Adobe Post - Enhance your photo with text

I stumble into the office this morning with a few tasks that need attended to, and then an opportunity to check out a new app comes across a feed. I am not the best at ignoring these opportunities, so I dive in and explore a bit.

The app is Adobe Post.  Released yesterday and currently available only as an iPhone app.

Adobe Post is a free, easy to use app, which allows you to add text to a photo enhancing the message you are communicating.

Imagine a student typing in a vocabulary word with a definition.  Or possibly they've typed in a sentence using the word.  In either case the text overlays a photo in a eye catching artistic manner.

As a teacher quickly share a photo on instagram of your students success stories.

Users can take photos, use pictures from their photo roll, or search online from free photos available to them via the app.

Remix a stunning graphic available from Adobe Post and turn it into yours very quickly.

When you like the finished product, the options include saving it to the camera roll, email, or any social media posting.

Creativity at your fingertips, just in time to capture your Holiday moments.

Epic! - Thousands of Books for Kids

One awesome aspect of a tablet, such as an iPad, is the ability to have one device containing many books.  However, the challenge is finding the books.

Epic, an iDevice app which is free for teachers and librarians, contains thousands of titles which can be accessed by students using a variety of filters such as age level of reader and interest.  Formats include books that are read to students, books for early readers, and extensive chapter books.

As students read books, they can be awarded badges and obtain new themes to use with the app.

Once you set up your teacher account, you can create profiles for students on one iPad.  This is great if you have students sharing one iPad.  Epic keeps track of what students have read under each profile as well as providing a list of titles tailored to the students interest. Note: when setting up these profiles each account will be asked to confirm via a parent email address.

If you are in a one to one environment where each student has their own iPad, or iPod, then they would be fine using the guest profile.

Be sure to sign up as an educator when you first open the app.  You will need to complete an online form submitting your educational information such as school, grade, and email.

You may consider creating your account online at Getepic.com, then download the app and begin your reading adventures.  The online site allows you to browse through titles, but reading the books is done via the app.

Elevate - Train Your Brain

Voted as one of the top apps in 2014, Elevate is a nice iPhone, iPad, or Android app which offers a wide variety of tasks focused on all parts of your brain.

You begin using the app by creating your account and taking a placement activity so your brain practice is adaptive to your needs.

The app is free, however you can upgrade to the premium version.  With the premium version you get access to additional games and your growth is charted against others online.

There are nearly 20 games in five areas of brain training including reading, writing, listening, speaking, and math.

 

Each day three different tasks, which take about 5-10 minutes, are available for you to complete.  Elevate then charts your individual growth over a period of time which you can access at any time by checking your performance.

This app would be perfect for a personalized middle school or high school 1-1 environment so students can track their improvement over the course of a month, semester, or year.  As a teacher, take 5-10 minutes during the evenings and Elevate your brain, which probably can be done during a commercial set while you are relaxing on the couch.

CC Quest and Open Ed

We are always looking for ways to help prepare students and assist teachers not only for the shifts of the Common Core but also the increase of depth of knowledge levels and tech skills needed for the Smarter Balanced Assessment.  Using technology as a tool in the classroom has so many benefits, but in the case of the new assessments students will be taking this spring, the skills associated with how to use technology correctly could pose a problem for many of our students who do not have regular access within their regular curriculum.  From tech skills to questioning styles, rethinking how you traditionally assess your students will benefit them in more ways than one!

An easy way to do common core aligned quick checks for specific standards is using apps or sites such as Common Core Quest from Open Ed (app for iPad and Android).  CC Quest could be used in isolation or along with the main Open Ed website.  Open Ed is a classroom resource library of lessons, activities, videos, etc all aligned to the CCSS.   The app can be used as a stand alone.  Students would need to log in with their school google account, they can choose their grade level and either Math or ELA.  From there, each standard has a quick 3 to 5 problem quiz that assess their mastery of the standard.  If they do not do well, the app will suggest sites or videos to visit to continue practicing that skill.  This would be a great way for students to check mastery, as well as many questions have multiple parts, similar to the Smarter Balanced Assessment.

As a teacher, you can log in and create an account at Open Ed.  From there you are able to enter in students and establish usernames and passwords for them, especially for young students or students in districts were email use is not allowed.  Adding students into a class in the website will also allow for the teacher to monitor which standards students have taken and how they have done.  More features on the website include lessons and resources aligned to the standards that teachers can assign to the class.  Most resources are open source (free access) though there are also lesson and activities from some paid subscription sites.

It's worth the time to explore!

Word Clouds by ABCya

Word Clouds is a newly released word cloud creator app for both the iPad and the iPhone.  Very simple to use and currently free, this app would be a great addition to your iPads.  

Type or copy and paste text into the app and create.  Use the tools along the top to change features such as font, word count, randomize, layout, and color.

 There are no ads or watermarks both in the app or on the finish project, which is a saved photo to your camera roll.

Similar apps include:

Phoetic ($0.99) Create Word Clouds on Photos 

WordSalad (Lite or $2.99)  

Cloudart ($0.99) iPad Only 

A few of our other posts on Word Clouds:

Word Clouds on an iPad 

Word Sift - Play with Words 

Kids Discover Holiday Specials - Antarctica and Washington DC

Kids Discover has released many awesome iPad apps full of information on various subjects, and during this Holiday Season two of these apps are now free.  Hurry and download Antarctica and Washington DC before the price jumps back up, especially if you have a classroom set of iPads.

These apps provide great non-fictional reading opportunities for students as they will learn all about topics and issues surrounding both Antarctica and Washington DC, including people, animals, and the environment.

The app also provides an opportunity to view excellent photography along with many short video clips.

You can explore among several areas, play a few educational games, or take a quiz.

 

Download these apps soon and explore, I'm sure you'll learn much from exploring with these excellent apps from Kids Discover.

Little Bird - An Internet Security Storybook for Kids

At what grade should you be addressing Internet Security and Digital Citizenship with your students?  As early as possible.

 

Here is a great story book written for elementary students called Little Bird, an Internet Security Adventure which runs as an iPad app.  Little Bird goes on an adventure and meets several characters, each with an Internet Security dilemma. Students can read the book themselves or have it read to them.  On each page touch the characters to have them say additional engaging statements.

With an emphasis being placed on non-fiction reading for younger students, this is a great resource to begin digital citizenship discussions with your students.

Annotating Online Articles Using Noteability

I happened to be in a third grade classroom observing students reading an online article from Tween Tribune, a very worthwhile resource for reading. The engaging piece was they were annotating key words, questions, and phrases using an iPad app called Noteability ($1.99).

Students scan the article using a QR code reader, then copy/paste URL into printfriendly.com to download the article as a PDF which opens directly into Noteability. 

Since this classroom is not 1-1 iPads, there are a few hardcopies of the article for those that don't have an iPad for the lesson, and associated QR codes for those students that do have an iPad for the lesson.

Wonderopolis

Have you wondered about what it means for a product to be generic?  How about whether or not Fairy Tales can be true?  Do you wonder if tics can make you sick?

Wonderopolis is a free app that provides you with a Wonder of the Day.  This wonder begins with a "Did You Know" section which contains an explanation of the inquiry.  This is great non-fiction reading source for students. For instance, generic products began appearing on shelves as white boxes with black lettering.

The second section is "Try it out".  This is where there are exploratory experiments designed to allow students to further their understanding of a wonder by completing an investigative activity.  For instance, an activity is suggested to go with a parent to the grocery store and compare brand name products with generic products.

The Wonder Words section provides a list of vocabulary words key to the topic.  Some words in the generic wonder word list include brand, product, aisle, staples, generic, and prescription.

Wonderopolis is a great, clean app providing students with interesting topics to read.  If you want to investigate further, please check out the Wonderopolis.org website, where there are videos and more that correspond to this resource.

iPad for Primary Grades Workshop

Agenda for January 10, 2013 Training

Save this link to your home page by using the Share button in your safari browser

GTKY Activity - Doodle Buddy

• Picture Of Self, Name, School, Grade, 2 Stamps 

Basics Settings to Review - Group Time

• AutoLock
• Using Camera / Video
• Take Screenshot
• Saving a Picture off the Internet
• PDF to iBooks - Children's Books Forever  - find a book and download it into your iBooks library
• App Purchasing 
• Deleting Apps and Making Folders of Apps 
• Guided Access 

Infuse Learning

Audio Resource Exploring  (QR Codes) 

You will need the I-NIGMA app for this activity.

Podcast App

Making QR Codes:  QR Code Generator 
Past Blog Posts with QR Codes:

• Open House and QR Codes
• QR Code Math Problems
• QR Code Book Talks  

Links that were on our QR Codes:

• Save Sites to Homescreen 
• JustBooksReadAloud.com 
• RobertMunsch Books
• Storynory 
• Raz-Kids (Subscription) 
• Interactive Ebooks
• Jack and the Beanstalk 
• Sesame Street Podcast List 
• Sid the Science Kid Podcast List 
• Children's Fun Storytime Podcast 
• Billy Gorillys Podcasts  

Making Your Own Audio/eBook Library 

• Educreations
• Camera

Youtube - Channels, Privacy, Managing of Audio Library

Online Storybook Playlist from IMESD  Save to Homescreen
Educreations Online Storybook Playlist Save to Homescreen

App Explore Group Time

Letter Recognition/Beginning Reader

• Phonics Genius
• Fry Words 
• Sight Words List 
• Little Speller - Sight Words 
• Phonics Studio
• Little Stars - Word Wizard 
• Starfall ($) 
• Rocket Speller 
• Sentence Reading Magic 
• TicTacToe Interactive Phonics 
• Spelling City 
• Word Wizard 

Math/Numbers

• Pirate PhD 
• Geoboard
• Geometry 
• Hungry Fish 
• Counting Board 
• Rocket Math (Mathmateer) Free 
• Cash Cow Lite 
• Candy Count 
• Doodle Numbers 
• Math Vs Zombies 
• Math Bingo ($) 
• Pearl Diver
• Sling Math 
• Math Tappers  (multiple apps) 
• Splash Math (per grade) Paid version lets you customize and track 
• Scootpad 
• Love to Count ($)

Drawing/Fine Motor Skills 

• Little Writer 
• Squiggles 
• Let's Color 
• Alphabet Tracing 
• Doodle Buddy 
• FlipBoom Lite 
• Art of Glow 
• Touch and Write ($)
• Screenchomp 
• Jot Free 
• Baiboard (whiteboard that can connect to collaborate on one board) 

Creative Play/Games/Puzzles 

• Daisy the Dinosaur 
• Dream Place 
• Futaba   Free (Customizable with paid version) 
• Tinkerbox 
• Face Swtich 
• Magic Piano 
• SketchNation Studio (make your own line jumper game)
• Sock Puppets 
• Mad Lips 

Classroom Management Apps

• Too Noisy
• Tap Roulette  (easy way to choose a person!) 
• Class Dojo  - classroom behavior managment tracker  
• StickPick ($)   

Share Out of Apps

Activity Digital Story Telling 

• If You Give a Moose a Muffin Writing Activity 

Story Creation Apps

• StoryKit
• Scribble My Story
• Sock Puppet
• Toontastic
• Puppetpals

Additional Story Creation Options:

• Little Story Maker 
• Book Creator   ($)
• ScribblePress  ($)
• Story Creator
• My Story ($) 

Additional Resources:

Free App of the Day from Smart Apps for Kids 

Amazing Animal Webcam Livebinder 

Subtext Will Read To You

We're often visiting with teachers that need to have accommodations allowing a device to read text to students.  They ask, "Is it possible to have the iPad read something like a Tween Tribune article"?

Subtext, the collaborative reading app, free at the time of this post, has an option that does just that.  Inside the app you find the article on the Internet, add it to your Subtext bookshelf, and use the "play" button when reading the article.  The voice reading the article provides good articulation with voice inflection for a computerized reader, and the app  highlights which sentence is being read.



Let us describe the steps here.
A. Open the subtext app and find Add Books and Docs button
 

B.  Choose to add "Read web pages in Subtext"

C.  Find your webpage/online article, use the google search tool from subtext if needed, and then click Add to Subtext bookshelf button.  Close this window when finished.

D.  On your book shelf click Read It button

E.  Find the Play button when reading an article

F.  Click settings (gear in upper left) to turn on this feature and set the reader speed.

Subtext has much more to offer, which we will cover in a future blog post.  However, this feature can be a great addition for your reading resources.

Just Books Read Aloud

Here is a great website you can use with an iPad or iPod, called Just Books Read Aloud.  There are over 100 books, a small sample shown below, available for read aloud.  All free and easily accessible, with great stories.

This would make for a great link on your iPads or iPods if you are using them as learning centers in a classroom. And with an audio splitter, you can have two students sharing one iDevice.

Another online resource for beginning readers that can  be used on an iPad or iPod is called Tar Heel Reader.  Books are designed with one sentence per page accompanied by some image. You can filter your search by topics to find books of a particular interest.  Below is an example choices from the category "Books from Alphabet". 

This website offers a collection of a few thousand books with options to have books read to the student, where you choose the voice.  Since the books at Tar Heel Reader are written for all beginning readers, most of the content is perfect for younger readers, though some of the books might be more appropriate for older students. Find the most appropriate category for your students and save a direct link to those books on your iPad or iPod.

QR Code Book Talks with Mobile Devices

One use for QR Codes in the classroom is to do a fun spin on the old book report.  Students write up a "Reading Rainbow" style book talk that they will then record as a podcast.  For this project the teacher used Audioboo.

Audioboo allows up to 3 minutes of recording time with their free accounts and creates an online location to make into a QR code.   Audioboos can be done online at their site, or downloaded as an  app on both android and apple devices.

He allowed students to bring their smartphones or apple devices to class to do this project, which resulted in quickly having all 28 students recording themselves in quiet locations around the school.  All students logged into the classroom account and were able to record simultaneously.


All audioboos are then available under "My Profile" on the audioboo website which makes for one collection point for all their recordings.  Using the URL from the Audioboo students then created their QR code using the site:  Kaywa QR Code Generator 

They cut and pasted their QR code on to a shared google doc for the teacher to then print out.  With younger students, teachers may want to do this step for the students.

Using the master document of QR codes, they were then cut out and added to the front cover of book that the student reviewed.  This was arranged to be done with the library books in the library.

Of course, some students may need to understand what the crazy black and white thing is that is suddenly appearing in the library so a small poster was created:  QR Code Library Poster 

We use  i-nigma QR Code Reader which also comes for both android and apple devices as our suggested reader as students in this school are allowed to use a variety of mobile devices, and this one seems to work well.  

More Resources for using
QR Codes in Education:

• Using QR Codes to create educational posters - Teacher Tech Blog 
• Kathy Schrock's Guide to QR Codes in the Classroom 

Creating Links on your Homescreen

One of the best features for an iPad are all the apps.  However, there are many more online resources to provide for students.

There are several strategies you can use to get links to students.  You may have created a web page with links, entered links into an Edmodo library, or saved links in a bookmarks folder on a computer.  Another strategy is to create a direct link to a website on your iPad.

To do this navigate to the website using Safari on your iPad.  Find the "share with" button and click "add to home screen". 

The iPad will supply a name for the link, which you can change, and an icon.  Now your webpage will act like an app, just tap it and go. 

Below are a bakers dozen websites as examples for iPads or iPods intended for student use. There are many many more choices, so please leave a comment if there is another good website you'd recommend.  And as a reminder, safari does not support flash so be sure your website is not dependent upon that technology. 

News Related Sites for Students
1. Tween Tribune - student news magazine
2. Youngzine - student news magazine
3. CNN student news - student channel from CNN
4. Channel One - student news channel

Science Related Sites for Students
5. National Geographic for Kids - collection of science related materials for students
6. Planet Archive - collection of images and videos from our planet, many good animal resources
7. Smithsonian Museums and Zoo - access to museums and zoos from Smithsonian

Reading and Research Related Sites for Students
8. Internet Public Library for Kids - free public library for students
9. Childrens Storybooks Online - younger students books online
10. Page by Page Books Online - young adult and adult books online

History Sites for Students
11. Lewis and Clark - example of a historical topic for Lewis and Clark
12. This Day in History - History Channel's "This Day in History"

Learning Response System for Students
13. Socrative Student Login - student access to join a socrative room, teacher access would be on teacher device