DocScan HD

DocScan HD is a great app to have on your classroom ipad/s. No more long walks to the only printer in the school that is capable of scanning documents - very convenient.

Our class is currently creating multi-media poetry slideshows using google presentation as the tool to present our final products. Part of the success criteria for this assignment, includes the students creating their own artwork to support their poetry. Last year (pre ipad) I had to individually scan students artwork using the school photocopier. As students aren't allowed access to the photocopier, I had to do this myself, after hours. After scanning the work, I then had to upload the images to student folders on the school server. From there, the students had to download their images to use in their presentations - all rather time consuming.

Using Docscan on the ipad to do the same task is very convenient. Students also take the responsibility for scanning their own artwork, less work for the teacher. Once the document is scanned, students email the document to their google apps account. It sends the file as a pdf and appears in their docs once sent. From there it is a simple case of students opening the document, screen capturing the image and inserting into their presentation - easy.

Sock Puppets

Sock Puppets is a neat app that allows you to create your own lip-synched videos and share them on Facebook and YouTube.

Here is the blurb from the itunes app store ...

"Add Puppets, props, scenery, and backgrounds and start creating. Hit the record button and the puppets automatically lip-synch to your voice. Friends can work together with multiple puppets and create hilarious conversations. While recording simply tap a puppet and that puppet will lip-synch, tap a different puppet and switch auto lip-synching to it. Switch backgrounds to take your puppets to different places, move the puppets, props and scenery to animate them while recording. Cartoon and photo realistic puppets are included."

As soon as I discovered sock puppets, I knew my class would love it. I introduced the app to my class yesterday and asked for suggestions on how we could use it to support our learning in class. A couple of students suggested we could use sock puppets as a presentation tool, to publish our poetry that we are currently working on.

Sock Puppets is free, although if you want extra features like extended recording time and extra characters, you will need to upgrade. I found the 30 second record time was actually ideal for the purpose of capturing students short poems.

The app itself is pretty intuitive to use. In no time at all my students had downloaded the app to their ipod touches, and had worked out how to create and send their completed sock puppet presentations to our class youtube account. I could see this particular app working really well with junior classes. Here are a couple of examples ...