Apple just turned into an educational institution: What is ‘Apple Teacher Portfolio’

With the COVID-19 pandemic, students and teachers have been forced to stay at home, just like everybody else. While the saying is that ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’, this time the solution is in software innovation. Of course, that wouldn't be possible without great hardware, too.

The latest addition to Apple’s portfolio is ‘Apple Teacher Portfolio’. It’s a new ‘badge’ for teachers, which is meant to prove their ability to teach by using Apple’s proprietary software: Keynote, GarageBand, iMovie, and hardware - iPad, MacBook, or even iPhone, which is also able to run the mentioned apps.

If you are a teacher

To obtain the badge, you’ll need to get onto Apple’s Teacher Learning Center - a learning platform for educators. You’ll be able to access a variety of lessons with corresponding templates, which will help you to start creating projects, which will help you and your students. You should be able to learn how to make use of Apple’s powerful software, as mentioned earlier.

For example, GarageBand is a stripped-back version of Logic Pro - Apple’s Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), where award-winning artists like David Guetta and Ed Sheeran create their music. Although it is not as powerful as Logic, GarageBand has all the basic features to allow you to record and produce a song. In fact, you can even record, edit and produce a full fledged podcast, using this free piece of software, which is incredible! Check out Audacity, which is a similarly great and free program, if you are a Windows user!

If you are a student

For starters, you should already see some benefits simply from the fact that your teachers are more confident with the software they use! We all know a teacher who struggles with technology, so hopefully this will help make their job more seamless.

Apart from that, Apple has rolled out a bunch of updates to the Classroom app to make it more Zoom-like, and that's a good thing. The app is now more suited for the current times as it puts remote learning on the forefront. You’ll now be able to share your screen with your teachers, and they’ll be able to invite you to sessions.

Great news for M1 Mac users: Classroom has been redone via Mac Catalyst, providing a seamless experience on Macs, running on the M1 chip!

With the update, teachers will be able to invite remote students to Classroom sessions where they’ll be able to guide them to apps, view their screen (with the student’s permission) and track their engagement. The software has also been rebuilt using Mac Catalyst, making it work across iPad and Mac, including Macs powered by Apple’s M1 chips.

There are a bunch of other smaller updates, which can go a long way, such as the ability to include motion graphics and animation in Keynote via the ‘Everyone Can Create’ curriculum. Take a minute to check everything out for yourself.

Apple Teacher Portfolio is available from today on the Apple Teacher Learning Center. The “Everyone Can Create’ guides are free to download (on Apple Books), while the updated versions of Schoolwork and Classroom can be accessed through AppleSeed for IT.

If you are not a teacher, nor a student

Make a coffee, relax, and go check out our OnePlus 9 Pro review!