GradePad App
Well, the answer is really both. I have spent a lot of time lately playing games on this fantastic device (purely in the interests of education you understand!) but it is also a brilliant tool for teachers, especially if your school is kind enough to let you use the wifi (please guys).
I am using the QuickOffice app to create, edit and download documents in Word, Excel and PDF format, there is GradePad software which allows me to assess students on the go – I will be trialling this for real tomorrow as my students do their oral presentations, and you can obviously get emails and search the web. There is even a WordPress app to allow you to update your blog on the go if you have a WordPress blog.
As you can see there is enough there to justify buying one for any teacher interested in technology, but wait, there’s more. I also have a good dictionary on mine and if you were a language teacher the resources are amazing. I have study guides from Schmoop, Cliff notes and LitCharts for texts that I teach. They have great features such as character and theme profiles, summaries of chapters/scenes as well as the ability within the i-pod to copy and paste text into another document so that I can create worksheets etc. They all have author background study and some have the ability to zoom into character maps as well.
I also have mad libs, which every English teacher knows are a great way to cover the basics of parts of speech in a hilarious way. As well as a great grammar quiz and many, many others.
Of course, as the ipod also connects to YouTube, you can view short films on the go too. My next purchase needs to be a small data projector for the ipod!
I am really interested in hearing more about this from other people, so if others have great apps that they have discovered I’d love to hear about them.
