How to Get Your Technology Ready

Yes, all Agora participants have been given iPads to experiment with and learn to create content for mobile technology based teaching! But this is not a workshop about iPads. We do not provide recipes or steps for every thing you will do. You will have to rely on your instructors, colleagues, and the internet itself to find out how to use the tools (see How to Ask for Help).

You can use any device- laptop, iPad, smart phone. With the iPad you need may to use a second device. You will find some tasks are cumbersome. You should learn how to move files with services like DropBox, Google Drive, and even emailing them to yourself.

How to Get Started lists a few things we asked each participant to do before the July 2015 sessions.

A Few General iPad Guides

We cannot list all, or even the greatest, guides to using the iPad. If you know of worthwhile resource, please add a comment below.

iPad Essentials comes from Apple and should be considered the primary Help resource for the device.
iPad Beginner Guides (iOS Guides) offers free step by step illustrated guides for various tasks.

About Those Apps

You will be downloading a lot of iPad apps during this program. Make sure you know how to do this via the Apple Store. Many of these them require that you set up an account. This can be time-consuming. Many of the apps allow you to use your Google, Facebook, or Twitter logins to create accounts. This is the recommended approach to use for this program and will save you some time.

A list of the apps being used during this program is here.

Eventually you will have many icons on your device, perhaps too many. Learn how to move and delete apps by pressing and holding any app with your finger to put into “move” mode. The apps will “wiggle” and you can delete them or move them around on your screen.

Then learn how to organize apps into folders. And try swiping down from the top of the screen to open the search tool.