Disruptive Technologies

Course site for Disruptive Technologies. Exploring identity, community, & design.

Tag: iPad Weekly Reflection

Final Weekly iPad Reflection

From the first day of CDT450, I have been pondering possible implementation of the theories and technologies that we’ve explored together.

The isolated iPad experience:

The iPad is the most stable tablet on the market. I have been able to increase efficiency in my workflow and decrease the mountain of things that I would normally bring with me. Check out some of my other reflections for the specifics on my favourite features.

The iPad as a baseline technology:

Wow. Here is where the magic happens. Once everyone has the iPad and a similar app vocabulary, the possibilities open up with collaboration enabling features and products. Evernote, which integrates with chrome and other applications, is our go to for collaborative searchable notebooks– better than a shared google doc. Drive is our go to place to dump files for instant sharing and collaboration. AirPlay allows us to move data across our devices efficiently and share our screens with a common display. Stre.am allows us to deliver live video streams. There are other notes on positive changes in collaborative workflow in my other reflections… I mostly discuss Slack. *surprise!* (I’m sure that none of my classmate surprised at all)

The reality:

iPads for every student may not be immediately feasible. In the meantime: I will work to implement cross platform apps that allow us to get by with devices other than those sold at the apple store. Slack, Evernote, Google Apps, Basic video/audio recording are here for us immediately. Things that I’d like to try with students, next semester: delivering a presentation via Stre.am, group presentation outlines and research organization via Evernote, eliminating the need to be in the same room while building presentations via Google Slides, and having group readings/text accessibility via the Kindle app. I am TA’ing a theater history course next semester, so I’m going to pitch these ideas to the professor running the course. He’s been telling everyone to get iPads for ages, so I’m sure that he would be very excited to try new things in class.

Kate’s Personal Reflection

I can say that this has been one of the most remarkable class experiences I’ve had and I am very sad to see it coming to an end. When I signed up for this class I really had no idea what the experience was going to be. I was looking for another class to take that would relate to my other studies but hadn’t made up my mind. When I received an email with the link to this blog, I was intrigued by the type of experimental atmosphere that was alluded to in the course information. As someone who started out skeptical of the positive “disruptions” that technology can have on the classroom, I can say that my view has completely changed. I now see possibilities for communities to form, identities to emerge and be expressed all within well designed environments(both physical and virtual space).

The iPad that served as the featured technology this semester created an interesting platform for exploring community, identity and design.  The way this course was structured allowed me to investigate how I could benefit from the device. I can now say I do 90 percent of my work on the iPad.  Though I still retreat to my laptop for adobe programs, I discovered many apps that could take over this work for small scale projects and I was very happy with the outcome. I recently started using a new note taking app that allows me to highlight and write on any pdf which has been a great find. I have been working with Mindly to map tasks and help me manage work. There are certainly many distractions available with the iPad but turning off notifications can greatly reduce them. It has also helped me manage my emails much more efficiently and I use it for most of my communications. I also used it for lesson planning and presenting material.

There is much to say about the class experience but I would just like to thank everyone for the great journey  and hope that “future people” get to enjoy it as much as I did.

 

 

Weekly iPad reflection — Apps

Since installing and implementing slack, I’ve been looking for an integratabtle task management extension for slack. I want to be able to nest tasks under larger tasks and have progress reporting and a visual representation of statistics related to the progress/users. This would serve anyone who wants the ability to digitize delegation.

Weekly iPad Reflection Chris W.

 

One app that would interesting to see in higher education is an app that shows students how much of their tuition is being wasted if they skip a class or something similar to that. This app’s purpose is to show students the dangers and costs of procrastination. If the students want it could give tips on better ways to allocate their time. The content would be clever and humorous. I’d like to call it CrnchTime.

 

(Late post because I need CrnchTime too)

Kate’s ipad reflection

As an undergraduate I enjoyed studying both art and science. When I look back on what could be added to the iPad that could have enriched my experience I have a few ideas. Two of them center around studying art at a university that is focused on science.
The first would be an app that puts researchers and students/artists in touch with each other allowing students more opportunities to see what is going on in the community as well as correspond and get feedback from researchers and have a greater exchange of ideas. Something that is like a hybrid of yammer, LinkedIn, and possibly something else entirely.
My second and more developed idea is an app called “critiQue”. I recently had the opportunity to participate as a reviewer in an art show for students about ready to graduate high school and enter college most likely to pursue arts. For many of them it was the first time someone other than their teacher, friends, and family had given them feedback. This made me reflect on my experiences and what could be done to help students broaden their ability to receive crucial feedback. One thing I would have like to see would be a social media app that allows others to critique your work and provide you with constructive criticism. Though the critiquing process is sometimes harsh there is no better way to develop your work than by hearing criticism from others. For students especially those at a university like Stony Brook there would be many benefits to this type of app. Most apps are geared to social posting and comments are often from people outside the field who either “like” it or have some other generic “it’s pretty” comment that does not add any valuable discourse. While it is nice to hear people like your work, it does not help someone improve their work. Why is it good or bad? Why do you like it? How could I improve? These are all questions that are asked in isolated classrooms. Why not take this to the larger student artist community rather than waiting for the slim chance of an exhibition where you might have your work displayed and may get a few helpful comments ? It is very important to be able to see your work against the larger community discussion taking place in art across this campus as well as other campuses. In such an app, you could post your work in progress and hear feed back from other art students, faculty and professionals. Constructive comments could be rated to show which ones are most valuable and how many people agree. The initial amount of works you may share would be a small standard amount but would increase as you give feedback to others fostering a discussion between students.

Kate’s iPad reflection

When I heard representatives from apple were coming I didn’t know what to expect. What would they add to this conversation? I was pleasantly surprised with with much of their visit. While much of their discussion on garage band was comprised of things I had already explored, it made me look at the app a second time and find a few new features that I had not yet tried. My main take always were the countless ways keynote can be transformed from just a basic presentation app to something that can be applied to many more dynamic projects. It even has some elements that will help me do mock ups of animations and websites. They also mentioned that keynote projects could be imported into the app “explain everything” and the presentation could be recorded I bought this app and love it. Its main down fall though is that it does not import slide transitions and there is no ability to add them in after importing. My only solution would be recording the presentation and then opening it in iMovie. I also liked the idea that iTunes U could be used to create a portfolio. I would like to explore more of these nontraditional uses for these apps and understand their fundamental capabilities so that I can repurpose them depending on my needs.

One of my biggest revelations was to break out of the notion that a single app has to do everything. I do a lot of animation work and not having an alternative to AfterEffects or something similar so I can do trial animations has been a big drawback. I am used to working with software that does everything but now I am seeing apps more as modules that I can move my work through. I have stopped searching for things like animation apps and instead looking for ones with specific tools such as apps that will cut out sections of images and give transparent areas to the images so I can layer them in another app. This has been successful and I am looking forward to developing a system of use with several free apps as well as Explain Everything, iMovie and GarageBand to animate some of my paintings.

Weekly iPad Reflection Chris W.

About two weeks  ago Apple came to visit our humble class. Here is a short summary of what I learned.

 

Keynote

If you are anything like me you grew up using Microsoft Word and its cousins Excel and PowerPoint. While Keynote cannot replace word or Excel, it does a whole lot more for you than PowerPoint ever could. Adding links to your presentation and accessing links is both easy and smooth.  Creating a dynamic and professional presentation is all at your finger tips. You can even use Keynote to design a UI for apps or make a mock Web page. You can do what you want but if there is ever an option between Keynote and PowerPoint, I’m picking Keynote.

 

Quip

Quip is an app our visitors asked us to use. I did not fall in love with it, but other people seemed to like. Quip made it easier for us to follow along with the lesson plan Apple had for us. Perhaps I need more experience with it to truly appreciate what the app can do.

 

GarageBand

GarageBand  on the iPad is very easy to use. I can see myself spending countless hours making a song for a video using the drum pad interface. I also never realized how easy it was to include a song made on GarageBand in a movie or trailer made in iMovie. In my future YouTube videos I’ll be sure to check out GarageBand before searching the Web for royalty free music.

 

There were other great apps Apple showed us but these are the free that stood out to me. If you have an iOS device give Keynote a try, make a song in GarageBand, make use of Quip. There are so many tutorials online!

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