by Greg Anslow, DLCoach at Aldergrove Community Secondary School
We have a set of 30 iPad mini’s at ACSS in Aldergrove that we use exclusively for Math and Science. As there are many students and teachers in this department, we have found that organizing apps into special folders is very, very important . Arranging apps alphabetically is NOT the way to go. And 10 pages of apps on an iPad is horrible!
Our iPads are only 16GB, but we have ~170 apps on them, and for an efficient class, everyone needs to find and access those apps as quickly as possible. Here are some simple strategies that we have used, and then read-on to see all 170 apps listed in each folder, their memory, some description, and how to find them at the app store!
App Organization Advice:
A-Only use 2 pages of Apps on the whole machine!
B-The first page should be general apps that all teachers and classes can use.
C-Put the most important 5 apps are on the dock at the bottom of the home screen.
D-The second page should have the “subject specific” Apps.
E-Explain to the students that the “Teacher Folder” is the forbidden folder! This folder contains all the apps that students will never use. The iPad police are watching!
F-Keep the homescreen a dark color, so the “grey” folders are all easy to see.
G-Try to limit the number of apps that do the same thing (unless very small memory) For example, how many white board apps do you really need?
H-Pick small memory apps over large memory apps. For example, word vs pages or numbers vs excel or keynote vs powerpoint
TWO NOTES:
1- I have all of these on our iPads, because we are still testing them out, but if I delete “word, numbers and powerpoint”, then I gain 1GB of memory
2- Apps on your iPad always use 20-30% more memory above what the App Store claims.
App Collections/Descriptions:
• Greg's '170 apps' that we use on our iPads at ACSS for math and science, with links of how to get them!
• For the MOST amazing collection of Apps available from the App store, this is the place to go and it even has sorting by alphabet and categories: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/genre/ios-photo-video/id6008?mt=8
It is amazing what an App can do:
Meme, made on the iPad with some of the Photo Editing Apps . This was made from a simple still picture taken of 3 grade 10 students in my classroom on Halloween. |