LAUNCH Pad Tablet Conference October 21st – 5 FREE Tickets for our Readers

I work for a science and technology
center (museum) in Southern California, with the current budget crunch in
education we have seen our outreach programs (museum run programs in schools)
grow. Last year we saw about 200,000 students out at schools compared to
about 75,000 on field trips to the science center. We want to bring these in
school programs up to a technology level that we strive for in the museum. I am
working to bring iPads and projectors to our instructors to use in the
classroom. By using presentation software and also apps such as Heart Pro we
can bring the level of our hands on program up. We also, plan to use the
technology to keep our instructors up to date on programs we are running and
improve all around communication with out staff.

An area of potential software development for students would be in the area of
engineering modeling and simulation. Many of the education apps in the market
focus on younger (elementary) students. Bringing apps to a high school market
that involve engineering (planning, budgeting, testing, building, etc…).
Bringing these concepts into the classroom and helping students become familiar
with the success and failures of working on a project from start to finish can
help prepare students for real world experiences.

Hi Kristin:

We are co-founders of a company called Kakare and building a teacher productivity app called WriteBin.

Each year, schools and teachers spend a large amount of money on paper alone. Thousands of classwork, homework, quizzes, polls, presentations are all printed. They are then copied, handed out, collected and graded. They make it into students binders but are easily lost or disorganized.

WriteBin will automate this. We are providing a digital binder and notebook app that will run on tablets and browsers. With WriteBin, teachers can import, create and project all classwork, homework and curricula. They can distribute work, collect, grade and provide timely feedback. Students can also complete their work on the tablet and submit it for grading. Everything is organized, recorded and replay-able on the tablet and in the cloud for review later.

If this sounds interesting, we would love to hear from you. ( You can drop us a note at “info at kakare dot com or at my email below ).

Thanks

Rafat Alvi
Henry Tominaga

This looks like a very exciting conference!

As the founder of an education software company, I’ve been working with my team to realize some of our ideas about iPads in the classroom. Here is what we believe about iPad use in education:

1. iPads engage students of all ages easily because of the touch UX. We know this. So I think there is potential in delivering visualizations and interactive problem-solvers for math education, packaged inside a game-like experience. And, I agree that there’s also a great opportunity in simulating more advanced math and science, so that kids can explore these areas even if they don’t have the physical equipment.

This is why we built http://www.brainracer.com, a free iPad game for math education. Kids keep coming back to play it, and they solve over 1000 math problems every day in the virtual world we created.

2. More generally, “personal” devices of all kinds — iPads, iPhones, or even just regular cell phones — give us, as educators, a powerful way to communicate individually with each student, in a rich medium that they feel very comfortable with. So, more than just an “engaging experience” that’s one-way (from student to device) we can give feedback and connect students to teachers for individual communication. In the long term, I see this including adaptive learning systems that deliver individualized problems, feedback, and motivation to students.

For now, though, these devices already provide a great platform for two-way communication. That’s why we’ve just built and launched http://www.classpager.com, a simple and easy way for teachers to message their students. Each side manages the communication in the easiest way for them — students send and receive text messages, and teachers manage everything from a simple web app.