Today (May 15, 2018) I spent the day at HELP International School for the Apple Innovation Summit 2018.  I finally got to try the Apple stylus and lots of neat little AR apps, including the Merge Cube.

As always, the secret lies in finding “real world” applications for many of these tech tools, turning them from gimmicky to practical and purposeful.  There is definite potential and as innovative teachers we need to be pushing the envelope to take risks, try it out, see what works and what doesn’t, always thinking about the so what? The purpose.

Here are some of my take-aways:

Everyone Can Code links to Apple’s Swift Playgrounds coding platform for elementary students, Apps, Teacher guides and more.

 Dash and Dot  are two super cute robots that you code in blocks through a bluetooth linked app.  Super fun.  I would love to have some for my coding club!

Then there are the AR Apps linked below.  These are perhaps the ones with the coolest “wow” factor – however at this point I see them limited in scope to being purposeful only in specific content areas (and perhaps age groups).

Finally, an awesome quote from Alice Keeler to remind us to get out there and try.

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