Help - how can I upload files into the google drive space?

Teachers at PRACE need to store audio recordings from class in a shared online space. Lately we've been using google drive for this. Sometimes you can upload files directly from your iPad to the "Gdrive". Other times you might save them to USB stick or a folder on your computer.

Here's a video showing how to upload from ordinary computer (windows), into the Gdrive space.

Let us know in the comments below if this seems clear or helpful in any way (or not). It moves pretty fast, you may need to hit the pause button a few times. I was trying to keep this to under a minute of your time.




Oh wow, i just watched that back.. it's so fast. Constant pause required. Is it watch-able at all?


(If you see a big red "Create" button, instead of the big red "New" button, then you're using the old version of google drive. Shouldn't be around for much longer.. they've been 'transitioning' for a year now.)

Sharing files from Quick Voice (..when the free version doesn't let you share)

A few teachers at PRACE have been using the iPad app "Quick Voice" to record students talking. Unfortunately, the free version has a limit on the file size you can share via email (and also via google drive i think).

We experimented a bit, and found that you can get around this by sharing the file
1) firstly share across to a different app known as "Voice Record Pro (VRP)"
2) and then you can "Share .. Open in" google drive.

(This will only work if you have VRP installed on your iPad.)

What do you think.. does it work for you?



By the way, if you're looking for a good audio recording app on the iPad, I've reviewed several and put together a list over here.

What's your best iPad (or android) app for audio recording?

Chris Mooney talks about using the iPads with students

A while back, I asked Chris Mooney how she was experiencing the iPads in her English as a second language (ESL) classroom. She replied that so far, they have already been looking at YouTube videos and information texts, and it's been fun.

In future, Chris would like to find ways to:

• play interactive games on the overhead,
• get the group doing gap-fill (cloze) activities together,
• get into reading information texts as a group.

You can hear the whole one-minute conversation here: 

What about you -

• what have you done with an iPad in your classroom, and 
• what would you like to learn next? 

Let us know in the comments. 


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Photo by Per-Olof Forsberg, CC-BY (creative commons at flickr).

Q&A session at Spring St Campus - many many questions!!

So, the session we had at Spring St was more chaotic than the one we had at Reservoir Neighbourhood House. Again, we started with brainstorming questions, but this time we dived straight into responding before the full list had built up.

06 May at Spring Street

Airdrop - what is it and how does it work?

Much of this session focussed on Airdrop, as many of you wanted to experiment and get hands-on with it. We tested out sending photos and documents from one iPad to another. 

• How do we know what number is our ipad? We did work this out .. it's engraved on the back: 
• Yvonne (29) Nilanthi (30) Catherine (73) Anna (Da Young) Chris Mo (24) Anna B (75) - all working 
• Belinda (31) - her ipad is very very slow
• can we airdrop from google drive?
• answer, possibly yes, but it's a bit complex

Evaluating airdrop as a way to share documents with students in the classroom: 

• NB: airdrop is problematic:
• takes a while and not always responsive - is it because the file size is huge?
• you only get a second or two to accept - this could be trouble in a classroom!!
• you need to work out who has which iPad, and then track who managed to save the document. 
• Can we change the settings to make airdrop last longer?
• seems like NO is the answer to this.

Is there a better way of sharing documents? 

What about this:

Q&A session 3 - apps for English

A few teachers got together at Reservoir Neighbourhood House in May, to explore iPad apps for teaching and learning. This was the second session we had at the RNH.

Apps worth looking at:

• Spell better, 
• Dragon dictate, 
• Google translate - lets you add words by handwriting, 
• Park stories (Link??)

Apps we’re not so sure about:

A few apps got the vote of displeasure because of their hidden cost. There might be a free basic version, but if you want the full app, you could be looking at over $150 for a class set. 

• Sound English (.com) is $13 per app. 
• PB phonics is $7.50 for the full 1-7 activities. 
• obook Library (oxford) has only one free book (“Jack and his Jeep”?)
• speak & translate is $13 
• Farmer’s lunch - he won’t speak

Issues here: 

“You get excited because of the novelty”, but once you’ve tested them out, many apps aren’t that suitable."

Copy a presentation file from iPad to laptop

Faye, one of the amazing teachers at PRACE, got her students to make slide presentations using Keynote on the iPads.

• The students showed their presentations on the big screen with Airplay, 
• and then sent their files to Faye via Airdrop. 

Then we wondered how to get all those presentation files from Faye's iPad to her laptop.

One way to do this is to share the Keynote file with google drive.. you can then get to the files on your laptop or desktop, at drive.google.com in the web browser.

This is the first video screencast I've attempted with only visual cues, no voiceover. What do you think?

• Too fast, too slow? 
• Is it clear, or too obvious?

Many apps on the iPad allow you to share your files somehow, eg:

• via email
• via a cloud storage thing like dropbox, google drive or skydrive (microsoft)
• between different apps.

How could you extend this knowledge to different apps? 

How would you use presentations in class with your students? 

Great session at RNH - many iPad questions!!

We had a terrific session down at the Reservoir Neighbourhood House the other week (21 April).

Four teachers, 4 iPads, 1 windows laptop and one projector.

Here are the questions & topics we started with. So many questions, some still unanswered.

PD register on the google drive, and other forms

• People were having trouble with the PD register, but we found out that Peter has put iPad-friendly link on the intranet. Thanks Peter!! *

The TV and the iPad 

Yes, we do need the appleTV to broadcast to the TV. We're not sure if people at the RNH will have access to an appleTV. So, what are the alternatives?

• A long HDMi cable and an iPad-to-Hdmi adaptor
• or plug the iPad into a data projector using this cable / adaptor option
• Let's find out more about the appleTV option.. Fraser? 

Looking for some teaching suggestions for very low level language and literacy