Stop Motion on iPhone

One of our Apple Certified technicians was having some fun testing iMotion on his phone to make a stop motion video.  He showed me the video and I asked him if iMotion does all the transitions and text as well.  "No," he said, "that was done in iMovie".  I assumed he put the footage onto his Mac and then made the movie in iMovie.  But, no.  He did the whole thing on iMovie on his phone.  And if you can do this quickly on an iPhone, I'm sure it is an even better experience on an iPad.  Maybe iPads/iPhones are more of a creative tool than I thought.  Hmmmm....

 

iPad and Apple TV

ISP is hosting the Czech Teacher's IT Summit this weekend, which will focus mainly on using iPads in the classroom.  Our network manager connected an Apple TV to the projector in our theater so that the speakers can present using AirPlay on their iPads.  This required a little bit of troubleshooting since the projector did not match the outputs of the Apple TV.

Here is what our setup eventually looked like:

• Apple TV connected via ethernet cable to a wireless router.


• HDMI output through a HDMI to DVI cable connected to projector.


• Optical output connected to digital/analogue converter connected to theater sound system.


• iPad2 connected through AirPlay to Apple TV

Thoughts:

• Wow.  This set up has some serious potential.  The various adapters are a bit of a pain, but the outcome is worth it - being able to view the iPad on the big theater screen.


• Keynote on the iPad is quite nice.  The presentation screens are customizable and can allow you to view next slide as well as notes.


• While we are using this in the theater, I can envision this setup being used in classrooms, offices and conference rooms of various sizes.


• I've never been a fan of Interactive White Boards, and I really can't see how they will survive against the tandem of iPad/Apple TV.

 

 

 

Turntable Trig

Today we experimented with using iPads in a math class.  We had 3 school-owned iPads as well as one brought in by a student.  Students used the Vernier Video Physics app in groups of two or three to review and investigate trig graphs.

[caption id="attachment_320" align="alignleft" width="222" caption="Turntable Graph"][/caption]

Ms. Flaherty first reviewed a couple of math concepts that the students had already  reviewed as part of their homework by watching a YouTube clip.  Then I demonstrated how to use the various tools built into the Video Physics app to plot the points of a sticky note as it travels around a Fisher Price Turntable, and to set the scale and change the location of the origin.  From there, we handed off the iPads to the students and away they went.

Once students plotted the path of the sticky note, and viewed the resulting graph, they then worked through the following prompts:

1.  Find the equation of your curve.


2. How does the equation change as you change the A.) origin, B.) scale?


3. By adjusting the position of the origin and the scale crate a graph that has:  A.) An amplitude of 5  B.) A wave axis of 10

Findings, Thoughts, Reflections:

• Students were engaged in the hands-on learning, and shared the device appropriately around the group so that everyone got a chance to manipulate the data.


• Students are really comfortable with iPads.  They took to the app quickly and were easily able to use the gestures to perform specific tasks within the app.


•  Investigative Math rocks.  I wish that when I was learning math I had had access to the tools that students have today.  Changing different variables and seeing how that affects the output helps students get a better understanding than just working out problems.


• Personal devices are better than school-owned devices.  When the teacher asked students to send her the files this became obvious.  The student who was using his own device easily emailed a few photos to the teacher because his email was already set up in the iPad's system.  Web versions of email (we tried gmail) don't allow attaching files from an iPad because they don't know how to navigate the iPad file system.  The work around is to either attach the ipad to a laptop and use iPhoto (or another photo app on a PC) to pull down the images, or have students enter their email info into the iPad system, send the files, then delete the account before the class ends and their email account and ipad are handed off to another student.