The first weekend - AHHHH!

Needless to say, my iPad stayed in my school bag this weekend. I was quite relieved to have my full computer at my disposal. I worked on a Google Sites website for a good chunk of time. I tweaked several pages and embedded new documents, and linked word and PDF documents on seven different pages. It required a lot of HTML tweaking, which is actually doable on an iPad, so long as you have a keyboard. Did I say so long as you have a keyboard? Yes that. SO LONG AS YOU HAVE A KEYBOARD! Why, you ask? AH! Because the keyboard covers up what you are working on if you don't!There is an option to "split" your keyboard in settings. Yeah. Just what I want - a smaller keyboard. Why not just use my phone?

One little bit of iPad impracticality: You cannot right-click on a link to copy its location. Period. With or without a keyboard - that's a huge pain! It would have taken me a lot longer to set up the HTML code without that functionality (see left).

Another thing I worked on was a SlideRocket presentation. You simply can't do that on an iPad. You can VIEW a SlideRocket presentation if you download the free app, but you cannot access you account to create new projects or edit old ones. Actually, you can't even access the embed code.

Here is that presentation:

Apps Acquired:

• None, as in zero (0) - this part is starting to feel like Bridget Jones!

Day 1 - Data, Printers, Spreadsheets

Finishing up My Personal Wellness instruction with the Freshmen. Using iPad to record student preparedness for the lesson. Entries for all 343 students went into a Google Spreadsheet. Entering data into a spreadsheet is a lugubrious process. The only feasible strategy: Turn on  editing for all rows in that class (14-27 students) before they arrive in class, then circulate the room entering each student's information on his/her respective row and click "submit" for each row as you go. It's clumsy, but it beats walking around with a laptop, and it is easier than a phone.

The upside? If we did this for each student for each of the 24 My Personal Wellness lessons, picking one indicator as a measure for performance for each lesson in the unit, we would have an incredibly rich performance baseline for our entire freshman class on a wide range of skills ranging from writing, to following instructions, to web design, to spreadsheet entries, etc.

My iPad is not configured to a printer. I don't know if this is something we have explored at the district level. I put in a work request to address the issue. During class (still MPW project with freshmen), due to ongoing printer issues in the labs, approximately 15% of students were unable to print their bibliographies (created in GDocs via EasyBib). I asked those students to share their work with me so I could print it. Obviously, I had to use a Windows machine for that.

I received an email inquiry for a list of NEAS&C committee members, grouped by standard. The information is  on the NEAS&C website. Each standard's page includes a list of members in four columns, but the request specifically stipulated that the information be delivered in a spreadsheet. On a computer, it was a simple enough task to execute, albeit with a fair amount amount of manipulation - copy names from website,  paste in spreadsheet, drag specific names that dropped into columns 2, 3, and 4 into the first column, then sort each column. But on an iPad, it is a lot more complicated. I considered doing using Google Spreadsheets, but then I remembered that you can't paste across columns. So I tried Numbers, and for just a minute I thought I couldn't paste at all, but then I remembered that you have to paste in the function field, rather than the cell, and, of course, that won't allow you to paste across columns either. I quickly realized that would have  to use a desktop to fulfill the request.

Apps Acquired:

• Outline - OneNote Notebook (someone tweeted this)
• ImagePro - Google Images (was looking for a smiley face emoticon)
• PicSearch - Google Images (but then I dumped it for above)