Imagine this with me.... You are in the middle of an amazing lesson and you decide to turn on your Apple TV to Airplay the most awesome student work you've ever laid your eyes on. You turn the projector on and it happens. A bunch of movie titles appear before you can get your iPad connected. From the back of the room you hear a student say "Are we watching a movie today?" or another student says "Suicide Squad! I love that movie." And then the discussion starts about which movie was best and who has seen what. Now, you spend the next few moments reigning them back in to the lesson. If you have an Apple TV in your room, this or something similar has probably happened to you at one point or another. There is a way to prevent this derailment from your amazing lesson plans. Let me introduce you to the Conference Room setting. The Conference Room Setting allows you to set a static picture to be displayed when you turn your Apple TV on. Yay! No more distracting and/or inappropriate movies to disrupt your class. When you turn on the Conference Room Setting, you select the picture you want displayed and then restart the Apple TV. When the Apple TV turns back on, you will see the picture you selected along with information about how to connect to your specific Apple TV. For specific directions on setting this up for your Apple TV, watch the video below.
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Be excited people! You can now collaborate on a document with others in the Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps for both iOS and Mac. Yes, I know, Google has been doing it forever, right? Well, the key difference here is that now students can collaborate within the Pages platform that has endless opportunities for creating. Have you tried to work with images or videos in Google Docs? If so, then you know the frustration of not being able to get that image exactly where you want it. So yes, being able to collaborate within Pages, Numbers, and Keynote platforms is a big deal! However there are some things to think about before getting started. Follow the steps below BEFORE you try using collaborative documents with your students to save yourself some headaches. 1. You must be updated to iOS 10 on your iPad or MacOS Sierra on your Mac. Update, update, update. I feel like I say it all the time but if you want to use this awesome new tool, you really need to update your devices. Not sure if you are updated? If you need help updating check out these link from Apple support: iOS 10 Update or MacOS Sierra Update. 2. Update to the current versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps. Check your App updates in the App store. Make sure Pages, Numbers, and Keynote don't need to be updated. You will not be able to see the collaboration tools in the older versions of these apps. 3. You must be signed in to iCloud and use iCloud Drive. The collaboration tools in these apps, uses your iCloud account and iCloud Drive must be turned on. You can find this in settings under "iCloud". 4. Within each of the apps, you must enable the use of iCloud. In settings, go to each of the Apple apps you want to collaborate in and make sure the "Use iCloud" option is switched on. The upside of this is that all of your documents will be saved to iCloud and accessible on any of your devices. The downside is if you have lots and lots of documents in these three apps, it will use up your 5GB of free storage in a hurry. You may have to upgrade your iCloud storage. 6. Share your document! Sharing your document is very easy. Click on the new and improved "More Tools" button in the top right corner of your Pages screen and select "Collaborate with Others". Then you choose how you want to send your invitation. I like to send via email because our students don't have access to iMessage or Twitter. If I copied the link which is a great way to share, I would then have to email it to the person I'm sharing with anyway. 7. Create something awesome together!
Yes, it seems like a lot of steps when I list them all out like this but, the setup process is totally worth it. The possibilities are endless when you are creating together in Pages. You have all of the awesome features of Pages combined with the power of collaboration. The 8th graders in Mrs. Hamlin's Social Studies class loved working with the collaborative documents. They liked the way they could both be working on it at once so they weren't just sitting around waiting for one partner to do all the work. They say two heads are better than one. What will you create together? |
This blog is a collaborative effort between the Technology Coaches at the Palmyra R-I School District and the Knox County R-I School District. We are passionate about integrating technology into the classroom and hope we can inspire others to engage their students with technology.
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