12/25/12

After our Christmas celebrations, I found some time in the afternoon to work on iAnnotate. I thought I was taking the right steps, but everything I tried resulted in my watching the little button spin and spin. After more frustrating time trying things, deleting things, searching the web, listening to youtube tutorials, etc. … none of which helped since I think these were made for earlier versions … I shoved at the screen in frustration, and there at the bottom of the screen like a bar of pure gold was the “allow” button that I hadn’t seen for two days. Pushing the “allow” button solved the problem.

The tutorials turned out to be helpful, since I avoided the mistake of syncing my entire Dropbox with iAnnotate. I created a folder in Dropbox, which I named “Labs_Not_Graded” and connected to that folder only. Students submit their lab reports electronically via our website, and I download them directly into my Dropbox folder. So I downloaded a dozen or so late lab reports to grade.

After downloading my students’ late lab reports to my dropbox folder, I downloaded them to iAnnotate. I used the app to grade the lab reports, uploaded them back to Dropbox, used our website systems to upload to the website, then used the website to send the graded reports to my students’ in-boxes.

The iAnnotate app seems very complex. It has more than enough tools for me to do the grading. The tools are of high quality, and I am pleased with the result. I will need a lot of time to optimize/customize it for my purposes. I did make a custom toolbar with the tools that I think I’ll be using most frequently. In reading how other teachers use it, I picked up many good tips. One issue I had was that I couldn’t figure out how to copy/paste my rubric on the lab reports. 

Duh! The simple solution is to have the students turn their reports in with the rubric as the last page.

Fourth impression: The iAnnotate app may make the iPad a very useful tool for grading lab reports. It may be the “killer app” that will make the iPad valuable to me.