Any college professors using iPad 2?

[iHiggy]

I am a soon to be new iPad 2 owner and was wondering how other college professors use their iPads. I am interested in hearing what apps are good and how you use this apps in conjunction with your PC.

 

[gianz28]

Hmm, you can use docs to go, keynotes, pages, numbers.. You can check them out on the apps store.

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

College professor since 1985 and I agree with the above post....

Now give all my lectures using Keynote...

Tim

 

[iHiggy]

Textbooks

@Tim
Do you put all your textbooks on your iPad? and if so what app do you use and how do you get your etextbook?

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

@Tim
Do you put all your textbooks on your iPad? and if so what app do you use and how do you get your etextbook?

I have PDF copies - so I make them available on the University website for download - so either a laptop or iPad can access them.

I also convert all my lecture presentations (Keynote) into PDF

Tim

 

[Hufn]

I use docstogo for word for my syllabus, excel for my grade book etc... I use iBooks for my texts that I converted into PDF. I have the side switch set to lock rotation so I can walk around class with it. I bought notes plus for handwritten notes. Haven't started using it but as it was on sale for a buck I figured it should work well enough

Overall it is great. I got a skin for the back as I was afraid it would scratch, but don't like it on the screen. The smart cover is good as I can pull it off when I am walking around and put it back on when I'm done. I think it's great overall...

 

[Azvjc]

Not a college professor, but I am a third year doctoral student. I've ripped all of my textbooks to PDF and OCR'd them so I can search them. I use iBook to read and search them for text strings. I still use Microsoft products (mac versions) for all my work.

 

[AJTaliesen]

College professor since 1985 and I agree with the above post....

Now give all my lectures using Keynote...

Tim

in my opinion Keynote is what powerpoint wants to be when it grows up.

For those who haven't used both: from what I can tell, nearly identical programs, except keynote stores it all in the file. Most power point users have had that moment where the come to a slide with an embedded video and the entire class/boardroom is looking at a big black square because powerpoint can't find the video file location.

In keynote it's just stored in the presentation file itself so it travels with it even if you send it to another computer.

Get the projector adapter and one of the little remotes and you can pretty much run all of your lectures right off your ipad.




also you asked about pdf apps. Documents to go might be your best bet as it allows editing. For just reading pdfs, most readers will do it, and plenty of them are free, like ibooks. typically if you email a pdf to yourself, or put it in dropbox (also a free app) you simply hold down on it, or open it and click the little send button and it lists which apps you have installed capable of reading that file and lets you pick which app it will use. Usually that app will remember the file from then on and build it's own library.



I haven't taught for years, although I did go back as a student again last year (just finished). Looking back, I feel like if I had something like this back when I was teaching it would have been a total game changer for how I presented and organized things.

 

[eyeojo]

Just a reminder to be aware of copyright laws: while easy to copy and distribute work now, it is important to ensure it is legal and right to do so.

I use Evernote to organize clinical cases by tagging and categorizing. It is amazing.

I also used it to look at papers, images and video during my poster session at #ARVO.

Will try iPad to projector for the sheer cool factor!

 

[JustinOhio]

Yes there are copyright laws but I'm pretty certain that educational use of copyrighted material has more legal headway...

 

[iHiggy]

Copyright

In the States there are limits on the use copyrighted material even if it is used for education. Posting a PDF copy on the college server for students to copy and use would not be acceptable. Also, e-textbooks are evolving into so much more then just a PDF. They are increasing being embedded with multimedia content and creating a dynamic textbook versus a static one.

 

[Hufn]

For those who haven't used both: from what I can tell, nearly identical programs, except keynote stores it all in the file. Most power point users have had that moment where the come to a slide with an embedded video and the entire class/boardroom is looking at a big black square because powerpoint can't find the video file location.

In keynote it's just stored in the presentation file itself so it travels with it even if you send it to another computer.

Get the projector adapter and one of the little remotes and you can pretty much run all of your lectures right off your ipad.

In ppt you can do the same if you save it as one embedded file. I forget how off the top of my head but it can be done.

 

[hartsfieldl1]

I've only been using the Ipad for a week, but I'm teaching two summer classes, so I'm putting it to use. I've been using the Gradebook EasyGradePro for about 10 years on my Mac laptops, and there's an app called Gradebook Pro that works pretty much the same way, so I've set two classes up on using that.

I've also been using Dropbox and Evernote as well as my iDisk to play with transferring lecture notes from my laptop to the iPad for editing.

I'm trying to learn the fine points of Pages, and so far like it.

I've also been trying Quickoffice, and the Word Processor seems fine, but I've been having trouble getting it to connect to my iDisk, so haven't used it that much. It connects with Google docs and Dropbox just fine.

I've been trying PrintCentral Pro, but I'm not real happy with it--it works, but I'm getting only the page that appears on the iPad screen. I probably just need to tweak the settings.

I'm also doing a great deal of writing using Pages--I find an external keyboard crucial for this. I haven't really worked with putting things in APA or MLA format yet, but I'm guessing it won't be too hard.

I've found it incredibly useful for lectures and writings to have my MacBook open in Safari to use Project Muse or JStor to call up articles or to use Google to get some information and then be able to write with the iPad right next to the MacBook--talk about efficiency and saving time.

Good luck--I'm new too, so I'm following this thread with great interest.
Larry Hartsfield
Professor of English and Environmental Studies
Fort Lewis College
Durango, CO

 

[eyeojo]

Mendeley is a free crop- platform collaborative app that stores and organizes papers. The iOS apps are a little wonky, but overall this is useful for me. Haven't tried Papers

 

[eyeojo]

Cross-platform that is!