New OS Downloads

I think it is crazy all these new OS downloads...for schools with many iDevices it seems like this is one of the biggest hiccups--updating to new operating systems.  This is brought on by the new iOS6 that was just released by Apple!  Yet again the public must update their devices!  It seems like these updates are coming every three months now and keeping us hopping when it comes to investing time in getting everything up and running.  I can only hope that Weston teachers have got this down to an art by now and feel for the extra time it takes to get it done!  Someday, I hope to have this same glorious problem!

Major up grades include increased visual maps--there is a flyover arrow in the top right corner that allows you to fly over cities or landmarks!  Could be a great tool for virtual fieldtrips and such!  I can't wait to see how the tilting and angling of the device changes the view of the cities and such!  What about SIRI?  Boy I love the idea of this feature.  Someday when I have an iPhone or such this will be a lot of fun to use!  No more thumb typing for me!  Can't wait!  And Facetime--works over phone lines as well!  If we weren't already connected before we will be now!  And finally, the Accessibility app is really coming along with adaptations for special needs people in our world!  What a great way to help students focus on one app by being able to eliminate the home row stuff!

So, with that I would like to share one last thing that makes iDevices a good thing--dragon dictation!  My son is really seeing the benefits of this in his English class---with his iTouch he reads his paper into the app and emails it to himself!  What is awesome is you get to choose the format-word, pdf, or pages-for the email!  This makes transferring so easy for us.  Once he emails it to himself, he opens the document, saves it to a flash drive, and edits it at school while everyone else is wasting a class period typing!  I am glad that Levi had both the initiative and bravery to ask his English teacher if he could do this and it has prompted a discussion with the Superintendent about BYOD, and ultimately resulted in me being asked to prepare a little presentation on this for both the new HS principal and School Board!  This is all thanks to the movers and shakers of this world!  So, thank-you to all you movers and shakers!  You are empowering so many of us to make a change in the world--no matter how trivial it is!  In this case we are utilizing our class time much more efficiently and making up for the lack of keyboarding skills training!  Yeah You!