iPad tips & tricks
a guide for parents and students!
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St. Leo’s College I.T. Faculty - 2 February 2014
IPAD TIPS & TRICKS - ST. LEO’S I.T. FACULTY 2014
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Introduction!
iPads have been employed by St Leo’s Catholic College on a 1:1 basis since 2012. In
2014, Years 7,8,9 & 11 use iPads as their primary device. St. Leo’s chose iPads for several
reasons including (but not limited to) the amount of educational apps on the App Store;
the sturdy nature of the device despite it’s size; the lightweight, ambulatory, & ‘always on’
nature of the device, and the fact that St. Leo’s already has an Apple based network
platform in place to support iPads. !
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The Purpose of this document!
There is a plethora shortcuts, tools and features of the iPad and certainly too many
to cover in this brief document. We aim not to cover every feature of the iPad, rather we
will focus on the ones that will assist students and parents of the College with the daily
tasks and allow students to focus on learning content, not programs.
IPAD TIPS & TRICKS - ST. LEO’S I.T. FACULTY 2014
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Find my iPhone!
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This free app from the App Store will allow you to track
your device should it ‘disappear’. It has already proved
very useful at St. Leo’s when students have feared their
iPad lost forever only to find they left it in their last lesson,
or mistakenly placed in a friend’s bag. We urge you to
download this app as a priority. The location of the device
is shown on a map and you can force the device to play a
sound and if genuinely stolen and irretrievable, you can
delete your personal data.
IPAD TIPS & TRICKS - ST. LEO’S I.T. FACULTY 2014
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The Keyboard.!
The keyboard contains within it, several shortcuts to make typing more fluid. The most
frequently used shortcuts are listed below.!
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To type an apostrophe, hold down on the ! key and slide your finger upward!
To use accents such as ú or é hold down a vowel key and option will appear on screen.!
By double tapping on the space bar, a full stop will be inserted and the next letter
automatically capitalised.!
Double clicking on the shift key CAPS LOCK will be activated.!
To add inverted commas, hold down the question mark key.!
We also suggest that ‘keyboard clicks’ are turned off in setting as they are unnecessary and
quite often disrupting to this in close proximity (think back to when someone was last
next to you typing out an SMS and you could hear the tapping of the keyboard).
IPAD TIPS & TRICKS - ST. LEO’S I.T. FACULTY 2014
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Passcode.!
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It is good practice to set a passcode for the device. It renders it useless to 3rd parties
whom may attempt to access the device (e.g. if it is left behind in class, no-one except for
those whom know the passcode can open the iPad or access it’s data. Students should
share the passcode with the parents (whom do after all, own the device). The passcode
can be the default simple passcode which consists of four numbers, or can can be changed
in Settings to allow a more complex passcode that can include letters and numbers.!
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Screenshots!
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You can take screenshots of the screen by pressing down the power button (at the top of
the iPad) and the home button. These screenshots can be inserted in other documents and
projects (as we have done with this document) and are stored in/accessed from the
camera roll.!
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Saving Bookmarks to the Homescreen.!
Websites that may be required frequently and quickly can be added to the homescreen of
the iPad so that the website will launch with just a tap. As an example, the Student Portal
to Edumate will be used daily as students can use it to access room changes, Daily
Notices, Semester Goals etc. To add it to the homescreen, simply tap the button in the top
left of screen
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Restarting the iPad.!
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Should the iPad beginning acting erratically or freeze, you first option is to restart the
device. To do this hold down the power button at the top of the iPad and when the icon
appears on screen, slide to turn off the machine. Wait until it has completely shut down
and then restart the iPad!
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Hard Restart of the iPad.!
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Using a hard restart of the iPad should not be done frequently, however it is a helpful too
when a normal restart has failed to remedy any problems. To perform this manoeuvre,
hold down the power button and the home button (similar to taking a screenshot but
continue holding it down. When you see the slide to power off image appear on screen,
ignore it and continue to hold the two buttons. The screen will go black, continue to hold
the buttons down…the finally a white Apple logo will appear. Then you can release the
buttons and the iPad will restart and reset itself.!
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IPAD TIPS & TRICKS - ST. LEO’S I.T. FACULTY 2014
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Sharing Documents Between Devices / Backing Up!
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Once you have an iTunes account (free), all work created on the iPad is automatically
saved in the Cloud. To access work done on the iPad from a laptop or desktop computer,
simply open the browser on the computer and go to: www.icloud.com.!
Once logged in, you will see documents/presentations created in Pages, Keynote and
Numbers as well as Reminders, Contacts and Calendar entries made on your iPad. From
here you can save items directly to your computer!
To back your times to your computer directly from your iPad, you will need share each
document to iTunes from within the document on the iPad as illustrated below.!
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You can choose to send it via iMessage, Mail or iTunes.!
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If you choose iTunes, once the iPad is connected to the computer, iTunes will
automatically open. A series of tabs will appear .On the 'Apps' tab, down the bottom of
page will list documents you can save to the computer. Choose any files you wuld like
backed up to your computer and choose 'Save to" to select a location on the computer to
which the file will be saved.!
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IPAD TIPS & TRICKS - ST. LEO’S I.T. FACULTY 2014
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Accessibility!
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The iPad comes with a raft of options to help users who may need extra help with day to
day use. To access these options tap on ‘Settings’ and then ‘General’ then ‘Accessibility’.!
Below is an outline of some of the features on the iPad for people with sensory
impairments.!
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VoiceOver - !
Choosing this option will cause the iPad to talk out loud every process. For example it will
say ‘landscape - home button to the right’ and when you invert the iPad it will say ‘home
button to the left’. It is designed to assist those with vision impairment use everything
from apps to email to web browsing. Within the voiceover you can choose the speaking
speed and whether it will speak hints, use sound effects etc.!
The iPad is also compatible with many Bluetooth Braille devices.!
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Zoom -!
By enabling zoom, tapping with 3 fingers will cause the screen to zoom and then 3
finger drags will move the screen, and a double tap with three fingers and drag will
increase/decrease the amount of zoom.!
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Invert Colours - !
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This option is designed to help those with visual acuity problems.!
Speak Selection - !
Once enabled this option will allow the user to select a pice of text whether it be in
iBooks, in a document (e.g. Pages), in an email or on a webpage - and then have it read
aloud. This a great tool for hesitant readers to use when coming across words or phrase in
which they lack confidence.!
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Hearing impairment -!
There is a range of hearing aids that now communicate with the iPad. Also , the phone can
be set to vibrate and/or flash when messages or phone calls are received. The user may
also select to have sound in mono (as stereo can sometimes divide sounds/soundeffects
and a user with hearing in only one ear may miss some vital sounds.!
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