School Library Journal» iPad

With Google Play for Education, Google Promises a Hassle-Free Tablet for K-12, challenging the iPad

Joelle Alcaidinho — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:03:28 +0000

The iPad has been the tablet of choice for schools, thanks to volume purchasing, volume management, and the vast selection of apps. But that may be about to change.

With the recent launch of Google Play for Education, Google is set to challenge the iPad’s dominance. Come Fall 2013, Google will be shaking up the K–12 tablet landscape in a very big way.

It’s easy to see why the iPad has been the default choice for educators. Apple made it hard to resist, with the Apple Volume Purchase Program (VPP) and Mobile Device Management (MDM) tools like Apple Configurator and JAMF Software Casper Suite, which made it possible for schools to buy apps in bulk and manage all of their devices. But if what Google promises comes true, Google Play for Education will be far simpler to deploy and manage.

Piloted at KIPP Bridge Charter School Oakland, CA, and Hillsborough Township (NJ) Public Schools, Google Play for Education will go live for US educational institutions this fall. Details about how it will work are still emerging, but Google confirmed several key aspects of the program. Schools will be able to buy apps in the Google Play for Education store in bulk by using a variety of payment methods including purchase orders. Then, institutions will be able to instantly push these apps to Nexus tablets over the air. Apps can be pushed to individual students or to groups of any size: across classrooms, schools, or even at the district level. Apps deployed this way will appear on the devices without the student or teacher needing to do anything extra, it will “just work.”

At launch, the program will be available exclusively on Nexus tablets, and in order to participate, institutions must be using Google Apps for Education. Google claims that the Nexus devices will be deployable in hours, as opposed to the days typically needed to deploy large numbers of iPads. At press time, there was no confirmation on whether the program would eventually extend to non-Nexus Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy, Samsung Note, Amazon Kindle, or Barnes & Noble Nook tablets.

Regarding the technical expertise required to take advantage of Google Play for Education: Caesar Sungupta Google’s director of product management, Chromebooks stated that the admin panel would be similar to that of Google Apps for EDU and the experience akin to that of deploying Chromebooks with the goal being that the process would be as simple as possible so that it would not necessitate an IT department.

In addition to making purchasing and deploying apps easier in Google Play for Education, Google is seeking to improve the discovery of apps by having a third-party group of educators curate apps along curriculum, grade, and Core Curriculum standards. This pre-selection will also extend to books and video. Books will be available for volume purchase, but there’s no confirmation yet on whether video will also be included.

To learn more about using Nexus tablets in your institutions and about Google Play for Education, sign up here.

How did Apple respond at WWDC on Monday? By not uttering a peep about K–12 or Education and by showing off many exciting new features in OS X and iOS that heavily leverage iCloud. As of now, no word on an iCloud for edu product, which means that most of these exciting new features and services won’t be applicable to K–12, such as iWork on iCloud.

Serving Truth, Justice, and Tighty Whities | The Captain Goes Digital

Daryl Grabarek — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:53:41 +0000

Judging by the enthusiastic reception received by Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers (Scholastic, 2013), released last month, it doesn’t look like the Dav Pilkey-Captain Underpants phenomenon will be waning any time soon. While some teachers bemoan their students’ singular devotion to this under-dressed superhero, they will admit the stories have introduced many a reluctant reader to the pleasures a book can bring. Children now have access to the “First Epic Novel” on the iPad. Will adults consider all the sound effects “enhancements”? Unlikely, but kids will love them.

Fans of Captain Underpants—and of rude, over-the-top humor—are in for a field day: The Adventures of Captain Underpants: The First Epic App (Scholastic; $4.99; Gr 2-6) offers awesome animation and engaging activities. First is the complete Book-O-Rama, here in high resolution and full color. Viewers can read the story or listen to Mike West’s spirited narration with added sound effects and musical accompaniment. Pages aren’t turned per se; a swipe of the screen slides the characters to the next page, or morphs the background into the next setting.

Games, manipulable message boards, and even those flip-o-rama pages found in the books are embedded in appropriate spots. (Readers can choose to engage in these activities or not.) A jump from one page to any other in the text is via a collapsible bar at the bottom of the screen, while a bar at the top allows children to return to the main menu, to select chapters, or to exit to a game. Avatars to help track game progress are easy to create, but with a tap of a button one will be created (and named) for viewers.

Screen shot from The Adventures of Captain Underpants (Pilkey)
©2013 by Dav Pilkey

Activities include hypnotizing Mr. Krupp with the 3-D Hypno-Ring, catching Captain Underpants in the Skate-o-Rama, or slinging underwear at robots and the diabolical Dr. Diaper in an attempt to annihilate them in the Stretch-O-Rama. Beat Box 2000 is a music-making machine; as Captain Underpants flies across the sky, he triggers ka-booms and other, (often uncouth), noises to one of three catchy beats. Users can record their own sounds if they prefer. The games take full advantage of the iPad’s capabilities, requiring the players to tilt and tap their way through various levels using different strategies; plenty of options keep the play fresh.

The app contains “no ads, no social media sharing, no in-app purchasing, no links to outside websites, [and] no location-tracking features.” With access to a full-length story, terrific animation, challenging activities, and loads of irreverent fun, this app will have fans cheering for the 16-year-old “Captain Underpants.”— MaryAnn Karre, West Middle School, Binghamton, New York

Reading Rainbow Partners With National Geographic Kids, Expands App

The Digital Shift — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 17:18:50 +0000

RRKidz has announced that its flagship brand Reading Rainbow is partnering with publisher National Geographic Kids to expand its interactive reading subscription app, available exclusively on the iPad. The company is also expanding its library with a new branded island featuring dozens of books as well as videos hosted and narrated by RRKidz co-founder LeVar Burton. “I promised parents and children that the Reading Rainbow App would continually evolve, and with this major partnership with National Geographic Kids, we deliver on that promise,” Burton says. “With hundreds of books and video field trips in our library, and more being added every week, our App continues to be the best resource for children to develop the love of reading that is so important to their futures.” The “Awesome People Island” will include dozens of new books from National Geographic Kids’ most popular series as well as those from other publishers, plus video field trips about heroes, important historical figures, and everyday people who make a difference—such as a look into the Oval Office, a view of Air Force One, and a visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. In addition, the new island is debuting a new video series titled “I Love My Job Because…” to introduce kids to the world of possibilities of who they can become one day. National Geographic Kids’ contribution to the island will include the Picture the Seasons series of photography books; National Geographic Readers, easy-to-read books about exciting subjects kids care about; and the National Geographic Little Kids Look & Learn series for pre-readers. Additional new books “on the island” will include offerings from publisher Holiday House’s acclaimed historical persons series A Picture Book of…, including such titles as Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Benjamin Franklin. “Reading Rainbow and LeVar Burton have inspired generations of young readers to become passionate about books and reading. With this new app, the next generation of kids will take that passion to the digital world,” says Melina Bellows, executive vice president and chief creative officer of National Geographic Books, Kids and Family. The Reading Rainbow App, which launched last year, features hundreds of fiction and nonfiction books from acclaimed children’s publishers as well as newly produced and classic video field trips. The reading experience is customized to a child’s specific topics of interests and age. Each book in the library can be experienced as either “read on my own” or “read to me,” with voice-over narration by professional actors including Emmy award-winning actor LeVar Burton, Burton was host and executive producer of the original Peabody Award-winning Reading Rainbow PBS television series, which from 1983–2006.

Libraries Use iPads and Apps to Ramp Up Storytime, but Concerns Remain

Hiten Samtani — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:35:16 +0000

A young patron with an iPad at Darien (CT) Library. Photo courtesy of Gretchen Caserotti.

A recent storytime at the Watertown (MA) Free Public Library began, as usual, with a song, followed by a “stand up, sit down” exercise to help the kids settle in. Children read from Don and Audrey Wood’s iconic picture book The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear (Child’s Play, 1990). But then came a digital twist.

Emily Miranda, Watertown’s supervisor of children’s services, passed out 15 iPads. Parents and children huddled close and opened The Three Little Pigs (Nosy Crow), an interactive, musical app, which allows children to physically participate in the story. “The characters have these fantastic British accents,” says Miranda. “It’s really fun to watch the kids blowing their houses down. Their snot’s going everywhere and it’s great!”

Watertown’s experiment with “digital storytime” is part of a larger, nationwide shift toward using apps in children’s library programs for education, entertainment, and involving parents in the learning process. Miranda says that apps such as Mo Willems’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Run This App! (Disney) offer levels of complexity that work for different age groups. They’re also very useful, she says, for “new-to-English families who need to teach their children.”

At Darien (CT) Library, early literacy iPad kits—which include a tablet with preloaded apps and a media literacy kit—are available for checkout. Getting good apps into kids’ hands is the biggest problem for parents and developers alike, says Gretchen Caserotti, Darien’s assistant director for public services, and that’s where libraries could help.

Meanwhile, Kathy Kleckner, a children’s librarian for Dakota County (MN) Libraries, is skeptical. She says that relying on apps for storytelling dilutes the key ingredient in a child’s development: human interaction. Kleckner adds that the benefits—and possible risks—of using apps are not yet well known. “My main concern is the vulnerabilities as [children’s] brains develop,” she says, citing research conducted by Dimitri Christakis, a child development expert at Seattle Children’s Hospital, on the harmful cognitive effects of screen time for kids under five years old. There is also concern about the potential misuse of information collected by the apps, says Judy Nelson, a librarian in the Pierce County Library System in Tacoma, WA.

Dakota County and Pierce County haven’t yet integrated apps into their children’s library programs, partly due to lack of parent interest, Kleckner says. “Truthfully I’ve never been asked about an app—how to use one, what are the good ones. They ask me, ‘what are the good books?’”

But advocates and dissenters alike agreed that apps are here to stay. Nelson says her library will begin curating a list of reputable and age-appropriate apps by 2013. “Whether we like it or not, that genie’s out of the bottle, so we have to manage it effectively,” she says.

Meanwhile, Darien plans to mount iPads in different sections of the children’s library, with apps that correspond to each section. A real impetus here is the Common Core standards. “This notion of informational content will spur a lot more excitement about apps such as NatGeo,” says Caserotti.

At Watertown, which has received an IMLS Science Is Everywhere grant, “the iPads can be useful for a project in which children dissect owl pellets, says Miranda. “iPads can help with finding information. I don’t how many ounces of food an owl needs!”

Global Education Conference: “Apps Galore”

SLJ — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 23:52:16 +0000

Photo by Pixland

The Global Education Conference, held around the clock November 12–16, offered a wide range of sessions by and for educators worldwide. A highlight: “Apps Galore: Top Tools for Global Collaboration (iPad),” in which teachers Ruth Metka, Fran Siracusa, and Jennifer Williams at Country Day School in Largo, FL, recommended apps for school use. The educators incorporated these apps as a part of a Flat Classroom Project—a student-centered, multimodal learning environment—during which their school connected with schools in China, Turkey, and Minnesota.

The trio emphasized that the best way to successfully use apps with young children is to pair a virtual activity with a concrete one. For example, their students mailed painted handprints to other schools, but also used apps to create a videos, maps and presentations to send electronically.

The Tripline app lets kids share animated maps to show and narrate their (virtual) travels by pinning pictures, and adding background music or recordings to the map. Combine with any basic weather app to really let kids feel their destination.

For a really fun video-making experience, they suggested the Puppet Pals app. Kids cut out a picture of themselves using a finger on the iPad, then digitally manipulate the puppet on a background of their choice to create scenes. Try taking pictures of your school, then letting puppet-students give a tour.

The Country Day School teachers recommend two educationally-focused social networking apps with Web 2.0 components, which they felt encouraged participation, offered good teacher control, and were generally safe for classroom use. Neither tool requires kids to have an email address to register. The Edmodo app allows teachers to create groups (for example, for same-age classes at schools in different locations). Schoology is a lot like Edmodo, and kids like it because the interface is similar to Facebook.

Nearpod gives teachers control over the pacing of presentations viewed on the iPad. Slides appear on students’ devices simultaneously, and multimedia and interactive elements keep kids from getting bored with their synchronized viewing experience.

Don’t forget that sometimes the most familiar apps are the most effective, they advised. Skype is a wonderfully versatile tool for connecting live. Just be sure you make clear rules about who gets to talk when — maybe pass around a special “talking stick.” And if you do carry out a global project in your school, be sure to blog about it.

Globaledcon sessions are archived online and can be viewed at anytime—check out presentations on themes ranging from “Expand online professional development for educators with mobile learning” to “The Connected Middle School Student: Fostering Global Collaborations through International Projects.” Presentations on language learning and environmental issues are especially well-represented.

Libraries, Ebooks, and Beyond: Tablets in the Classroom

The Digital Shift — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:27:56 +0000

Looking for ways to get kids excited about using tablets at school? “Put student creativity first,” says Carolyn Foote, a participant in School Library Journal and Library Journal’s “The Digital Shift: Libraries, Ebooks, and Beyond,” an October 17 online event exploring how schools are transitioning from print materials to digital media. Foote is an expert on such things. She recently oversaw a successful 1:1 iPad implementation at Westlake High School in Austin, TX, where she is district head and high school lead librarian. Allowing students creative freedom means giving them a range of great apps to work with—and letting them use other ones, too. Arm them with apps like PaperPort Notes and Explain Everything—and be open-minded when students craft their presentations from Puppet Pals instead of PowerPoint. And what are her main principles for successfully transitioning to digital tools? Personalization, flexibility, and trust, says Foote, one of four panelists in a one-hour session called “Tablets in the Classroom: New Strategies, New Solutions,” moderated by Jeffrey Hastings, an SLJ columnist and librarian at Highlander Way Middle School in Howell, Michigan. Personalization means allowing students to tailor their devices by downloading apps to suit their learning styles—and wallpaper to express their personal styles. Flexibility means letting students hold on to the devices 24/7 and, for a fee, over the summer. It also means librarians loosening up some time-honored rules and teachers stepping out of their “teacher silos” and adapting to change and collaborative learning. Trust means believing that students will take care of the devices and use them educationally, according to Foote. Combined, these factors allow the students “ownership of the iPads in a psychological sense,” says Foote, and a feeling that they “own the learning” as well. Practical example of the iPad in day-to-day use: For homework, teachers send assignments in PDF form, which the students complete by using the apps Notarize and neu.Annotate, also used for grading. At New Canaan (CT) High School, where panel participant Michelle Luhtala is department chair, “most of our students have their own devices,” she says. They are free to bring them in, and other students can borrow from the school’s 10 iPods or 12 iPads. But Luhtala stresses that students having devices does not necessarily mean students using them well: a survey showed that 58 percent of her students hadn’t accessed the library’s ebooks (and her library won AASL School Library Program of the Year in 2010), and 71 percent did not have an ereader on their devices. What to do? While Luhtala embeds instruction in the school’s online learning portal, she stresses that basic go-to strategies like visiting classrooms for 10 minutes to make sure students had the library app can be enormously effective. Unlike Foote, she’s not a fan of loaning devices overnight. “Students do not need ownership,” says Luhtala, and loans can lead to an “app management challenge.” Lisa Perez, Network Library Coordinator for the Chicago Public Schools Department of Libraries, described implementing two grants in several Chicago schools: the “iPads in the Library” program, to support librarians’ research on iPad use and the “VITAL Grant”, focusing on iPads in high schools. While Perez was “jazzed that we won the grant,” she asked, “How do we make it work?” Of course, schools that won the grant had to agree to attend training sessions. But there were organizational challenges, too: how to sync devices and how to handle the fact that so many different grade levels would be using the same devices. Her solution? Color-coding the iPads by using different-colored skins and covers corresponding to age-appropriateness, and establishing “cloned devices within smaller groups. All the iPads have some of the same apps: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote,” she says. “Within that, they’re geared toward more specific grade level topic areas.” And what’s happening in the classroom? IPads level the playing field. “The shy kids were motivated by the iPad to begin to interact with each other in the library, which had great carryover into the classroom,” she says. Her students can bring Nooks home overnight. “Kids feel safe bringing those home,” she says. Like the majority of participants, Julie Bohnenkamp, Director of Technology for Centergrove Community School Corporation in Suburban Indianapolis favors the Apple tablet. “The iPad can be customized to students’ exact skill levels, she says. Bohnenkamp described her process of utilizing a $200,000 DOE grant to bring iPads into schools. She launched her initiative with kindergarteners, special-ed students, ENL classrooms, and high schoolers. The results were pronounced among ENL users: in addition to writing, reading, and speaking English much faster than before, the ENL students were far less withdrawn. Bohnenkamp provided hard data on iPads’ effect on kindergarten behavior: 79 percent of students with iPads completed work on time, compared to 56 percent who did not. 73 percent with iPads were organized and prepared, compared to 45 percent without. And 90 percent of iPad users asked for help when needed, versus 60% without. Additional stats are on the school site, along with Bohnenkamp’s app recommendations for kindergarten and special ed groups. An obvious boon in the digital shift is thousands of dollars of savings in paper costs, not to mention a possible future without scanners: taking a picture of a document and uploading it to Google Docs eliminates the need for a scanner at all, as one panelist noted. Like her fellow panelists, Bohnenkamp sees a huge plus in the iPad’s “increased focus on ‘student created’ projects.” She says, “It’s not just about recall. It’s about creation.”

News Bites: Get Your Students Involved in the Presidential Election with OneVote 2012

Phyllis Levy Mandell — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:48:34 +0000

Mock Election

Your Vote Counts: OneVote 2012 is a student mock election held before the national presidential election. Launched by Channel One News, the program gives young people the opportunity to learn about the electoral process and the issues via interactive content as well as the chance to cast their votes for the next president of the United States from October 22–26. Prior to the election, Channel One News will offer news and other special segments to help teens make informed decisions. Team OneVote, a group of six teens, will act as on-air political commentators and contribute to OneVote on Channel One’s YouTube channel. The site features informative brief videos about issues such as energy, the Latino vote, healthcare, voter ID laws, education, and more. There’s even a lesson plan for teachers to use with their students. Educators are encouraged to get their classes involved. Just print out the ballots, tally them, and submit them to onevote.com by October 26. The results will be broadcast on November 1. And it’s interesting to note that since 1992, OneVote has accurately predicted the result of every presidential election.

The Latino Experience

Culturally relevant: Mamiverse Books, launched by Mamiverse.com, is a digital book resource for Latino parents who want to introduce their children to books that accurately reflect the U.S. Latino experience. The site offers book reviews, author interviews, and feature articles. The site also features recommended picture books and bilingual books as well as books for middle grades and young adults. In conjunction with the launch of this site and National Book Month, there’s also an online pledge, Mamiverse Reads, that commits Latino families to making reading and books a life-long priority. “Studies have shown that reading paves the way for future academic success,” notes Adriana Dominquez, former reviews editor for School Library Journal’s Criticas magazine and executive editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books. “It is essential that we provide families with quality resources that specifically address the needs of Latino parents who want direction on how to incorporate books and reading into their children’s lives.”

App-enings

Borrow ebooks with your Nook: It’s just become easier for Nook users to borrow ebooks and audiobooks from their public and school library. Overdrive recently introduced a free OverDrive Media Console app for Nook. Just visit the Nook store and install the app. With the app, you can locate a library or school nearby and browse or search their ebook collection. Then simply enter a valid library card or school ID and check out and download the title for up to three weeks (or a time period allowed by the library). At the conclusion of the lending period, the title expires.

English proficiency: English language learners can test their proficiency in English with Oxford University Press’s “How Good Is Your English” free app that that can be downloaded from iTunes to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. First, users take a test to determine their reading level, and then they can try a sample chapter with synchronized audio from each of the 30 Oxford Bookworms apps. For those without an Apple device, an online version of the test is available. There’s also a video from Professor Richard Day, chair and co-founder of the Extensive Reading Foundation, in which he explains the benefits of reading in English. “Being able to know your reading level, and to choose stories at that level, is an important first step to enjoying reading in a foreign language, says Verissimo Toste, teacher and teacher trainer in Oxford University Press’s professional development department. “Reading will feel comfortable as students focus on the story and not the language. Comfort and enjoyment will lead students to read more, exposing them to more language, helping them to improve their English.”

Oxford Bookworms apps offer six levels of readers with stories that will appeal to a wide range of readers, such as Sherlock Holmes tales, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, and more. The stories are written or adapted for language learners and include color illustrations and interactive quizzes.

Industry News

Leveled readers: Capstone has launched Capstone Classroom, three leveled reading programs for early readers. “Engage Literacy” features leveled fiction and nonfiction books for K–3 readers that support literacy, language development skills, phonics, and phonemic awareness. “Wonder Reader” is a nonfiction levelled text program for beginning and transitional readers in the content areas of math, science, and social studies. The titles in the “Wonder Words” program feature nonfiction titles that present the first 100 sight words in math, science, and social studies themed titles.