out side of classrooms.

Judith Newman writes To Siri, With Love: How One Boy With Autism Became BFF With Apple’s Siri

Short Web Links

Bitlinks are shortened URLs. Paste a long web address into Bitly.com. Click customize to make the bitlink easier to say out loud and type.

Survey

Take Tony Vincent's Mobile Learning Survey. It was made with Google Forms. Google Forms allows for many question types, including questions with images for the question and choices.

FLIPGRID

Flipgrid.com and the Flipgrid iOS and Android apps facilitate the collection and sharing of video responses. Flipgrid One, which is the free version, enables teachers to set up one Grid with an unlimited number of Topics. You can also have an unlimited number of student responses. Here’s how it works: The teacher (a.k.a. administrator) adds a new Topic within a Grid. The Topic includes a title, description/question, and an optional stimulus video. Students access the Topic through the Topic’s web link or through its unique Response Code. Students can record video within Flipgrid or upload an existing video. Videos in Flipgrid One are limited to 15 or 90 seconds. Students also get to take a photo that will be used as their video’s thumbnail. After a student adds a response, the teacher must approve it before it is publicly visible. With Notify Me turned on in the Grid’s settings, an email will be sent to the administrator each time a new video is added. With it’s ease of use, Flipgrid is being used in education to collect and share things like reflections, reading responses, advice, exit tickets, and reports.

I like that no email is required for students. As long as they have the web link or Response Code, they can participate.
A Grid’s Moderate Responses option can be turned off. When off, student responses are publicly viewable immediately after they are submitted.
Flipgrid offers many settings for your Grid and Topics. For example, you may or may not wish to show the number of likes for each video. You can also set a password that must be entered before users see your Grid.
When you’re no longer accepting responses to a Topic, you can turn on Freeze Topic. The Topic will be viewable, and no one will able to add videos.
Since a response can be an existing video, Flipgrid responses can be created in other apps. Apple Clips, iMovie, Chatterpix Kids, Shadow Puppet Edu, and Adobe Spark Video come to mind.

QR CODES

A QR code helps get students to links quickly. There's no need to type in an address. Instead, the students opens a QR code scanning app (like i-nigma) and points the device's camera at the code. The code is read instantly and if the code contains a web link, it is displayed on the screen (and often opened automatically). You can scan QR codes on Chromebook and laptops with webcams at the-qrcode-generator.com/scan (requires the Chrome or Firefox web browser).

You can create QR codes online for free. A favorite is GoQR.me. Simply choose URL as the Type and then paste or enter a web address. The QR code is an image you can save as PNG or JPEG, and you can use that image in just about any software or app. You can make the code big or small. QRExplore.com has a bulk QR code generator where you can create up to 100 different codes at one time.

The USB label printer Tony Vincent uses is the Brother QL-700. It cuts the stickers for him. The printer does not use ink since it is a thermal printer (but is limited to black, white, and gray, which is just fine for QR code stickers). Brother’s 2.4 inch replacement labels are affordable (less than 2¢ per sticker).

Vocaroo.com provides a simple Record button to record audio in your web browser. Recording uses Flash, so you’ll need to record on Windows, Mac, or Chrome. Don’t worry: saved recordings can be played back on any device. There is no time limit on recording. But the longer you record, the higher the chances something will go wrong with the recording or saving. The best part about Vocaroo is that after saving your recording, you are immediately provided a URL for your recording for instant access online. Not only does Vocaroo give you a URL, it also provides the QR code for your recording. Does Vocaroo sound too good to be true? Well, maybe it is. Vocaroo does not permanently store your recordings. They disappear after a few months. So if you’re planning to use the QR code next semester or next school year, Vocaroo is not the tool for you.

To save recordings until you delete them, you can use Google Drive. Upload your recording your Google Drive. Voice Recorder Online is handy for recording audio in a web browser. Select the file and choose to get the shareable link. By the way, in the Google Drive mobile app, you can click the plus button and choose to record directly into the app. Also worth noting: if your account is Google Apps for Education, you will probably have to adjust the file’s sharing setting to be allowed outside of your domain. Otherwise, students will be forced to log in before viewing your video.

If you want to make a QR code that goes to YouTube video, consider using Watchkin.com. Watchkin does not require a login and does not limit that number of video links you can create. It does not create a QR code, but you can copy a Watchkin link and paste into GoQR.me.

Whether you send students to your own videos or someone else's, I think you’ll find many of the pointers on this page particularly handy.

The Noun Project

The Noun Project has a huge collection of free symbols and icons. You can find clear and simple images to illustrate just about any idea. Downloading from The Noun Project does require a free account, and downloading currently does not work on tablets or smartphones. When you download an icon, choose PNG as that format will work in all software an apps. If you really want to recolor an icon, here are directions.

IOS ACCESSIBLITY

Access many features that can help make an iPad more usable by opening the Setting app, clicking General, and choosing Accessibility. Options that can make an iPad more accessible include Zoom, VoiceOver, Speech, and Guided Access.

You can install third party keyboards that might be helpful for your students. Keyboards include Gboard, Keedogo, Mazec Handwriting, and Text Expander 3. If you install a keyboard app from the App Store, you must then open the Setting app and go to General and select Keyboards. Find the keyboard and enable it. You can then toggle among your enabled keyboard by clicking the Globe icon on each keyboard.

iOS Tips

Chrome Accessibility and Extensions

Turn on Chromebook accessibility features, open Settings, scroll down to Advanced Settings, and then scroll to Accessibility. Check or uncheck the boxes for options that include large mouse cursor, high contrast mode, ChromeVox (spoken feedback), screen magnifier, and tap dragging. You can add more accessibility through Chrome extensions.

Google's Chrome web browser has extensions, which are little programs that add features. If you're logged into Chrome, then your extensions follow you on any computer. Unfortunately extensions don't work on tablets and phones.

Some useful Chrome extensions include:

Screenshots

Taking photos of what's on your screen can helpful, especially when telling others about apps and websites. Each platform has a different way of capturing the screen. How to Take a Screenshot details many different ways to take a screenshot.

Favorite Tools

Adobe has a suite of iPad and online apps called Spark that are designed to make it easy to create media. The apps require logging in with a Google account or with an email account. The online apps can be found at spark.adobe.com and the iPad apps include Spark Post, Spark Page, and Spark Video.

We're sharing out favorite apps and websites using Adobe Spark and posting them to the Padlet wall at padlet.com/tonyv/mobile19. Padlet is a free website for collecting and sharing text, images, videos, and files. The teacher must sign into Padlet to create a wall. You can set the wall so that students do not have to log in (posts are anonymous) or require students to log in. Here are the settings I recommend when creating a new padlet wall:

Input a title.
Input a description.
Choose a grid layout.
School down to Address and change the end of the Padlet's URL if you plan to have students type in the address.
Click Save and Close.
Click Share.
Turn off Remake.
Turn on Moderation so that you can approve posts before they are visible to everyone.
.Click Save and Close
Your new wall is ready to go! Send students to its web address. Click ... and choose Share or Embed to get a QR code.

Tony' Quick Tip: Since you see your Lock Screen or desktop wallpaper each time you wake up your device, it is handy to use that as a place to put things you want to see at a glance, like a schedule, handwritten reminders.

Study Aids and Games

QUIZLET

Enter words and clues to instantly create flashcards, self-tests, and study games on Quizlet. You can search the hundreds of thousands of sets already made and use or adapt them. Quizlet is free to use, but you can upgrade for $25 a year to have the ability to upload images, add voice recordings, and remove ads. Works in the web browser on laptops and as an iPad app and Android app.

PURPOSE GAMES

PurposeGames is a free website where you can make labeling games. Simply upload an image and then label hotspots on that image. When played, you are given the label and must click the correct hotspot. Works in the web browser on laptops, iPads, and tablets.

QUIZIZZ

Play class quiz games with Quizizz.com. Games are self-paced and you can turn off the leaderboard and meme options. There are already lots of quizzes and questions to choose from, or you can create your own. The Quizizz iOS and Android apps have the option to read questions to students.