Homescreens – Sheila MacNeill -GCU

I recently joined Fiona and Beth at an app swap Breakfast planning meeting, and at one point we discussed the “Homescreens” idea that David Sparks runs as a regular feature on his blog MacSparky.
He talks to folk about what’s on their iPhone home screen, and asks the same few questions each time:

1. what are some of your favorite apps?
2. which app is your guilty pleasure?
3. how many times a day do you use your iphone?
4. what is your favorite feature of the iphone?
5. if you were in charge at apple, what would you add or change?

These questions turn up some fascinating apps, tips and points of view, like the recent entry by the teacher Robert McGinley Myers where I first heard about the Command-C app which allows copy and paste sharing across devices. It seemed likely that UoB folk might be interested in what’s on the home screens of colleagues at Brighton and elsewhere, so I changed the questions slightly to reflect a learning technology slant and to encompass android devices as well as  iPads.

To test this out I thought I’d ask a friend and colleague who I know uses their iPad effectively.
Sheila was ALT Learning Technologist of the year 2013, was one of the first people I knew to buy a Blutooth keyboard for her iPad, and maybe more importantly has superb taste in shoes.

Who are you, and what do you do?

Sheila MacNeill, Senior Lecturer, Glasgow Caledonian University

What’s on your iPad homescreen?

Which three apps couldn’t you live without?

1. Twitter – my route and connection to the outside world.
   
2. Evernote – great for notes, text, audio and images and syncs to phone, ipad, desktop and web
   
3. Google drive – I use google docs a lot for sharing/collaboration so useful to have on ipad. There are a few niggles tho sometimes with viewing things like tables etc but it is getting better
   

   NB these are my work top 3 – I will confess to being a candy crush addict and I do the Blipfoto photo a day site a lot via my ipad too, I use the facebook app too but not at workJ

What app are you still searching for?

A good handwriting app – liking notability at the moment, and haven’t tried the office suite but something where spreadsheets, tables etc aren’t incredibly frustrating and fiddly to create/view

What’s your top tip?

Get evernote – it transformed my use of my ipad as I could sync with other devices and web interface.

Big thanks to Sheila for agreeing to be my Guinea Pig. If you have a home screen to share, or a top app tip drop me a line, and we’ll feature you on the blog.