50 GB free on Box.net

For a limited time, Box.net is offering iPad and iPhone users 50GB free online storage.  Box.net is very similar to Dropbox.com, which I know many of you love as much as I do.  There have been other competitors, but Box.net seems to be one of the better alternatives I’ve seen.  It has a free iPad app, and more apps are starting to incorporate Box.net features.  Never hurts to have other options, right?

Here are the details:

http://blog.box.net/2011/10/12/were-giving-ios-users-insane-amounts-of-free-storage-box50gb/

Sharing Bookmarks and Links

Some of you might already be using Diigo for keeping track of bookmarked websites.  If you’re not using it, check out the Education Basic plan – a free service for educators to use with students.  You can highlight text on web pages, add sticky notes with your own comments, or give the web page a summary in your bookmark description.

You can also add these features to your iPad with the Diigo Web Highlighter for Safari.

I’ve started tagging some of my Diigo bookmarks with “bcuedtech” for anyone interested in news from the world of educational technology.  Please feel free to use this tag on bookmarks you want to share.  Any Diigo bookmarks with the bcuedtech tag will show up in the new sidebar widget on the BCU iPad Pilot blog.  You can see all my bookmarks at http://www.diigo.com/user/librarienne.

Are you already on Diigo?  Have any tips or suggestions about using it?

Beware the In-App Purchases

If a young child is playing with your iPad on a regular basis, you might need to turn off In-App Purchases. A recent lawsuit was brought against Apple about the in-app purchases kids have racked up on their parents’ iTunes accounts: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/15/apple-faces-lawsuit-over-in-app-purchases-by-children/

To turn off In-App Purchases, go the iPad’s Settings, General, Restrictions, tap on Enable Restrictions and set a 4-digit PIN. Then slide the button beside In-App Purchases go “off”.

To know if a particular app has in-app purchases, look at it in the ITunes Store, where the left sidebar will have a section for “Top In-App Purchases”.

Apps and ideas from today’s session

All kinds of great ideas and suggestions today!  A very quick but incomplete rundown:

• Student Support Services tried out Doceri this past week – a smartboard-like app for the iPad
• Brenda saw Poll Everywhere used at a conference with tablets and phones
• A couple folks are using Flipboard to keep up with news
• Jay is looking at the iResponse app for in-class quizzes and surveys
• Kelly is using Evernote more and more for note-taking
• A lot of folks are limited in how much they can use the iPad because of wifi access.
• Nancy McGuire has been having fun with the CoolHunting app
• Theresa is using the StatViz app for a class she’s taking from USD
• Heather has been trying out Soundhound for discovering music
• Marian is using Dragon Dictation for voice transcription, but had some problems sharing Google Docs with non-gmail users
• Sam showed us how he’s using iAnnotate PDF to grade student papers
• Some questions came up about how to get student papers from Angel onto the iPad; Sam downloads them onto his computer then moves them to Dropbox, which syncs to his iPad.  Another option is discussed in this Prof Hacker post, which allows students to send files directly to a professor’s Dropbox without having to share folder permissions with everyone in class.
• If I missed something, please add it in the comments!

For Next Week (starting this Thursday):

For our next few meetings, let’s take the opportunity to test out group-based apps while we have an iPad-using group handy.  For example, Todd will be bringing a quizz app to this Thursday’s session and we’ll all test it out from the student perspective while he tests out the results.  Other possibilities could be group annotation, sketching, photo sharing, etc.

This might also be a good time to try out apps you want to demonstrate at the Faculty Institute for the coming Fall.

 

 

Guides to Free iPad Apps

Just in time for some fun weekend reading!  Came across this website with several short guides to free iPad apps, as well as a free PDF with tips on getting started with the iPad.

iPad PDF: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ipad-magical-revolutionary-guide-pdf-guide/

Top 20 Free Apps: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-20-free-apps-ipad/

Four Free Web Browser Apps: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-free-ipad-browsers-replace-mobile-safari/

Three Study Aids for iPad: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/great-study-aides-ipad-users/

Seven Writing Apps: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-apps-ipad-writing-projects/ … To which I would add the .99 app called “Writings” – my favorite for typing notes during meetings or lectures.

 

On another note, the MacWorld website also has a new iPad 2 starter guide, which has a lot of tips that apply to the iPad 1 as well.

 

Angel users: try the PDA icon in the lower left corner.

Using Angel on iPads

I did some experimenting with Angel on the iPad and found that it worked best when the iPad was in portrait orientation (in other words, holding it so the home button is at the bottom).

I also found that some of the navigation links had to be tapped twice to open.  I was able to get into a class, view the lesson materials and calendar.  The syllabus, however, came up with black text on a dark blue background – pretty much unreadable.  Holding the iPad in landscape orientation created the problem that Linda mentioned – no ability to scroll up and down on the page.

Here is a screenshot of my test using Safari – the image links to an album with a few other screenshots.  Atomic could display it in portrait orientation, as well, but tapping any links would open up a new tab.

If you have time.

http://www.tcgeeks.com/        Has a 86 pages of iPad information for those with time and want to read it all.  Tricks, Tips, and App information as well as set up and  what the iPad can do. 

Jay

I found the app “Appstart” to be extremely helpful in suggesting good apps. especially for a non-mac guy.