Every teacher seems to fully acknowledge how quickly and comfortably the average student adopts new technology. The truth is, students learn how to have fun on an iPad pretty quickly, but they don’t always learn how to trouble shoot, be safe, and learn effectively right off the bat. Having a team of students that are well trained in iPad support can help build leadership amongst your students, and will help alleviate the stress on both students and teachers as they learn to adopt this new technology.

Lesson 1: Digital Citizenship (http://bit.ly/Id70kl)

The first conversation you’ll want to have is to be safe and respectful on the iPads. Danny Maas (Co-editor of edapps.ca) shares a great lesson on digital citizenship here.

Lesson 2: Saving iPad Files Through iTunes (http://bit.ly/IH59m6)

One of the hurdles to using iPads in the classroom is getting student created content off of the iPad. A simple solution, if you can train the students to do it, is to use iTunes File Sharing. Read this blog post and watch the video below to help overcome this.

 Lesson 3: Transferring Photos Between iPads (http://bit.ly/IfXTCH)

During collaborative projects, students may be needing to share photos and videos between multiple iPads. Train students how to use the camera connector kit for this neat little trick

 Lesson 4: Connecting The iPad To The SmartBoard/Projector (http://bit.ly/Kk8XsR)

Many teachers want to show or demonstrate something from the iPad through their class projector. If having a few students in the classroom that know what types of cables to use and where they plug in will make this so much easier for your teachers. There is a video here that might not be your exact set up, but it will give you and your iPad Leaders and idea on how it all works

Some Additonal iOS Features To Learn

Accessibility Features (Settings > General > Accessibility) These features can be useful and they can drive you crazy if you don’t understand them. Get the students to explore these two specifically.

  • VoiceOver – If voice over gets turned on, it will drive you mad, and you may not be able to turn it off. Have a few students that know how to turn this off, for sure!
  • Zoom – This uses three finger double-tap gestures to zoom in and out. It makes it easy to show a large group of people small buttons and features on the iPad
There are many more things that iPad leaders can learn – but this will be a solid start for those student iPad Leaders you’re hoping to develop. Good luck, and come back and share any additional ideas, resources and thoughts in the comments below.