Teach and Learn with Apple

This resource highlights the tools and resources available from Apple Education:

• Get an overview of the wide range of education apps, books and courses available from iTunes U.

• Discover accessibility features you can use to differentiate for a range of student learning styles and levels.

• Learn how to use iTunes U to create and manage iPad-based learning for your students.

Visit the Teachers page on the Apple Education website for a selection of tips, stories and other useful materials for teachers.

What you’ll need

About iPads

The portability of iPads makes them a flexible learning tool. For general use information, download the iPad user guide for your iOS version.

About Macs

Mac desktop or laptop computers run on the OS X operating system. Macs are suitable for working in more complex apps that require processing or larger amounts of data.

Display iPad content on a large screen

You and your students can mirror your iPad or Mac screen contents for the whole class to see on an interactive whiteboard, projector screen or high definition TV (HDTV).

To do this wirelessly:

• purchase a subscription to AirServer, or

• purchase an Apple TV device and use AirPlay to mirror an iOS device’s screen to a projector or HDTV.

Support

Visit the Apple education support page to learn about the Apple School Manager, which can help you manage your school’s devices, apps and accounts and for other support information.

Apps allow students to become creators of digital media as well as consumers of it. Apps can be used by individual students, for whole class activities, or to enhance your productivity.

Find iPad apps

• View a short summary of each of the pre-installed apps

• From the App store, browse apps listed in the Education category

• From iTunes, open iTunes U and open the ‘Learning for Every Grade’ collection to browse apps sorted into different levels of schooling and subject areas.

The ‘Classroom’ app

Use Apple’s Classroom app during a lesson to do the following things on all iPads simultaneously or on selected students’ iPads:

• view students’ screens in real time

• launch a website or app and share documents

• lock iPads into a single app (useful if they’re taking a test on their iPad or to help them stay focused on a set task)

• instantly lock and unlock iPad home screens to restrict/enable their use.

Use the App Store from within OS X to download apps.

• With iBooks Author (free) you can create interactive multi-touch books which can be viewed on Macs and iPads. You can easily insert interactive images, image galleries, scrolling sidebars, 3D objects, pop-overs and other HTML widgets into these books.

• Pro apps have powerful features which give students full creative control of their projects. Examples include Final Cut Pro X for video editing or Logic Pro X for music production.

One location for Apple’s digital resources

Use iTunes U to download resources for your students or to further your professional development.

Resource types

• iBooks are digital books, made for reading on iPads or Macs.

• iBooks textbooks are books created in iBooks Author - a free, Mac only app. They can incorporate videos, photo galleries, interactive 3D objects and chapter reviews. Students can highlight text, take notes, search for content and access definitions in the glossary. You can also access iBooks and iBooks textbooks from the iBooks app.

• Courses can incorporate a range of rich learning materials. Sort courses by grade level, subject, or alignment to the Australian Curriculum. Find units of work created by Australian schools and professional learning courses.

• Videos, lectures and podcasts are also available.

How to find resources on iTunes U

The For Educators category is the best place for teachers to start. It’s been curated by Australian educators and mapped to the Australian Curriculum. Browse the various collections to find a wide range of resource types relevant to teaching and learning.

Resources by Apple

The Apple Education website can help you get the best out of Apple hardware and apps and contains resources to help students learn to code in Swift - a programming language for developing apps.

App-related

• Tools for teachers - app suggestions for teacher productivity and to use with your students

• Lesson ideas – for specific apps including apps suitable for real world learning and apps that allow students to show what they know

• Tools for Formative Assessment – apps you can use to monitor and assess students’ progress

• Learning at Every Grade – apps sorted into different levels of schooling and subject areas

• Education collections – apps sorted into different subject areas

Books

• 'One Best Thing' book collection – a series of free Multi-Touch books by Apple Distinguished Educators that contain units of work, lesson plans and best practice ideas for integrating Apple products into the classroom.

• Multi-touch books by Field of mars Environmental Education Centre – 6 free third party books about nature.

• Common Sense Media iBooks – support your teaching of digital citizenship.

Support all students with the accessibility features Apple offers. Accessibility features can benefit a diverse range of learning profiles, such as young students or those learning English as a second language. They can also be used to scaffold literacy tasks.

You can take advantage of these features to ensure every student is appropriately supported and challenged, including those with disabilities.

Read these accessibility tips for teachers for ideas that can benefit a wide range of students.

OS X

Visit the OS X accessibility and OS X for special education pages.

iOS

Visit the iOS Accessibility and iOS for special education pages. Many of the OS X accessibility features are available, as well as some iOS specific ones.

• Accessibility app suggestions – in iTunes U, sorted by different needs.

• Getting Started: Apple Technology for Diverse Learners (PDF, 9.5MB) – the last chapter gives examples of specific student profiles with ideas how accessibility tools could be used to support their specific strengths and weaknesses.

• Is Apple transforming special education? Assessing the efficacy of the iPad as an assistive technology for students – a research paper assessing recent research on the use of iPads in schools to support a range of students.

• Apple Technology: Uniquely Equipped to Let Every Student Succeed (PDF, 1MB) – a quick guide on assistive technologies for special education. It incorporates an ‘accessibility at a glance’ table which maps special needs to the accessibility features of OS X and iOS.

• Creating Inclusive Learning Environments – by Apple Distinguished Educators. This course includes tutorials in a range of accessibility tools and Universal Design for Learning.

• Accessibility Features for iPad – this course gives information about using built in iOS features and apps. It also lists other iTunes U courses related to special education.

• Special education app suggestions – in iTunes U, sorted into categories such as ‘communication’ and ‘dyslexia.’

With iTunes U you can build tailor-made courses and units of work.

• You can create and deliver iPad-based lessons, distribute and mark student work and engage in group or one-on-one discussions within your course.

• All your teaching resources and planning are stored in one easy-to-access place.

• Incorporate iTunes resources into your course, or create your own.

• Once you’ve published a course, students have immediate access to all the materials, instructions, due dates, and grading information.

• You can duplicate your course and send it to your colleagues, who can use the course immediately with their class or modify it to suit their needs.

• Begin by opening the iTunes U app on an Apple device, or use the web-based iTunes U course manager portal.

Notes for Windows users

Visit the iTunes U section of the Education Support page and look for the ‘Publish your content on iTunes U’ link to download iTunes U course guidelines.

Library

The ‘My Courses’ section contains all the courses you have created or subscribed to. Click on the ‘Instructor’ section to create a new course or view and edit courses you’ve created. The posts, discussions, students and materials related to each course are also displayed in this section.

Course

Within a course, the ‘Info’ section gives an overview of the course content. The ‘Posts’ section contains the lesson sequence and may incorporate assignments and links to apps and other content. Students can create their own notes in the ‘Notes’ section, while the ‘Materials’ section lists all apps and digital resources used within the course.

• Use the integrated gradebook and homework hand-in features to see when a student has viewed an assignment, has completed their work, or to send them a reminder.

• Submitted projects are all organised in one place, making them easy to review and saving you from marking a stack of books.

• Add instructions or comments to PDFs with built-in annotation tools

• Send private messages to personalise instruction by giving students individual help and feedback. Or use group discussions so that every student can contribute to and see a conversation.

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