Our Apple curriculum training is continuing professional development that's designed to help you make the most of any Apple devices you have in your school. As well as giving your teachers plenty of confidence with new tech before they have to get up in front of a class, it can help with planning how you'll use, manage and develop your Mac or iPad deployment, and help get everyone pulling together before you launch a new initiative.
We offer a huge range of courses from foundation iOS and OS X training, to curriculum-based sessions and even vision and planning for your Apple deployment. I’ve picked out my top five below, but take a look at our catalogue to get an idea of how Apple curriculum training could help you. As a fully-accredited Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE), as well as a former teacher, I can come and deliver training onsite at your school at a time that best suits you. There’s no need to go anywhere or call anyone else in – just get in touch with the team!
This course helps staff get to grips with the core apps for the iPad and how they can introduce the technology effectively into their learning environment. They'll be introduced to the basics, such as gestures and personalisation of the devices, along with use of the Camera, Notes, Safari, iTunes U and iBooks apps, as well as accessibility tools like text-to-speech and guided access. All of the training is hands-on and focuses on teaching and learning. The built-in apps that come with the iPad can be utilised to support students and teachers in the classroom, and it's important that staff realise the potential of these before moving onto third party applications.
Fortunately, third party apps are also included in the course, and you'll be introduced to incredibly powerful tools such as Educreations, which can help flip the classroom and create anytime, anywhere learning opportunities. Other apps such as Showbie are demonstrated, allowing staff to hand out, collect and mark work electronically (including verbal feedback through audio recording) directly on the iPad.
As an ex-teacher, I've found that attending CPD sessions is great but can sometimes be frustrating if you don't get any time to practice and implement the skills gained in the session. This is why I've built in time for participants to plan an activity for their own curriculum during the day. I want all participants to leave the day feeling happy and knowing they have lesson ideas and activities they can implement within their classroom immediately.
Just want half a day training? If you only have the time or resource for half a day's training, I would suggest iPad for Learning. This three hour introductory course is perfect for any staff new to iPad to get an insight into integrating devices into relevant curriculum activities in a classroom setting. It's a great overview of app usage and using iPad as a learning tool, allowing staff to see skills in action and learn how to apply them to their own classroom practice.
Before any institution sets out on a journey, particularly one that could involve huge changes to infrastructure and mindset, it's vital that they ask the question "why?" By asking that question, school leaders can begin to think about the logistics of a rollout, its impact, and policies that will need to be put in place to ensure the successful adoption of the technology across the school and its community.
To help understand why iOS devices are having a huge impact within schools, colleges and universities across the country, the session begins with case studies and hands-on demonstrations of the uses and features of the device. We examine areas of best practice and look at the SAMR model, which helps schools measure the effective use of technology within the classroom to create dynamic and transformational learning environments.
Within the session, we'll discuss current plans and pedagogies and examine how we can use the iPad to support staff, students and parents within the school and beyond. It's also important to think about the impact that this will have on existing plans. Finally, we ensure that at the end of the session a clear plan is formed. This includes how we can communicate all of our ideas, strategies and implementations to staff, pupils and parents clearly as the institution moves forward.
If you're looking to create presentations for new starters, edit lesson plans/schemes of work and update assessment data on your iPad, then you're going to need Keynote, Pages and Numbers for iOS. These apps have been created by Apple to be the most intuitive productivity tools on iOS devices, and knowing how to utilise them in the classroom will have a huge impact on your teaching and learning outcomes.
This course is the ultimate boot camp for teachers who want to squeeze the most out of the incredible functionality that comes with each app. Throughout the workshop, you'll be getting hands-on with these apps to create documents, presentations and spreadsheets so that you can develop an in-depth understanding of what each app can do.
These apps are also incredible teaching and learning tools. We'll look at lesson ideas to help you integrate them into your curriculum, such as the production of learning journals and digital exercise books. We will also explore the workflow linking them to other apps including the camera, web browser and cloud services. Cloud services are a vital part of this workflow, as they will ensure that all work is saved centrally, accessible by staff and ready to be marked and used for assessment or even peer review. To finish off, we'll look at workflow and how to import existing Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets straight on to your iPad so that you have all your existing resources right at your fingertips.
With so much information and digital content available through electronic devices, it can be incredibly difficult for a student to know which resources they can trust. As teachers, it is vital that we provide clear guidance and a framework in our lessons, not only to ensure that pupils have access to the right materials but to guarantee that they can continue their own learning journey at a suitable pace. There's a danger that if we do not provide a clear scaffolding, some pupils may feel left behind while others could feel hindered.
Using iTunes U Course Manager you can avoid these issues, pulling all of your electronic lesson resources together into a single course to ensure every student has a clear understanding of what is expected of them and how they can progress further. By creating this central resource we can give students a logical structure and path, safe in the knowledge they can continue on their learning journey unhindered by distractions and - more importantly - inappropriate content.
In this session, you'll use the iTunes Course Manager and your existing teaching resources to create an iTunes U course based around your curriculum area. We will explore best practices and view existing courses to gain ideas on implementation of courses within our own classrooms. We will look for other resources that already exist within iTunes U, a huge catalogue of educational content that is constantly being updated by educators around the globe. Resources can include lesson plans, activity documents, iBooks, ePublications, videos, podcasts and web links, all of which can be used within your own courses to support individual learners and their learning styles.
Once the course is ready, we'll preview it in the iTunes U app and examine how students will access the materials and hand in completed work for assessment and feedback.
Since the introduction of iBooks on iOS devices, there has been an incredible change in how we interact with written text. As a teacher, I could never have imagined that one day I would have the ability to create a handout for a pupil that included text, images, video, quizzes, interactive graphics and 3D models. With iBooks Author, this is exactly what we can now achieve, and it's free for anyone using Mac OS X.
If you're already thinking that the software to create something like this must be incredibly complex and convoluted, then I'm happy to disappoint you. If you've ever created a Word document or produced a presentation then you'll already be familiar with some of the features of iBooks Author, and by the end of this course you'll have explored all of the features mentioned, as well as addressing some other important considerations.
We will explore multimedia copyright so that you can be sure that you're accessing the right resources and have the legal right to distribute (and even edit) them within your iBook. We will also explore the accessibility features in iBooks that will help you ensure any student can access the learning materials you present to them. We'll create customised glossaries and study cards so that you can show students how to create a personalised learning experience, making notes within the iBook itself and them immediately accessing these and other resources embedded within the app. At the end of the session, you will create an iBook that supports your own curriculum to ensure you have the skills to continue producing materials for your own cohort of students.
Want to know more? Give us a call on 03332 409 306 or email learning@Jigsaw24.com. For all the latest news, follow @Jigsaw24Edu on Twitter or 'Like' us on Facebook.