Now that we have low-cost, powerful tools, mobile technology and digital content, how can educators help students use mobile technology to gather news in their coursework?

 

With an iPad and few simple digital tools, educators can turn the classroom into an engaging and interactive learning environment for teaching news literacy.

“Today, people are so used to having everything at their fingertips,” says Keith Mountin, systems engineer for Apple Education at Apple Inc., who presented a digital tools workshop at the “Educating for Social Change: Become Informed and Engaged” news literacy conference hosted by Truman College earlier this year.

Considering that 96.2% of the world’s population has access to mobile technology, teaching methodologies are trending toward instantaneous, Mountin says. “They must be interactive and cannot be boring text on paper.”

To connect your iPad to a projector, all you need to get started is an:

• iPad;
• Apple TV  (about $100); and
• iPad adapter that allows you to connect to a traditional projector.

[EducatorsTechnology.com has an informative article on “3 ways to display an iPad screen on a projector” that explains how to do this with Apple TV, as well as other methods if you don’t have Apple TV.]

During the workshop, Mountin shared a number of educational apps, digital tools and iPad settings that can help teachers engage their students in news literacy education through mobile technology. Here’a few:

• Nearpod: This tool allows educators to structure lessons in an app, store the content in the cloud and solicit interactivity from the audience. Students can take interactive quizzes and follow along presentations with the teacher for a personalized learning experience.
• Keynote: This free app reads and creates digital presentations on an iPad.
• USA Today Mobile Apps. This is a free app useful for teaching current events with plenty of media and video embedded.
• CNN.com using Reader mode within the Safari browser.  When you’re on an article page, simply click on the small button with parallel lines (on top left of the URL field)  to activate the “Reader” mode. This will make the ads go away for educational purposes and to hand out files in PDF format. Using Reader, students can also have text read aloud and highlight key words as they read along.
• Speak Selection. In your iPad general settings, select “accessibility” and turn on the “Speak Selection. Highlight the “on and off” toggle to enable the speak function when text is highlighted.
• iAnnotate. Mark up and annotate news articles as a PDF file from your tablet for a paperless, digital workflow in the classroom.
• AirSketch. This tool is an interactive whiteboard for wireless lessons and presentations.
• Socrative. This app is a student response system that allows teachers to engage with students through online quizzes and exercises via tablet.
• Box. Last but not least, Box provides 50 free gigs of storage space —great for keeping students presentations and other classroom materials.

Let’s hear it!

Have an educational app or news app that you can’t teach without? Let us know what’s working in your classroom!

Categories: Good to Know, News & Updates, Tips for Teachers