iPads as Visualisers

Visualisers can be hugely important in displaying work to students. The iPad can operate exactly as a visualiser can but with added functions that enhance the process further.

Displaying exemplar work to students is a very effective way of getting students to understand what is expected of them. It is far more effective than a simple rubric or set of level descriptors. Students need to see what excellent work looks like and can also learn from mistakes in sample pieces of work.

Using the Apple TV and Airplay (see this guide if you aren’t sure how), students can easily show their work to the rest of the class – this is great for the situation where you want to instantly show someone’s work to the rest of the class – this use has its time and place. However, with a little more planning (seconds really) and teacher control, the iPad can really enhance the sharing of work in a number of ways:

1. Take a photograph of a student’s written work and project on to the board for class discussion/explanation
2. Take a photograph of a student’s written work and annotate it (using Skitch or Keynote for example) to help students understand key points as part of class discussion/explanation
3. Send annotated picture of work to specific students (via Showbie or email) who are struggling with understanding the success criteria of a task
4. Send students the photograph of work and ask them to annotate it (using Skitch or Keynote). They could annotate it in any number of ways to demonstrate an understanding about what is good or weak about an answer. The best example of annotation can then be shared with the rest of the class.
5. Take two photographs of work and drop into a Keynote slide so that they are side-by-side. Project on to the board for students to compare as part of a class explanation/discussion
6. Send the side-by-side pictures to the class (as a Keynote slide sent via Showbie) and get them to annotate the similarities and differences / relative strengths and weaknesses

All of these methods take seconds to do. As with anything, it will take longer the first few times you use them. However, they could easily (and should) become part of your classroom workflow for 1:1 classes where all students have an iPad.

See this article for further reading and examples.