iPads abroad, Part Three: WordPress
Back from a little rest and relaxation, I’m trying to reflect on a 1:1 iPad (1st generation) pilot project. In a recent post, I shared HOW students were utilizing the devices during a science course/trip in Costa Rica. In an another post, I shared some lessons learned (capabilities/limitations) from using the devices with students. Now, I’m trying to reflect on student feedback. There were only six students in the course, so I do not have a lot of data.
I offered students the following prompt in an online survey during out last week in Costa Rica:
Describe what it was like learning to blog with the WordPress app on the iPads. It would be most helpful to know things that are hard to do on the machines. Also, it would be helpful to know suggestions to help me help you.
And, here’s what they (only 4 of 6 responded) had to say….
1. Hard to do fonts, videos.
2. I like it alot but the only confusing thing was how to crop and rotate pictures before putting them on the blog.
3. The WordPress app worked really well although I wish we had time to get used to it before the trip.
4. Blogging is much better than anything we could do on paper. The iPad’s screen size makes it better than one would expect, but it can still get a little cumbersome.
Nothing really earth-shattering there. I was impressed that students took to the app so easily and found work arounds for limitations. For example, some students knew a bit of html code for italics and bold and they taught others who wanted to use those features. As for video, I hear that inserting video is very easy in WordPress with the iPad2 (again, we had 1st generation). Another student figured out you could crop and rotate pictures by rotating the screen view, zooming in on the image, then taking a screenshot. It was helpful to have a keyboard dock when students had to write a lot of text.
Overall, there were not a lot of complaints. Students managed to complete daily travel journal blogs as well as multimedia projects with relative ease. I am amazed at this bird project one young lady produced with an iPad, her digital camera, and a little html code! The students really seemed to appreciate the portability of the devices. Here is one of my favorite images of a student working on a project while half submerged in a hotel pool:
aquablogging
So, are you using WordPress and iPads for student blogging? If so, what issues are you dealing with? Please share! I’m going to try to run a paperless class this coming school year using iPads…
