Much has been said about the iPad is a revolutionary device for education. There are even educational conferences that are dedicated to their use. About a year ago, after the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs, 60 Minutes ran a story about how you are using the iPad as an assistive technology with students with autism. This piece was eye opening for many - that showed the potential of this device as an assistive technology and how it can change the learning of students with disabilities or difficulties.
Meaghan Roper, a junior at Burlington High School, shares a similar story with the iPad. When Meaghan was six years old, he was diagnosed with a visual impairment. In eighth grade, he began to notice a decrease in vision. She sought to delay surgery to repair or vision impairment, while successful, the procedure was not maintained for long.
The following year, Meaghan entered Burlington High School as a freshman. It was decided that I would have a laptop with software programs for assistance to help with their visual disability. She read all your books on this laptop and was able to use various functions in Microsoft Word. She had her scanned and printed teaching documents in large fonts. Meaghan also used an audio book reader for some of their classes. In short, I had to be aware and competent in many technologies and applications to keep up with their studies in all classes. All this changed in the beginning of his second year - the year that Burlington High School launched its 1: iPad 1 initiative.
A transformative experience
Meaghan recalls his early days with the iPad and how she and her link discovered the variety of new opportunities that this device has. One of the first things she used was the ability to invert the colors of the screen. The iPad offers users the opportunity to read the predominantly black text on a lighter screen, or invert the colors and overlay white text on a black screen. This feature, Meaghan recalls, was "transformative" in learning what the iPad could offer their educational experience.
Besides color inversion, Meaghan uses the VoiceOver function that will read the selected text on the screen, and the zoom feature that requires a double tap three fingers.
Beyond the simple flip of a switch in the accessibility options, Meaghan soon found many new opportunities for learning in this device. In the past, she would have to get all your teachers expanded and reissued brochures. Obviously, this was a long time and took lots of paper. A typical one-page flyer on average would be four to five pages of large print before Meaghan could work with him. With the iPad, you can take a screenshot of the PDF file to their teachers embed in your web pages or shared via Google Drive or Dropbox, and simply pinch the screen to zoom. She also uses the camera app to take pictures of the notes or the duties of teachers on the board so you can pinch zoom to see clearly each letter. She says that this approach is not only more efficient, but also has helped organize their school work more effectively. In addition, their schoolwork is offline visible and accessible in a single device that is "much lighter than a laptop."
Apps for every need
In operation Meaghan everyday of the iPad, which uses several applications to manage their content. It does not take her too many apps to get through the school day. She is grateful that, along with the transition to iPad, Burlington also married suite Google Apps for Education with this device. She is easy to access Google Docs from multiple devices and knowing that their work will always be safe, secure and not dependent on the functionality of a machine.
Any photo or screenshot you take can be easily uploaded to the cloud through Google Drive app for iPad. This eliminates the process of having to email a Word document yourself, download it to a machine (which hopefully has a corresponding version of the Word), and then edit. . . and then repeat this process for each document. With Google Apps and Google Drive Suite application, Meaghan is able to move everything you need without problems throughout your day without the cumbersome process associated with Microsoft Office documents.
When Meaghan has to annotate a document and return the profit margin of a master, it will use the free app PaperPort Notes (Formerly Noterize). This application lets you easily access documents from their teachers, download this application, therefore organize, annotate and present for review. The whole process, he says, "has made me a more organized student" and she does not feel like you are falling behind in any of his classes because of his vision.
For texts that are required reading for class, Meaghan uses an application called Read 2 Go, which allows a single application download and access a wide variety of books through Bookshare. She can listen to these books, the control of visual enhancements, background colors and highlight options as you read along.
In Geometry, Meaghan is easily continue with a visual theme using Join.me. This application allows your Geometry teacher, Ms. Palmer, to share your computer screen projected directly on the iPad Meaghan. Meaghan can pinch and zoom in real time as Mrs. Palmer presents the material to the class SmartBoad. This application, Meaghan attests, "has really improved my experience in geometry class. Geometry is a very visual subject, and have this app on my iPad has given me the opportunity to keep up and see the geometry more clearly."
Overall, Meaghan refers to the iPad as a device of transformation in their learning experience. While many discussions which device is better, or if the technology is really necessary, I ask you to reflect on what you just read. Meaghan's story is by no means limited. Many students benefit from assistive technology on a daily basis; However, some people never get to experience iPad. I am not writing this as a step for Apple, but merely indicates that the incorporation of a thousand iPads at Burlington High School has transformed the learning experience Meaghan Roper. And that's enough to give thanks for this device in our school right.
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