I just spent the conference week with some apple officiandos. People living and breathing it – my kinda people!  Combine the gems I picked up from them, plus the little things I have learnt over the past year and I  decided I had enough for a blog post! This is not about apps, but instead, just some quick things to do to help use the iPad efficiently. Old news for some of you, but I hope it helps those starting out!

AMANDA’S TOP TEN IPAD TIPS….

1. Hold an app down until it starts to jiggle and then you can move and rearrange apps on your pages. Create a folder by dropping one app on top of another. Rename folders into categories to keep organised. I like to keep all my folders organised and arranged, I am a bit pedantic about it.

2. Lock your favourite apps or folders on the bottom dock so they are always easy to access and do not change when you swipe between screens.

3. Use the iPad restrictions. Go into Settings, General, then Restrictions. Enable your restrictions (you will need to add a password the first time) and then you can turn on or off some features of the ipad. I like to turn off the ability to delete or install apps, so that students do not accidentally delete an app off the the iPad or try to install an app.

4. Make direct links to your favourite Internet pages. When in Safari, with your chosen website open, press the arrow on the top bar and then click ADD TO HOME SCREEN. An automatic link to that internet page will now be added to your home screen so you can click and open the website quickly and easily.

5. Use a five finger pinch to close programs.

6. Use a four finger swipe to go between programs that have been in use.

7. Make your iPad read onscreen text aloud (eg. in Pages, notes, iBooks, Safari). Go to Settings, General and then Accessibility. Turn SPEAK SELECTION on. Now whenever you highlight/select text, there will be an option to SPEAK the text – words, sentences, paragraphs, whatever text you have selected. You need the iOS 5 to access this feature.

8. Double tapping the home button opens up a multi-tasking dock along the bottom of the screen. It lets you see recently used apps. You can also open apps from here.  While in this multi-task dock, if you hold the apps down so they are jiggling, you will get a red bar on each app. Clicking this closes down the app totally, which can be useful if the app has frozen or needs restarting.  You can also swipe backwards when this bottom bar is open, to access music controls quickly, and volume (rather than using side switch).

9. If you can’t find the App you want, because it is carefully filed away into a folder somewhere, swipe backwards from your first screen to get the search page. Simply type in the name of the app and it should appear in the list.

10. You can take photos of the iPad screen (screen capture), eg. of a page on Proloquo2GoScreen. Hold the home button down and then click the power button (at the top of the iPad) simultaneously. You will hear and see a camera click, and an image of your current screen will be sent to your camera roll.

That’s it… easy, right? So if you are starting out, I hope these top 10 tips have helped. I am sure there are many more tips and tricks… leave me a comment if you want to share yours!

Have a great day!

Amanda