**If you are unfamiliar with this project, check out my first post introducing my pilot project with LearnPads and comparing them to iPads. One challenge facing any teacher/building/district with tablets is establishing a workflow. How do I get material to students as well as get it back from them. Often times a cloud storage tool comes into play. Google Drive offers many scripts for creating and monitoring shared folders. This is great for GAFE schools, but what about non-GAFE schools? If you are lucky enough to have the newest version of the iPad, you are able to use AirDrop to quickly distribute work to your students. Furthermore, your students can use AirDrop to send the completed work back to the teacher. The pitfall of this is those schools that have older version of the iPad with no AirDrop. The LearnPad offers a very useful feature called Hand in/Hand out. While my class has been using Dropbox as the hub for our paperless workflow, we have been experimenting more and more with the Hand in/Hand out feature. Hand in/Hand OUt Below is an example of how quick and easy distributing work to students can be using the hand in/hand out feature. During our math class we were learning about number grid puzzles. Below is an example. I modeled a few problems to demonstrate the connection between a puzzle you might do at home with mom/dad and a number grid puzzle. We talked about the number grid being the completed puzzle, but we had to fill in these funny shaped pieces with their missing numbers. After modeling a few, we did some together to practice applying our understanding of patterns on the number grids. My first graders were picking up on this new skill and needed some individual practice to check for understanding. I used the Windows snipping tool to quickly cut out only the puzzle pieces that I wanted from the slide below. Once snipped, I can save them as an image. After I had snipped each number grid puzzle piece, I opened Word and created a new document. I inserted both snipped images into the document and then saved the Word document as a PDF file. I then opened up the LearnPad portal. From my dashboard view, I was able to select the devices that I wanted to send this PDF file for students to complete. This was especially nice since some students were absent. I was able to select only the tablets that were present that day. I clicked on "select a file to send" under the Hand Out option. A box appears to locate the file on your computer. Once you find and select the file, a progress bar is displayed to show the upload progress. In addition, you will see little paper icons shoot to each tablet icon in your dashboard letting you know that those tablets have received the file. A notification pops up on student tablets letting them know they have a new handout. They simply click the notification and the file automatically opens up in the annotation app for my students to annotate. I would love to say that I always have everything printed or saved for students to work on. However, you never know when a teachable moment will arise. Since my students quickly grasped this new skill, I needed a quick informal assessment to determine if anyone was still struggling. Using the snipping tool, Word and the Hand out feature of the LearnPad, I was able to create and distribute an assessment in less than two minutes. One big reason I think the LearnPad stands out above the iPad with the workflow management is that you don't have to buy a brand new tablet to have this feature like you do if you want AirDrop on the iPad. Share This:
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Andrew FenstermakerInstructional Technology Coordinator | Innovation Coach | Google Certified Innovator | Presenter | Blogger | Adjunct @UiowaEducation | Owner @kids_f_i_r_s_t |