iPads and Lightspeed at HRC.

Over the last few months, the Junior e-Learning Technologists have been sinking an insane amount of hours into researching how best to bring in – and protect – HRC-bought Apple devices such as iPads and iPods. This was spurred on by a few departments around the college asking about the possibility of receiving iPads for either educational or business purposes.

Whilst purchasing the products in bulk is not too much of an issue, the main problem has been trying to find a way of monitoring and updating the devices without negative obstructions interrupting any usage. It would be almost impossible to take back every iPad in the college each time an application had to be installed: There needed to be a way for both data and software to reach college-owned Apple products, no matter where they were…

‘Animoto for Education’ Service

Unit 1 P3.
– An example of an Animoto video created with the extended time limit.

Animoto has been utilised by staff for quite a while, but sometimes it can be annoying only having thirty seconds to get a student’s message across. Animoto are now allowing teachers the chance to increase the student presentation time limit for free. We recently went through the process with Sophie from BUC to try and understand how the system works.

Though the website recommends setting up new email accounts for the students who want to benefit from the ‘Animoto for Education’ scheme, we found that the process works just as smoothly when students use their current college-given Gmail account. Simply get them to set up their own Animoto log in, and then enter a promotional code to gain that extra minute.

Scribble Maps – Interactive Maps

Scribble Maps is an online tool which allows users to annotate, draw, and add markers to map. Scribble Maps uses Google Maps for its content and then allows us as users to utilise them as we wish.

There are a variety of tools available to customise your map and to make it relevant to you. It will make a great aid to teachers in need of maps that will ‘spice’ their lessons up, and can provide some interactivity with your class.

You can also save and share your maps with others who can then further customise it (with use of a free Scribble Maps account).