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.

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.

HSTRY - Create Interactive Timelines

I’m always searching for new tools that allow for student creativity and critical thinking, particularly those that are device neutral with the only cost involved is time spent learning.  When new resources become accessible, I encourage teachers to implement them because often times the newness is enough motivation to get students highly engaged.  And with newness students embark on a learning quest figuring out how to use the resource enriching their critical thinking skills.

HSTRY seems to be spot on with these criteria as a tool to allow a person to put together a linear list of resources called a timeline.  Some timelines can be chronological by the calendar, while others may be viewed as different sections of a report.

 

Using the teacher login, they can create a class, then either manually add students or have students join via a class code.  The student will not need an email address, just a username and password.

One feature I look into from the student perspective is what they can view by searching public resources, which HSTRY calls timelines.  This is particularly valuable for elementary students in case they stumble upon high school curriculum inappropriate for their age level.  HSTRY only allows students to view their own timelines, or those provided to them from the teacher.  

The teacher can search timelines posted to the community, and with a click share with the class. Once a timeline is shared with the class, students will be able to comment on any item, and yes the teacher can moderate all comments.

 

Which brings me to cost.  To use HSTRY, it’s completely free.  There is a premium version which provides you with access to created content, for instance Timeline bundles about the American Revolution.

Timelines contain a series of blocks which may include a text block, an image block, a video block, a question block, or a “did you know” block.  The author is free to drag and drop the blocks freely to fit their intended linear path.  

Sharing of timelines is limited to the teacher sharing one they create or find to the students.  HSTRY is working on a feature where students can share timelines with their class, but are very hesitant at allowing students share timelines with the community.  Currently a student submits a timeline so only the teacher has view privileges.

A nice getting started task could be to have everyone create an “About Me” timeline.  Then use this tool to have students demonstrate understanding for many projects throughout the curriculum, like state reports, expedition reports, animal reports, book reviews, author biographies, science lab write ups, or even math concepts. 

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 

A+ Spelling

A+ Spelling is a free app that involves the students from start to finish in an iPad environment which helps them master spelling lists.

I had the opportunity to visit a first grade classroom and observe how one educator implemented this app with her students.

Her first step was to review the spelling list of words with her class. 

Then each student enters their list on an iPad. One nice feature about having students enter their list is that they first type it in, and then the student voice records their annunciation.  Here is where it can get tricky, first graders tend to make a few mistakes during their initial entries.  Hmmm, imagine that.  Be ready to revise and re-record entries as students create their lists.

When the list is completely entered, there are several activities students can complete to practice their spelling competency. In each activity the student listens to the word, then types in their spelled version.

Finally students can "test" their word list, which will assess them over the entire list.  Students are instantly scored on their words providing them with an opportunity to respell any missed words, and also completely retest.  All test results are stored on the iPad.

Great Google Drive App Update!

The latest app update for the Google Drive iOS app has added multiple account log in! As someone who uses multiple google accounts, this makes my workflow on my iPad an even more important tool. 
In my account, I was immediately prompted with the question as to whether I would like to add multiple accounts the first time I logged in after the update.
To switch between the multiple accounts, choose your settings in the upper left corner of the screen.  This will show the account you are currently in. 

 To switch to a different account, choose your account name and it will show you a option to switch or add another account.

 

 And it is quick!  Finally, no more signing out and signing back in to access needed docs when I'm on the go.  

 

Word Families with Kindergarten and Kids Doodle

It's always fun spending a morning with Kindergarteners!  Ms. Evans has been using the Kids Doodle app with her 5 and 6 year olds to practice their word families and I was hearing great results about it so I went to check it out.   


Kids Doodle records the drawing as they create, allowing them to replay their drawing.  In this activity, students are practicing their word family words for the day and drawing an image for that word.   For the teacher it allows for her to have conversations about letter formation as she circulates and they are sharing their videos with her.  Students are saving their image in the built in gallery, though the app does have the ability to save as a movie to the camera roll on the ipod or to send images via email.  

Ms. Evans uses the free version of the app, note that it does contain banner ads across the top of the screen.  App free is available for $0.99.
As with any behavior in the classroom by utilizing repetitive practice, clear expectations and consequences, the ads cause few issues.    She manages her iPod time by having pictures of the apps on her chart by the rug, this way students know which app they need to go to and what it looks like.  It also will show any apps they are allowed to go to after they are finished.  With kindergarten, it's also important to use picture prompts for students to learn which buttons they need to push in the app. 


The engagement and creativity of this app activity and the ability to watch their drawing allows for Ms. Evans to take a worksheet activity and make it more interactive and along with giving her feedback on their letter formation.  Students revisiting their old movies in the gallery were reviewing past lists and practicing their word families.   Additional skills from this activity that students were practicing include letter formation,  cvc word families, relating words to everyday objects, and following multi-step directions.  And they did great!



  

Annotate on PDF using PaperPort Notes

Paperport Notes is a great free iPad app that allows you to annotate on top of pdf documents stored in your dropbox or google drive account.

Certain criteria to look for when previewing free apps are:

• Does the app push out ads?  Paperport Notes does not.
• Does the app allow you to work on more than one project? Paperport allows you to work on multiple projects at once.  This is great if you are using an iPad center in classroom where several students share an iPad during the day.  Each student can work on their own project and have it saved in the Paperport table of contents.
• Does the app only allow you to share via social media? Paperport allows you to export a set of notes a variety of ways, including Google drive and Dropbox.

Paperport allows you to import pdf files from your google drive, dropbox, or straight off the Internet.  While working on a document, you can insert blank pages at anytime between any two pages.  Blank pages can consist of lined paper, graph paper, blank paper, or other documents.

Paperport allows you to annotate with a highlighter, pen, text, and voice recorder over any page on a pdf document.  In the text tool you can create text on top of a page, type on a stickie note, or insert an image.  You can insert multiple audio annotations on each page, saved for playback on demand at a later time.  Some advanced features include speech to text dictation and inserting text using the camera.

When Paperport projects are shared via email, google drive, or dropbox, the document is converted to pdf, thus audio is not shared.  There is an option to share via iTunes Docs Folder which will also share the voice recordings.

Word Clouds on the iPad?

I've always enjoyed doing word clouds with my students.  

A few of my favorite uses were to hang a name cloud outside my door at the beginning of the year with all of our students' names or have my students create a word cloud about their experience at Outdoor School, in the shape of their mascot!

There are many great sites online to make word clouds, but most require flash, java, or other add-ons that make those sites incompatible with the iPads and iPods. 

Here are some app options to explore:

WordSalad (Free Version with option to pay $0.99 to get rid of ads and watermark)

Core Features:

-Import any text from iOS clipboard with a single tap  (create your own by making a list in your Notes app or any other word doc app that allows for copy/paste) 
-Customize with 8  fonts-Color with 8 color palettes -Feeling creative? WordSalad gives you 5 layouts to position your words-Save your salads to camera roll for later reuse and export them to pdf

Cloudart ($0.99) iPad Only 

Core Features: 

-no ads or watermarks

-23 fonts, 7 layout styles, and 19 color palettes

-Share by email, pdf, save in app, or save to camera roll

-tap on the word cloud to add more words

-create straight from a webpage by pasting in the address

Need ideas for word clouds in the classroom? 

• Take a news article, blog post, famous song, or short story and create an easy visual of key themes or points being made.  
• Cut and paste reflections to a piece of work from all students and see what the common words were
• Collecting Data  (input a list of what students ate for a week and see what they ate the most!)
• Beginning of the Year Ice Breaker "About Me" Activity 
• End of the Year "Highlights" Activity 
• and ....

For more word cloud resources, check out these sites:

WordSift - Play with Words! from Digital Drifting 

Use Kidblog to Get Your Students Writing!

Kidblog Website 

There are many uses for blogging in the classroom.  

iPad App Link 

With kidblog teachers can create classroom sets of individual student blogs  and give students an audience to write for, as well as a handy tool to help meet new CCSS writing standards for example:      

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.6 With guidance and support from adults, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

I love websites that create app versions of their site.  Regardless of whether you have three computers and two iPads or one to one iPads in a classroom, students can post from anywhere.     

Setting up your class is easiest via the website.  On the kidblog website, teachers can moderate, edit, and/or delete posts and comments by students within their classes. Within settings, teachers are allowed to adjust who can read, comment, or are notified.  The teacher dashboard gives quick ability to moderate and view who and what was written.       

The kidblog app for both the iPad and iPod Touch allows students to log in and post their entries, upload video or photo projects, and comment on other students' posts.  Its a great way to allow students to share their projects that they have created on the iPad.  Here is a link that is readable to the public of a piccollage project we did in a recent training:  http://goo.gl/rAQXk

Working towards allowing blogs to be  public is a great way for students to share their writing with their parents and other family members, allowing for a larger audience.  It is also another platform for teaching about proper commenting skills, reflection, and internet safety.  If students are posting projects, it's also a tool for teaching about copyright rules and expectations.  A great resource for working on Digital Literacy and Citizenship in the classroom is Common Sense Media K-12 Curriculum . 

If you've wanted your students to blog, this is a place to start.  It's a fun way to get students writing and sharing!

Book Magic - A digital story telling tool

Last week while visiting a 2nd grade classroom we observed that students were using a digital storytelling tool we hadn't seen before.  This tool is called Book Magic, and if you haven't seen it you need to take a look.


This free app has many positive features you want in a book creator app.  Along with using photos from camera roll, authors have the opportunity to search through a nice volume of clipart in order to find a picture of something that supports their writing. 

You start off by making a book which requires you to title the book and provide your name as the author.

Next step is to start inserting content on each page.  Students could select a theme for their book, for instance the ocean, so all their choices would encompass items supporting that category.

 

There are many different types of objects you can insert into a book, including clipart, photos, drawings, and text.

Each object has a set of options to alter the look of that object, like size, layer, and color.  For example in this text box there are options to change, color, size, font style, alignment, and more.

Finished projects can be shared as pdf files via email enabling students to send finished projects to parents, teachers, and peers.  There is also a facebook sharing option or one can upload to the book magic community.  

Here is a snap shot of a book about dogs created by one second grader.