Learn Tips for Displaying Powerpoints on your iPad using Keynote.

By IT Admin | June 6, 2012 at 08:36 am

PChelpsblog has a very informative article by Jenny Sweeney that provides tips on creating a Powerpoint file that will display nice on the iPad with Keynote. Keynote is the Mac/iPad equivalent of Powerpoint. It has many of the same features and works quite well. It also allows you to open, edit and save Powerpoint files. Occasionally, users notice that the format of their slides change, because fonts and styles available in the applications differ. This difference can be expected anytime you are switching from one program to another. Luckily Sweeney’s article, From PC to iPad: Creating Presentations that Work, provides tips to avoid these problems. Perhaps the most notable tip is that the default font in Powerpoint, Calibri, isn’t available in Keynote and is switched to Helvetica. It sounds like a small difference, but it can throw off the look of your presentation. She suggests using fonts such as Arial, Courier or Helvetica when make your Powerpoints to avoid this.

Another article that does a good job of providing tips for making Powerpoint files to be displayed on the iPad for Keynote is Dupont’s, What You Should Know Before viewing Powerpoint on iPad3 using Keynote. Both articles are very helpful. You can also make your slide presentations right on your iPad using Keynote and it works surprising well. For more information on this and other applications that can display slide presentations contact, John-Mark Ikeda at jikeda@law.berkeley.edu .

Professor Henry Hecht Uses an iPad to Write on Slide Presentations

By IT Admin | April 17, 2012 at 11:11 am

Professor Henry Hecht stands in front of his Depositions class and displays a sample deposition question on the classroom projection screen. He asks his students to consider whether the question is objectionable. After they respond, he picks up his stylus and underlines the objectionable parts of the question, identified by his students, in bright red so that his students can easily focus on the words or phrases that are being discussed and why they are objectionable. But instead of writing on a transparency and projecting it with a document camera, Professor Hecht writes directly on the screen of his iPad and what he writes shows on the screen.

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Vice President Al Gore Video Conferences with Students at UC Berkeley Law

By IT Admin | April 5, 2012 at 10:23 am

Co-taught by Professor Steven Weissman and Governor Jennifer Mulhern Granholm, Renewable Energy and other Cleaner Fuels, grapples with the complexity of a energy policy. As a class they discuss the current state of energy policy and law on the local, state and national level. Students learn about alternative energy, along with emerging areas and work toward producing a comprehensive, and practical national energy policy.

On Monday April 2^nd, Vice President Al Gore joined the class as a guest speaker using our advanced classroom video conferencing tools. . Vice President Gore was able to see and speak naturally with students in the class from his home office in Nashville, Tennessee. After his lecture, students were able to ask questions to the Vice President and discuss some of his lecture points.

For more information on how you can have guest speakers video conference with your classroom, contact John-Mark Ikeda, at jikeda@law.berkeley.edu .

iPad App Review : Notability

By IT Admin | April 3, 2012 at 10:46 am

Write on PDF’s or just jot down notes all while presenting in class. Notability is a easy to learn and versatile app for the iPad. In Notability you can take notes just like you would on a pad of paper. If you have a stylus for the iPad it feels natural to write our your class notes with the pen tool in Notability . Instead of erasing everything when you run out of space, like on a whiteboard, you can just add a new page. This makes it easy to go back to notes during class and to email all your days notes to students afterward. You can even record audio while you write. These features make Notability a good whiteboard replacement app. Connect it to the projector in class and you don’t have to leave your seat or podium.

Beyond using this app as a whiteboard replacement, you will also find its ability to write on PDFs to be very useful. Open a PDF in notability and you can underline text, highlight sections and add notes or new content. Go over sections in the assigned reading, make corrections or draw diagrams to help highlight and analyze the text.

Save your Powerpoint as a PDF, and Notability will allow you write on your slide presentations. Dissect part of a quote, add notes or just insert a blank slide and start writing. The simplicity and versatility of Notability has led Professor Henry Hecht to uses it in his Deposition course. Professor Hecht writes on his slide presentations during class, adding notes and underlining important text.

Notability does have some drawbacks though. You have to convert all your Powerpoint files to PDF before you can even open them in the app. The keyboard sometimes will pop up while you are navigating around unless you “lock it”.To be honest, it would be nice if we could turn off the typing feature all together. Also new pages are always in portrait orientation, which doesn’t work as well when adding blank pages to presentations. For the price though, Notability provides a fairly simply and versatile feature set. It works well after you learn a couple small quirks and can be an effective presentation tool in the classroom.

Notability costs $1 on the app store and is well worth the price. If you would like to try it out, stop by our office, rm 355. We test out apps, provide consultations and train faculty to meet their teaching goals through technology. For more information on this app or any other apps for teaching, contact John-Mark Ikeda at jikeda@law.berkeley.edu.

Effective Powerpoint/Keynote Presentations

By IT Admin | March 12, 2012 at 10:18 am

Powerpoint and Keynote are essential presentation tools. Learn how to make an effective presentation by using best-practice tips. Attendees will also have an opportunity to ask questions about using Powerpoint and Keynote, along with other resources like Google Docs.

Available Dates:

Apr. 4, 10am – 11am
Apr. 5, 1pm – 2pm

To sign-up email John-Mark Ikeda at, jikeda@law.berkeley.edu.
Please specify date and time. If you are unable to make these dates, please contact us and we can make arrangements for a personal consultation.

RedDot Advanced Workshop

By IT Admin | March 12, 2012 at 10:15 am

The Advanced RedDot workshop will cover how to create pages along with adding new page elements. Learn best-practice tips and discuss how an entire site can be built into the law.berkeley.edu website.

Available Dates:

Mar. 23, 1pm – 2pm
Apr. 6, 1pm – 2pm
Apr. 20, 1pm – 2pm

To sign-up email John-Mark Ikeda at, jikeda@law.berkeley.edu.
Please specify date and time. If you are unable to make these dates, please contact us and we can make arrangements for a personal consultation.

Web Conferencing: Connect Educators and Learners from all over the world.

By IT Admin | March 12, 2012 at 10:04 am

With the ubiquity of web camera’s and mobile internet, people are able to connect with one another from anywhere around the world. In this workshop, You will learn how a guest speaker from across the country can use their laptop or iPad to present in front of your class. You’ll also experience how they can share Powerpoints and documents, all while taking questions from students.

Available Dates:

Apr. 25, 10am – 11am
Apr. 26, 1pm – 2pm

To sign-up email John-Mark Ikeda at, jikeda@law.berkeley.edu.
Please Specify date and time. If you are unable to make these dates, please contact us and we can make arrangements for a personal consultation.

Clickers without the clicker: Using PollEverywhere to get student responses

By IT Admin | March 12, 2012 at 10:03 am

Learn how you can uses the technology that students already have to allow them to respond to questions and take polls in class. Using Poll Everywhere, students can respond to questions using their laptops, smart phones or even by text message. Poll everywhere lets you show the results and even take text responses to questions. During this workshop, I’ll show you how to quickly create questions using Poll Everywhere, display dynamic results, to improve student engagement.

Available Dates:

Apr. 18, 10am – 11am
Apr. 19, 1pm – 2pm

To sign-up email John-Mark Ikeda at, jikeda@law.berkeley.edu.
Please specify date and time. If you are unable to make these dates, please contact us and we can make arrangements for a personal consultation.

Nonlinear Presentations with Prezi

By IT Admin | March 12, 2012 at 10:01 am

Traditional slide presentations move in a linear fashion, from beginning to end. While this form is effective for a simple lecture, it is less effective at addressing complex topics. Learn how to easily move through your presentation in a dynamic way with Prezi. While you can still create a linear flow through a Prezi, it is interactive, allowing you to change course quickly and easily. I’ll show you how to make a quick Prezi and talk about the benefits of non-linear presentations.

Available Dates:

Apr. 11, 10am – 11am
Apr. 12, 1pm – 2pm

To sign-up email John-Mark Ikeda at, jikeda@law.berkeley.edu.
Please specify date and time. If you are unable to make these dates, please contact us and we can make arrangements for a personal consultation.

Create Interactive Presentations with LectureTools

By IT Admin | March 1, 2012 at 09:44 am

LectureTools allows teachers to create slide presentations, with interactive tools to improve student engagement. Leveraging technology that students already own, LectureTools allows students to follow along with slides on their computers, take notes, respond to polls or quizzes and type questions to the instructor.

After class students can study with their notes and the slides that were presented in class and you can respond to student questions that you may have received.

LectureTools requires student to purchase a subscription, which is $15 for a semester. For more information on LectureTools visit, www.lecturetools.com.

If you are interested in using LectureTools in your classroom, we would be excited to support you in this endeavor.

For more information on this and other tools to improve student engagement through interactivity, contact John-Mark Ikeda at jikeda@law.berkeley.edu