Mobile computing

If my students had iPads in hand next year I could:

- ask each student to create and curate a personal blog for posting during class or anytime at school or at home

- this blog would consist of a detailed record and portfolio of the student's work through the year

- this blog would be stored in the cloud, permanent and accessible

- each student would use Google reader to subscribe to and read their classmates' blogs (and any/all news/sports/music/etc content they like)

- upon entering class students would click two buttons to immediately have access to my pre-written agenda and warmup task available online. No boot-up delay, no forgotten warmup due to last-minute hallway fiasco.

- student engagement on warmup task could be stored as their responses on a google form, their sketches uploaded to their blog, etc. This could include requests to review specific material or recap the previous days' lesson.

- when lecture begins student could annotate the pdf file containing the class textbook, even record parts of the lecture.

- during lecture I could use free or cheap 'clicker'-style apps to collect feedback - quick yes/no question and I see only 30% of my students got it right. Oh no!

- forgot binder? Lost worksheet? Its online. Got test back? Key online with rubric. Find your updated grades and spend 3 min writing a blog post regarding your grade trend in this unit.

- exam time. Please open WolframAlpha but nothing else. It's visual style is easy for me to pick up glancing around, so please don't attempt to use I'm.

- student has great question about lightning: does it shoot down from the clouds? I heard back and forth. Google it: this row use wikipedia, this row use howthingswork, this row use YouTube, lets combine and process our results in a few minutes.

- homework tonight is to read the chapter on Momentum in the PhysicsClassroom online. Be sure to work the questions and check your answers as you go. Please leave at least one question from your reading as a comment on my blog post for this week.

- today we'll be learning about position, velocity, and acceleration graphs. I posted a spreadsheet with adjustable graphs on the weblog. Please download it and play around with different values of acceleration to get a feel for how the graphs work.

- I'd like you to watch a YouTube video I found, but let's conserve bandwidth: form groups of four and watch the video one iPad, then discuss.

- please sketch a free- body diagram for this situation and hold it up so I can see it. Ok good hey Rachel could you upload yours to your blog quickly so we can all have a look? Thanks. Now what I like about Rachel's is the precision of the arrows she drew: note that the normal force was shorter because there was a second upward force here. Ok let's all try a new one except this time everybody upload when finished. Part of your hw tonight will be to identify the most accurate ones produced in the next few minutes.

- to start off today Paul is going to give a 5 min Keynote presentation on static friction he prepared last night.

- when you begin today's Lab, choose a group member to act as scribe. He or she will plug into the keyboard doc and record your groups steps and observation. Choose a second group member to do data entry in the spreadsheet program as you collect. Be sure you share these in the cloud before the bell so everyone can access them. I have links to the lab instructions, manuals for the devices we'll be using, and links to good blogs from last years' activity on the course weblog. If nobody wants to be the scribe, choose the member with the lowest battery level so he or she charges up this period.

- please remember to charge up every night. We can make it all day on that charge.

- I added the dates and times for the optional AP review sessions to your calendars next week.

- Norman, let's do meet Thursday at lunch. Here let me invite you in outlook so neither of us forgets.

- oh shoot I did give that back with a checkmark for completion but yes you're right it's labelled missing in my grade book. Let me fix it right now.

- get out your written hw I'm gonna walk around and mark my grade book.

- here's how to make a best fit line to data points in a spreadsheet. I'll place my iPad on the digital presenter so you can see what I'm doing.

- I think this lab works well with some nice background music. Let me draw a name from a hat and the student I draw gets to act as dj with their iPad on the speakers today. Nothing appalling.

- here are some pictures of last years students doing tomorrow's lab. Use these pictures to visualize how you're going to (as a group) setup and perform thte lab accurately in limited time.

- thanks for coming to the gaming club meeting. Download the free 9x9 Go application, find a partner, and i'll show you how to play.

Bedtime. Blogged from my iPad in bed while the kids sleep.

BJP