Quia

As I continue to use the i-Pads in my class I am constantly looking for different ways to make use of them.  While looking for new actives I started to think about lessons that I had done in the past using desktop computers in the computer lab.  One of the first things I tried was “Fling the Teacher” that is made by  www.contentgenerator.net.  I learned very quickly none of the games from this site worked on the i-Pads.  Not only was this disappointing, but it was frustrating as well.  The reason that these games do not work is because they require Flash.  In fact many of the  websites that I use in class and in the computer labs require flash as well.  I asked around to other colleagues and none of them knew of any way to get Flash or Java to work on the i-Pads.  When I asked my students (lets face it they know more about this stuff than any of us) the only solution they had was to jailbreak the i-Pads.  They were very disappointed to find out that this was not an option.

I didn’t give up on looking for websites that would allow me to create interactive games that my students could use with the i-Pads, but my options were looking very limited.  Then one day I got one of those blanket e mails that are sent out to all teachers regarding a website called Quia.  I had used some Quia games in the computer lab before and I knew they relied heavily on Java to make their activities (you cant really call them games) work.  Even with this knowledge I decided to e mail Quia and see if they had a solution to my i-Pad not working with Java.  The response I got was a little surprising.  It turns out that not all of the Quia activities rely on Java.  Some of the actives can be created using HTML code that works well with the i-Pads.

After a little more research on Quia products and trying out activities that have been made by other educators I decided to sign up for the 30 day free trial to see if it would be a good match for my classroom.  So far Quia is a success, but I am still disappointed that I can not use all of the actives  that the website has to offer.  Some of the games, and these can be called games, don’t work on the i-Pad because they rely on Flash.  I still haven’t decided if I should go to my administrators and ask for money for this yet, but overall most of Quia’s offerings do work well with the i-Pads.