Tapose

What it is: Tapose is a fantastic (currently the BEST I’ve seen) journaling app for the iPad.  Tapose goes above and beyond the other journal apps that I’ve seen with a few key features:

• It offers customization- When a student creates a new journal, they can choose a custom cover for the journal and one of six paper types (graph, legal, lined, blank, textured, colored).
• The interface is beautiful.  Really, this app is very well designed.  All of the tools are hidden until you want to use them so there is no clutter taking over the screen as you work.  When using the drawing function, students can turn on wrist protection so that they can write or draw in a way that is most comfortable without throwing off the touch screen input.
• Students can draw, highlight, type, add sticky notes, video, or images to the journal.
• My favorite feature: multitasking within the journal!!  Students can view the journal they are working on in one half of the screen while surfing the web, searching a map, looking up a contact, using a calculator, or viewing work from another journal at the same time!  It is quite simply, awesome!
• Journals are searchable, can be viewed by an index of the pages, can be shared with others through email, printing, Dropbox, or Evernote, and can be collaborated on.
• The wrist guard can be tailored to how a student writes with three options for both left and right handed students.
• One of the COOLEST features is the ability to copy things to a clipboard to paste it into the journal.  Students can cut out a specific picture from a website or map and paste it directly into their journal.

Tapose is the most brilliant blend of everything you want from a paper journal combined with the best of what you can do when a journal is technology enhanced.

How Tapose can enrich learning:   Tapose is a wonderful place for students to do and store work.  (Teachers too!)  It gives them a place to draw, write, take notes, do research, do math problems, or keep a science or art sketch book.  Students can keep separate notebooks for each subject, assignment, block, or inquiry unit.  The app keeps all of students work neatly in one place and gives them a way to share it with you and the world.  For young students, Tapose makes a great place to “publish” books.  Students can combine handwriting with type and drawings for an outstanding digital keepsake.

I like that students can include video and photos that they have taken in the journal.  At Anastasis Academy, our students often create field journals.  They take pictures to document the process or learning and can go back and annotate their images, add reflections, and combine it with research they find online.  The app makes it easy to do all of this from within the journal so they aren’t jumping between apps.  If a student has taken (or created) a video, it can be embedded directly in the notebook with the rest of their learning.  So brilliant!

This app is a great one for math journals.  Having the ability to do a side-by-side screen share with the Internet means that students can watch a Kahn video, solve problems stored online, etc. and have a place to make notes, work out problems and even graph.  If they need to, they can pull up the calculator to check their work or to help them work complex problems. Students can turn in all of their work easily or print out final copies.

Tapose is also a nice place for teachers to plan out and share lessons.  You can surf the web while jotting down ideas for your classroom and easily share with other teachers through Dropbox, Evernote or email.

Tapose could be a great place for students to construct an eportfolio because of the ability to easily combine different mediums.  Parents, teachers and others who view the eportfolio can easily search, using the search feature, to find exactly what they are looking for.

Devices: Compatible with iPad, requires iOS 5 or higher

Price: $2.99 ( a steal!)

Please leave a comment and share ideas you have for using Ubooly in your classroom.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Bloom’s Taxonomy of Apps in  your classroom!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Conduit Mobile in  your classroom!

What it is: It is Advent season again.  This means that BlackSmith Games has launched their app-a-day Appvent calendar.  Each day a new app is released and is downloadable all day for FREE!  Very cool.  Not every app released is appropriate or useful for the classroom, but they are always fun!  Even if you can’t use them in your classroom, they are worth downloading on your own device- you just can’t beat a boatload of new apps for free during the holidays.  The apps are great for passing time in all of the LINES that this time of year seems to bring.

Price: FREE each day

Wishing you all a joy-filled holiday season!

Flat Stanley

What it is: Everyone is going iDevice crazy!  Want proof? Flat Stanley has traveled around the world and now finds himself in the app store!  Flat Stanley is a project that schools around the world have participated in, generally it consists of sending a flat, paper Stanley through snail mail with the goal of getting his picture and story with others around the world.  Flat Stanley  has been used by educators around the world to help students learn about travel, while discovering different cultures to develop a love for reading.  With this new app, students can learn about the world through the eyes of Stanley in a way never before possible.  Way cool! Students can create their own Flat Stanley (or Flat Stella), they can change Stanely’s features and clothes and even give him a name and bio before sending him out into the world.  Students can share photos through Facebook, Email, Twitter and Flatter World within the app.   In Flatter World, new Flat Stanleys have been spotted. If students take enough pictures, they can unlock the new Flat Stanleys to take photos with.

The Flat Stanley app is COPPA compliant, which means that it is happily usable for kids under the age of 13.  An approval crew monitors and approves images shared through the app for an extra layer of safety for students.

How Demibooks Composer can enrich learning: There is no easier way to get involved with a Flat Stanley project!  The Flat Stanley app makes it SO simple to take pictures with Stanley and re-post them that you are bound to get nearly 100% participation.  The integration of social networking tools means that Stanley can travel the world in no-time and expose your students to more corners of the world than ever.  Using Flat Stanley with your students can introduce them to geography, world cultures, languages and landmarks.  Your students can use Flat Stanley’s travels as a creative writing prompt, making up stories about where Stanley has been.  Read the Flat Stanley books for a great literacy tie-in!

Devices: Compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, requires iOS 4.0 or later

Price: Free (iTunes Link)

How to integrate Quixey into the classroom: If you or your students use ANY of the above platforms,Quixey is a must!  Hunt down the exact app you need quickly and easily.  Have a mixed platform classroom? Quixey makes it simple to see where app crossover is possible for the classroom.  This is one handy search engine!

Be sure to bookmark Quixey on classroom computers for easy access to an anytime search. When you find an app you are interested in, click for more information, screen shots of the app and a link to the app store.  You can even tweet the app out or share it on Facebook!

What it is: This may very well be the single greatest iPad creation tool yet.  Demibooks Composer is the first iPad based authoring software.  Do you know what that means???  It means that you hold in your hands the ability to create interactive books!  Weeeee!  Students and teachers can use this powerful authoring app to create interactive book apps (yes, I said apps) that include realistic physics, animation, sound and visual effects.  This app lets you create books that take full advantage of the iPad’s capabilities.  Finished stories can be shared to a Dropbox account, iTunes or published as an actual book app that can be purchased in the App store.  Seriously, how cool is that?

With Composer, students and teachers have powerful tools that let them create interactive tools without knowledge of programming.  Students will get a small taste of programming language as they use Composer with “if, then” commands.  Composer is intuitive enough to have your students creating their own interactive ebooks in no time. Bam!

Composer lets students:

• select from a portrait or landscape book
• Import images and audio from a computer or use photos from the iPad
• Add text and styles
• Create frame based animations
• Build pages
• Add a navigation system
• Add complex behaviors (like turning physics on or off, adjusting bounce, friction and boundaries, gestures, taps, touches, hidden objects, etc.)
• Add and edit audio including music, effects and speech
• Preview your newly created book in all of it’s interactive glory
• Export and save work to iTunes or Dropbox
• Share work with others who have the Composer app
• Publish your book to the App store with Demibooks PrintShop web service

How Demibooks Composer can enrich learning: This app gives your students the power to create true ebooks.  This is not just a book that can be read on the iPad.  This is a book that they can make interactive.  Students can publish creative writing, explanatory informational text, poetry, math story problems (and solutions), ABC books, phonics practice, story retells, historical narratives, etc.  The list could honestly go on and on.

Demibooks Composer lets your students create everything that they imagine.  It is a powerful tool that is intuitive enough for young students.  As students work in Composer, they will gain a beginning understanding of programming with if-then relationships.  Students will have to think as programmers, designers, illustrators, authors, mathematicians, physicists, and  animators.  Brilliant.

Devices: Compatible with the iPad, requires iOS 3.2 or later

Price: FREE- introductory price (iTunes Link)

Application: Stick Pick

What it is: Stick Pick is a great app for the teacher iOS device.  Teachers can randomly (or intentionally) choose a student’s name from a virtual can of Popsicle sticks.  Student sticks are tied to a mode and level of difficulty for each learner.  Each time a student’s stick is drawn, you will be shown over a dozen Bloom’s Taxonomy related questions that are tied to the learner’s individual ability level.

Questions can be linked to cognitive or linguistic needs to each student.  Teachers can have multiple soup cans (classes) filled with sticks (students).  During setup, teachers choose a category of questions that they want to focus on for the learner.  Questions can be based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, English as a second language skills, and a degree of difficulty can be chosen for each learner.

Formative assessment is easy to track because teachers can tap a corresponding correct, incorrect, or opinion button based on the student’s answer.  Teachers can also rate each student’s answer by selecting 0-5 on the critical thinking rubric (for Bloom’s) or an elaboration rubric (for English as a second language).  Student data is saved directly in the app and can be emailed.

How Stick Pick can enrich learning: Stick Pick is a handy tool for any teacher device.  Stick Pick can guide classroom discussion and formative assessment in really helpful ways.  Teachers can mark sticks so that they aren’t constantly calling on the same students or asking students the same questions over and over again.

Students can use Stick Pick too.  During small group work, students can take turns asking one another questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy making group work more productive and on-task.

Record and send student progress to parents easily directly from the app.

Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.2  or later

Price: $2.99 (iTunes Link)

Application: Rat Dissection

What it is: The Virtual Rat Dissection app from Punflay is a fantastic alternative to the actual dissection in the classroom.  The app is perfect for students who are learning about organs and the organ system in life science.  The app is brilliant in the way it offers students all of the tools that come with a real dissection without all the mess (and smell…do you all remember the smell? *gag reflex kicking in*).  Students are led through the dissection procedure step by step, guided with instructions and explanations all the way through.  When students have completed the dissection, the rat’s organs are exposed so students can study them further.  High quality 3D images make it easy for students to visualize the organs.  The app also includes great reference information about rats.  The step-by-step instructions include voice over, perfect for accessibility to all students.

How Virtual Rat Dissection from Punflay can enrich learning: First of all, did I mention this app is free from the smell of Formaldehyde? That alone makes it worth it’s weight in gold (in my humble opinion)!  Virtual Rat Dissection solves the budgetary and physical problems of getting a rat for every student to dissect.  Not only that, it is a much greener alternative.  The app has been beautifully created with attention to detail.  Students will get the full effect of a wet dissection lab without needing all of the tools.  Best of all, students can go back through the lab over and over again.  This gives them the opportunity to review learning and process, something that isn’t possible with real rat dissections.

Use this app as an alternative to actual dissection, or use it to prepare students for a real dissection.

Devices: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.2  or later

Price: $3.99 (iTunes Link)