The test date for electrochemistry will be determined after you guys come back from New York. Enjoy the trip.
Mirror your iPad
How to mirror your ipad on to your TV or overhead projector.
My earlier post showed you how to mirror your iPad or iPhone 4S on a TV or Projector using a VGA cable or composite cable. Another neat way to do this is by using Apple TV. Once you have your apple TV set up you can double click the home button on your iPad, now you will see your app switcher, if you scroll over to your play button you will see your air play icon. Select it and it will give your two options one is iPad and the other is Air play. Select air play and you should now see your iPad mirrored on your TV or projector. You need to be running iOS 5 or higher.
What do you need for this to work?
Hardware
- Apple TV $99/-
- Wireless router – your home network
The inputs on your apple tv are RJ45 for ethernet, HDMI, optical audio, USB and power. So you need a HDMI out from your iPad to connect to your apple TV.
Useful links
iPad in the classroom
Tech in education-for teachers
With the evolution of educational technology and blended learning becoming a method of the present in classroom teaching, it is quite pertinent to integrate the newer technologies into your teaching practice, quite often we get hooked on to the past as it is convenient to work with what we already know, change is difficult. However some of the technologies are quite user friendly and much easier to use than one expects. I am exploring ways of doing this, what intrigued me most was how quickly one can start up your iPad, and the time it takes to open your documents or applications is amazingly less, if you compare it to the time one takes to get your pc up and running, that would be a real long wait. This is big time for me, I dont want to loose class time, usually it takes quite some time as most of you know. This in itself a great convenience for me, as I can have my class in engagment mode right away. But to make all this possible these are some of the contraptions and apps that I have brought and installed.
For the iPad
Hardware
1. A VGA cable for overhead projection from apple $36.99
2. A composite cable for overhead projection with audio $ 79.99 “Can do without this”
3. A stylus $19.99 may be cheaper now
4. If you dont have a composite cable with audio you may need a separate audio system and appropriate output cable
5. Digital overhead projector or an LCD or LED TV
Software
1. ‘Dropbox‘ – Free
2. ‘Keynote’ – $9.99
3. ‘Pages’ – $9.99
4. ‘Note taker’ $4.99
5. ‘iBooks’ – Free
6. ‘Educreations’ for video production of your lessons Free
With the above apps you can easily get going and your life could be a lot easy.
Use of hardware
1. The VGA cable makes it possible to mirror your iPad on an overhead projector or a TV which has a PC input or a composite input or a HDMI if you have the HDMI dongle for iPad. Once your projection system is up, you need the software for your lessons. Just plug the cable into your iPad and connect it into your projector.
Use of software and apps
2. I actually did not create any powerpoints or documents on Key note or Pages, instead I have all my documents made in microsoft office as word, or powerpoint. What I have done is I created an account with dropbox and included all the documents that I want to be available on my iPad in it. Installed the dropbox app on my iPad and synced the files, those files that I wanted offline I made them my favourites, now this will be available all the time.
3. To open my powerpoint I can show the slides directly as is on the overhead from ‘Dropbox’ or if I want to use it as a presentation I can import it into Keynote and save it as a Keynote file. Most of the animations do work right away all it takes is a couple of seconds. So now I have my powerpoint ready to use in Keynote no worries there. The slide show works amazingly.
4. Alternatively if you want to use your documents .doc or .xls or pdf’s there are two options one use the dropbox display as is or import the document into pages, numbers or notetaker if you could save your documents as pdf on your pc and sync it with drop box all your files can be opened in iBooks, this makes it a lot easy as there are no issues with formatting.
Whiteboard
5. Your iPad can also turn into a white board, this can be done using note taker as it has a native video out, use your stylus to do the writing if you try writing with your fingers it may not work very well. Alternatively you can use “Educreations” which is a free app, create your own videos with audio when your have time and just play it; or you can make your videos while you are teaching them and then post the lessons online if you have a website, blog or wiki. That is s real cool tool from my experience. If you create an account with educreations you can upload it to their site and students can access the videos from there too.
Ovrall with all these contraptions you actually spend less time for set up of your class with flexibility in the type of interactive media that you have at minimal cost. Trust me the iPad will go a long way in education in the coming years.
Filed under Apple, iPad, Technology, Technology in Education
Garage band m4a to mp3 on an iPad
How to convert garage band audio to MP3 on an iPad
- Once you create your garage band music on an iPad, export it as iTunes by selecting share.
- After it is exported it should be synced with your iTunes library.
- Now go to apps in iTunes when the iPad is connected to your computer and select garage bands, you should see your music that you created in garage band in the apps in iTunes.
- Next you select the music piece that you created and click save as, the program will ask for a folder to save your piece. At this time your audio file is in m4a format. Select a folder of your choice.
- Now you have to add this file to your iTunes again for syncing, if you have already set up your iTunes for syncing all your music and audio this is not necessary as it will sync all your files automatically the next time you select sync.If not add this file from the menu and sync.
- After syncing you should see your audio file that you created and exported in your music files, where you can play the audio.
- Select the file which is in m4a format and right click it, this will give you the option to save the file as MP3, select and it will create a copy of the file as MP3; you are done, you can delete the m4a file if you don’t need it.
- This is helpful especially if you create an audio with garage band and want to use it as music in your iMovies. iMovies will not let you loop the m4a format. This is the work around.
- Alternatively after exporting the file to iTunes and saving in a folder use audacity and convert it into mp3
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Filed under Apps, Garageband, iPad, iphone, itunes, Technology in Education
Syncing docs with itunes
How to sync pdf files with itunes and print them using air print
Lets say you have “Air Print” enabled iphones or ipads, now you want to print a document which you made in your computer using word, how do you sync it with your iPhone or iPad to take it with you or print as and when you need it.
What I have noticed is that when printing from your iPhone or iPad best results are obtained when pdf files are used. When using a word document to print there may be issues with document formats and fonts changing. So save your document as a pdf file.
Now all you have to do is start itunes, go to add file to library, the dialogue box lets you browse folders to select the document; select the pdf file you want to sync with your iphone or ipad. once that is done sync your iphone or ipad with your computer, if you are using iOS version 5.0.1 you can sync your documents over the air wirelessly .
Once the files are synced your pdf files will appear in your iBooks. Select the document you have synced and you can now print the document with your air print feature.
Alternatively you can email the document the .doc or .pdf file to your self save the document in iBooks and print.
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Filed under Edutech, iPad, iphone, Technology, Technology in Education
Jana Gana Mana turns 100
The national anthem was first performed on 27th December 1911 at the Calcutta session of the Indian national congress.
Composed by Rabindranath Tagore. This is a modern rendition of the national anthem.
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Filed under Chem Talk
Air Print
One of the most important functionality of the iPad is its ability to print documents directly to printers. This function changes the productivity of the device 100% to an educator, or anyone for the matter. The question is what do you need for the air print functionality to work properly.
- First of all you need an airprint compatible printer; there are a number of printers that are compatible with air print, do your research before you buy a printer. If you already have a printer check with the manufacturers website to see if air print functionality has been added, for some printers a firmware upgrade would enhance this functionality.
- You need to have a home wireless network infra structure. The printer and the iPad or iPhone should be connected to the same network; this is important.
- Some wireless routers do not allow air printing functionality, this is because it does not allow “bonjour” functionality. Apple devices use the bonjour functionality for communicating. So if you can change your security settings on your router to allow this functionality your air print enabled printer would be visible on your iPad or iPhone. The security settings of your router does determine this functionality.
- Once all the above factors are met you should be able to print most documents on to your printer wirelessly.
- What I have noticed is, if you need your document not to loose its formatting it is a great idea to export your document as a pdf file and send it to your iPad or iPhone first either as an email attachment or sync it using itunes; then open the document in iBooks and select share-print, select the printer which should be visible in your device, determine the number of copies needed then send the document for printing.
- List of Airprint enabled printers from apple website
- Note: If you are unable to see any Air Print enabled printers on your device – buying apps for printing from the appstore is not going to help you – so do not waste your money
- Router Settings: Make sure the WMM function is enabled, for iphones and ipads to communicate with your router this appears to be necessary. – For dlink this has to be enabled, but air print works very well with the default settings. Linksys has issues when working with Air print. Turning off multicast filtering may help.
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Filed under iPad, Technology
Electrochemistry Test
- Electrochemistry test date is 11 Jan 2012
- We will start organic chemistry 9th January
- Communication assignment – Video project update based on comments and questions
