iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Companies are starting to flock to Snapchat.

McDonald’s and Taco Bell are using it to get Snapchatters interested in their products.

The NBA and MLS are giving behind-the-scenes footage from their sports worlds.

CNN is reporting news content, and The Food Network is providing an extension to its programming.

They’re providing content that’s interesting.

They’re surprising their audience.

And they’re having some fun along the way.

If companies can do it, teachers and schools can, too … and we can learn some lessons about how to engage students by watching how they engage their customers.

New technology is making it easier than ever to create informal classroom recordings of teachers teaching and students learning. Why do it? For me, the opportunities to improve my practice are worth the extra effort.

I have recently purchased a SWIVL thanks to a grant a co-worker and I wrote, and I’m using my iPad to record my classes. If you haven’t used a SWIVL before, you simply put your iPad into the SWIVL base, wear a SWIVL marker device around your neck, and the iPad will follow you and record the visual and the audio.