Here are ten skills that will help you and your students get the most out of their iPads! If your students know how to do these things independently, you will have a lot fewer interruptions during your guided reading/math or during centers.
Update! Here's a Google Slides presentation with these ten tips, including presenter notes.
1. Know what the two buttons do.
You've got two buttons on your iPad. One is rectangular at the top. That's the Power Button. It does a couple of things:
- Turn off the screen (puts the machine in standby mode). This is important so they can look at you, not their iPad! I teach them they should be able to put "pads down, eyes up," in five seconds or less. Or, as one of my first graders declared, "wrap, slap, in your lap."
- Hold the power button down for about three seconds, then slide the switch to trigger iPad shutdown. You should have students do this occasionally because sometimes restarting the iPad will help clear out any waiting updates, but don't store them off because that will limit push downloads from ITD.
The other button is round and at the bottom. This is the Home Button (I affectionately call it the belly button). It also does a couple of things:
- Press to go to the most recent home screen; press again to go back to the first home screen.
- Press and hold to activate Siri.
- Double-tap to see what apps are running (multitasking) and to switch to another app.
- Triple-tap to switch to Guided Access or another setting you select in Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Accessibility Shortcut (at bottom) -> Triple-click.
Some of these, such as inverted colors or grayscale, might be useful for students with learning disabilities.
If you push both the belly button and the Power button at the same time, it takes a screenshot, which is saved in the Photos app, also known as the camera roll.
If you push them at the same time and hold them down for about ten seconds, you can trigger a force-restart.
The switch on the side of the iPad is blocked by the second generation of covers our district has purchased (the kind with the flappy magnetic cover and not the one with the grip on the back). You can get both functions of this switch, mute and lock-screen, by using the control center at the bottom of the screen, which I call "the tray."
The switch on the side of the iPad is blocked by the second generation of covers our district has purchased (the kind with the flappy magnetic cover and not the one with the grip on the back). You can get both functions of this switch, mute and lock-screen, by using the control center at the bottom of the screen, which I call "the tray."
2. Know how to access the tray and what's there.
Unless your students are in a 1:1, they probably won't need the notification center at the top, but the tray at the bottom is crucial, especially:
3. Swipe out of apps not in use or when returning the iPad.
"Log out of Seesaw, double-tap the belly button and swipe out of all apps" has joined my class cleanup patter. This takes some practice for K-1 students, but it helps keep the iPad running smoothly. Note swiping out of an app does not automatically log them out of that app, so they will need to do that as a separate step.
4. Double-tap and swipe to get out of frozen apps.
When we first started using RAZ Kids, it would freeze on us a lot. Teaching this routine to kindergartners has saved lots of headaches during center time!
Unless your students are in a 1:1, they probably won't need the notification center at the top, but the tray at the bottom is crucial, especially:
- troubleshooting wifi issues by turning off wifi for 5 seconds, then back on again
- turning bluetooth on when using bluetooth peripherals such as keyboards or speakers
- resetting AirPlay by turning airplane mode on, then off - they may need to do this several times
- controlling brightness, volume and lock screen
- the alarm/stopwatch/timer - this is wonderful for students to keep track of their own time
The search feature is not in the tray, but you can get to it by swiping down on the home screen instead of up. It shows the most recently and frequently used apps.
3. Swipe out of apps not in use or when returning the iPad.
"Log out of Seesaw, double-tap the belly button and swipe out of all apps" has joined my class cleanup patter. This takes some practice for K-1 students, but it helps keep the iPad running smoothly. Note swiping out of an app does not automatically log them out of that app, so they will need to do that as a separate step.
4. Double-tap and swipe to get out of frozen apps.
When we first started using RAZ Kids, it would freeze on us a lot. Teaching this routine to kindergartners has saved lots of headaches during center time!
5. Allow (or deny) access to the camera, microphone and Photos.
It may happen that somebody at some point ignored a dialog box asking a user if he or she would like to allow access to the camera, microphone or Photos on your iPad. Chances are you do want students using these tools, but if anybody ever accidentally tapped "No," it will present them with a dilemma or sometimes, in the case of the i-Nigma QR code scanning app, a black screen. You can teach them to spot this situation and fix it themselves in Settings -> Privacy. Each tool has allow/disallow toggle switches for each app.
6. Turn on guided access for students who need it.
Guided access lets you lock students into one particular app, or block access to certain aspects of an app. A detailed explanation of how to set up and used Guided Access can be found here. One of my favorite uses of this tool is to set a time limit for students on the iPad. When the timer goes off, it sends them to the lock screen and you must type in a passcode to get back.
7. Turn on assistive touch, aka the "ghost button," and teach students to take screenshots without using the power-belly button combo.
Small fingers often have trouble pressing both buttons correctly to take a screen shot. You can turn on assistive touch (Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Assistive Touch). Once that is on, they can do the "ghost-box-dots-click" 4-tap combo to take a screen shot.
8. Use dictation to speed up typing.
My young students can't spell "aardvark," but they sure can say it. By using the microphone button at the bottom of the iPad keyboard (and making sure wifi is connected), students can voice-dictate their typing. This is more useful than Siri! They can also learn the names of various forms of punctuation this way.
9. Put six apps in the dock (including a button to your library home page).
The ones there by default don't need to be there. You can even drag entire folders there.
While you can't download apps yourself on the student iPads, you can create an app-like link to web pages. In Safari, go to the web page you want, then tap the Save button (an arrow pointing up from a box), then tap "Add to Home Screen" and then the blue "Add."
10. Turn on shake-to-undo.
We call undo "Mr. Uh-Oh." Kids are delighted to discover their iPad has a Mr. Uh-Oh, too. Shake the iPad vigorously to undo the last action or tap. This should be on by default, but you can turn it off in Settings -> Accessibility -> Shake to Undo.
Bonus! Learn what various swipe gestures do.
This is not necessary, but kids often discover them anyway, and they're kind of cool.
It may happen that somebody at some point ignored a dialog box asking a user if he or she would like to allow access to the camera, microphone or Photos on your iPad. Chances are you do want students using these tools, but if anybody ever accidentally tapped "No," it will present them with a dilemma or sometimes, in the case of the i-Nigma QR code scanning app, a black screen. You can teach them to spot this situation and fix it themselves in Settings -> Privacy. Each tool has allow/disallow toggle switches for each app.
6. Turn on guided access for students who need it.
Guided access lets you lock students into one particular app, or block access to certain aspects of an app. A detailed explanation of how to set up and used Guided Access can be found here. One of my favorite uses of this tool is to set a time limit for students on the iPad. When the timer goes off, it sends them to the lock screen and you must type in a passcode to get back.
7. Turn on assistive touch, aka the "ghost button," and teach students to take screenshots without using the power-belly button combo.
Small fingers often have trouble pressing both buttons correctly to take a screen shot. You can turn on assistive touch (Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Assistive Touch). Once that is on, they can do the "ghost-box-dots-click" 4-tap combo to take a screen shot.
8. Use dictation to speed up typing.
My young students can't spell "aardvark," but they sure can say it. By using the microphone button at the bottom of the iPad keyboard (and making sure wifi is connected), students can voice-dictate their typing. This is more useful than Siri! They can also learn the names of various forms of punctuation this way.
9. Put six apps in the dock (including a button to your library home page).
The ones there by default don't need to be there. You can even drag entire folders there.
While you can't download apps yourself on the student iPads, you can create an app-like link to web pages. In Safari, go to the web page you want, then tap the Save button (an arrow pointing up from a box), then tap "Add to Home Screen" and then the blue "Add."
10. Turn on shake-to-undo.
We call undo "Mr. Uh-Oh." Kids are delighted to discover their iPad has a Mr. Uh-Oh, too. Shake the iPad vigorously to undo the last action or tap. This should be on by default, but you can turn it off in Settings -> Accessibility -> Shake to Undo.
Bonus! Learn what various swipe gestures do.
This is not necessary, but kids often discover them anyway, and they're kind of cool.
