Tablets: Basics for Education

Tablets: Basics for Education

Keynote vs. PowerPoint:

Similarities:

• Basic Slide Format:  Both of these programs offer a basic formatting for a user's created slides.  Slides are set up surrounding a central theme and color palette, and the format options for slides are your elementary title/subtitle/text/possible options.
• Animation Options:  Each program gives users the ability to customize the way that their text and images enter and leave the screen.  While the animation options themselves may be different, the essential feature is the same.
• Linear Presentation:  While there are some presentation tools out there that allow the user to create a more interactive presentation (Prezi, for example), both of these programs present slides in a standard, linear format.

Differences:

• PowerPoint's User-Friendly Toolbar:  I find that navigation is much easier with PowerPoint.  This could be because I have grown up as a Microsoft kid, but the toolbar with Keynote is very limited, and many of the features are hidden.  The way that PowerPoint's tools are laid out-- separated into themes, tables, charts, smartart, transitions, and animations-- makes it a cinch to figure out.  Keynote is not so self-explanatory.
• Template Quality:  The quality of Keynote's templates are obviously better than the templates that PowerPoint offers.  While PowerPoint templates are generally pretty basic, Keynote offers designs that are more artistic, refined.  There are also more template options that can be downloaded.
• Easy Remote Option:  After creating a Keynote presentation on an iPad, users have the option of pulling up the presentation on a different device, and using their first device-- in this case, their iPad-- as a remote for presentation.  Anyone who has suffered through a class PowerPoint presentation awkwardly standing in the corner of the room by the computer to press the space bar knows that this feature is very useful.

Box:

I uploaded a picture that I took with my iPad to my new Box account:

iThoughts:

iThoughts could be very useful for the classroom.  Especially in classrooms where students are provided with various Apple products, students could use this application to create interactive graphic organizers for many different uses.  Students could use this app to brainstorm before a writing assignment or project, to present research information, or even to map out assignments that are due in each class.  The calendar function allows users to create calendar events for various branches of their organizers.  It is easy to use and manipulate map features, and it would be a great way for students to organize all different types of information.

Rover vs. Safari:

As I first launch the rover application, I notice that the basic set-up is very similar to Safari.  There are tabs with an address bar at the top.  It advertises itself as a safe browser for kids to use.  It filters websites so that inappropriate content is kept from its users.  When a user opens a new tab, the rover app displays quick link options to various educational games and websites for kids.  When I typed in the URL for Facebook, Rover did nothing.  When I typed in the URL for Google, it loaded immediately.  I think that depending on the types of sites that are consistently blocked, this could be a great tool for educators who want to monitor the kinds of sites that their children are accessing on school grounds.