HEIS Newsletter - November 2013 (Plain Text Version)
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COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY THE TABLET AND iANNOTATE: A GREAT WRITING COMBINATION
Trying to find the right balance of instruction and technology enhancement can be a daily hurdle. There is a plethora of technology available to teachers today, with more on the horizon. There are such an unprecedented number of applications, programs, web sites, and so forth that it can simply numb a teacher to technology integration by the sheer amount of information necessary to be investigated for ease of usage, level of appropriateness, and simple reliability. I have found that my "go to" technology for all levels of writing has become iAnnotate—a downloadable application for tablets. Why a Tablet? Truly, for me, using a tablet over a laptop is for convenience; you don’t have the weight, keyboard, and large charger to worry about as you do with a laptop. I also have the convenience of accessing the documents online, "in the cloud," or downloading them; I don't have to worry about pulling out my tablet for airport security when traveling. With the addition of a stylus, it's all I need to be able to keep up with giving my students feedback on their writing in a timely fashion, even if I'm not in town. Why iAnnotate? The simple answer is ease of usage. The more expanded answer, for me, is its array of functionality, its reliability, and its archivability. Quite a few years ago, I used to use the "track changes" function within the word processing program that my students and I were using for written submissions. The purpose for having them submit everything computer-processed was to get them accustomed to an American-style keyboard and to standard American academic formatting. The benefit for me was the "track changes" function; however, I began to realize throughout the drafting process that students were beginning to "accept my changes" and re-submit the documents as the next draft. This completely defeated the purpose of the process. That's when I began to look for an annotating program that removed the temptation of selecting “accept changes” yet offered the ability for me to give meaningful feedback. After trying a few, I discovered iAnnotate and have been very happy since. Advantages Many classes now have online components built into them, with some classes being completely online. Doug Ward, Associate Professor of Journalism and the Budig Professor of Writing at the University of Kansas, stated, “One of the frustrating things I found in teaching online last semester was the lack of direct contact with students” (2012). He overcame this by using iAnnotate. By using iAnnotate, Dr. Ward was able to add audio comments to his grading and make grading more personal. Additionally, with the syncing capability of iAnnotate with Dropbox, Box, and WebDav, Dr. Ward could easily annotate, comment, sync, and e-mail the documents that his students had sent him. In an article published in The Chronicle of Higher Education (Ward, 2012), you can view a video in which Dr. Ward shows the process. For me, it is important to have a connection with the students because technology tends to introduce a disconnectedness, a removal of the human quality, if you will. Having written and verbal comments available offers a bit of the reintroduction of humanity in what can be a sterile environment. Challenges There are challenges that have to be acknowledged using iAnnotate, though. Some new users are confused as to where the documents are located once they’ve been downloaded to a tablet. Additionally, when converting a presentation, iAnnotate strips the animation; however, it does allow for writing directly on a document while it is being projected. Finally, with larger scanned files and more graphics-intensive scanned files, iAnnotate can take quite a bit of time to move between pages or to zoom in or out. (Kwan, 2013) Finding “work-arounds” to these issues is individual to the specifics of your technology (brand of tablet, speed of connectivity, type of syncing, etc.); therefore, what works for one user may not work for another. Summary No matter how we choose to correct students’ work, the simple reality is that access to technology is continuing to increase, and the ease of usage is becoming more simplified and effortless, both for the teacher and for the student. There is a nice PowerPoint presentation available where Geertsema (2012) explains in detail the advantages and challenges of using an iPad to teach reading and writing, specifically addressing iAnnotate (slides 13–34). No matter which application we choose to use; we always need to keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to make access to the information, suggestions, corrections, and so on useful to the learner so that the outcomes create the best possible results. Resources Following are some helpful guides:
References Geertsema, J. (2012). “Sitting up & taking notes”: Using the iPad for reading and writing. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/CITations/sitting-up-and-taking-notes-using-the-ipad-for-reading-and-writing Kwan, J. Y. (12 November 2013). Posts tagged iAnnotate. The Tablet. Retrieved from http://blog.nus.edu.sg/thetablet/tag/iannotate/ Ward, D. (19 June 2012). Grading with voice on an iPad. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/grading-with-voice-on-an-ipad/40907 Dr. Alan D. Lytle, the teaching director of the Intensive English Language Program at the University of Arkansas - Little Rock, USA, has a background in second and foreign language education (ESL/EFL, German, and French) as well as 25 years of ESL teaching experience at all levels, in academic preparation programs, conversation programs, English for special purposes programs, and topic specific programs. |
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