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 ...

Find my idevice!

In our recent digital citizenship conversations we have been having as a class, certain themes have tended to emerge. One of these has been digital security. Our class have been learning how to create secure passwords and we have been identifying areas that could compromise our security when using the internet. As part of these discussions we have also been looking at ways of keeping our devices physically safe.

This week I introduced my class to a cool app called find my iphone. This is an app I have recently installed on my ipad and it has a number of features that will help me if I should ever misplace of have my device stolen.

Here's how it works. Download the app from the app store (it's free). Sign in with your Apple ID on your device and turn on Find My iPhone to allow you to locate it. Then use the same Apple ID to turn on Find My iPhone on your other iOS 4.2 (or later) devices including iPhone 3G, 3GS, or iPod touch (2nd generation or later).

Find My iPhone is also included with a MobileMe subscription.

 As I don't have another iOS device, I can use the mobile me website, accessed from any computer to locate my ipad.



You’ll see your device’s location on a map and you can choose to have it display a message or play a sound, remotely lock the device, or wipe it to permanently delete all of your data if you think that it won’t be returned. For added security, the app will automatically sign you out after 15 minutes, or you can manually sign out at any time.

Pretty cool features which give users another level of physical security for their idevices.

QR Codes in the Classroom

This past week my students have been playing around with QR codes. I've been thinking about how I could use them with my class. I have been particularly interested in how they can be used to "connect" various types of media together, eg; print and digital.

As part of their weekly homelearning, my class have been completing a variety of tasks based around the Rugby World Cup. Each student has their own wiki page dedicated to their RWC adopted team. Students have been busy creating and completing all sorts of cool activities. My class have also created their own rugerbees as part of a short art activity.

Using a code generator we created individual QR codes which were then glued to students artwork.

Scanning the code with a smartphone, ipod touch, ipad etc will take you through to the URL which links with a student's wiki page dedicated to their adopted team providing all sorts of wonderful information about their adopted team and country.

We then stuck our artwork on the class window with an explanation.

By showcasing the artwork on the classroom windows, I'm hoping it will spark some interest amongst other students and teachers as to what QR codes are, and their potential use as an educational tool. My own class have had lots of fun creating and scanning some of the codes on the artwork through the window using their ipod touches.

This has been such a fantastic exercise in generating discussion amongst my class as to how else QR codes could be used to share and support other aspects of their learning.

Lego Comic Builder

Lego Comic Builder is fun! My class loved using the various lego elements to create their own comic strips.

Lego Comic Builder is very easy to use as well:

• choose a format for your comic (one box or multiple boxes in a variety of formats)
• drag whatever lego elements you want in your comic into the boxes
• resize any of the elements to fit the frame
• add speech bubbles etc
• your comic strip can use multiple pages
• you can save your comic online ( to complete later) or download it to your computer

Here are three examples of our digital citizenship work using lego comic builder. Click on the image to enlarge.

Picmarker

Picmarker is a watermarking tool which is quick and easy to use for copyrighting images or even naming students digital work.

Some of the features are:

• upload files from your computer or grab them from your Flicr, FB or Picasa
account
• add text watermark, image watermark or tiled watermark
• no need to download or install software
• free - unless you want the pro version with a few more bells and whistles

I used picmarker to watermark my class avatars. Our class uses a number of wikis as part of our online learning management system and students use avatars to identify themselves on these wikis. Although the students recognise themselves by their avatars, their teacher needed some other way of identifying them easily for management of work purposes.

Here is an example of what the watermarked avatars look like. Click on the image to enlarge.

Photovisi

Photovisi is an image tool that our class has been using to publish some of their most recent work. You have a range of templates to choose from (some are padlocked - pro users only). Simply select and upload your photos and photovisi will automatically generate your collage.

What my class really liked about this particular tool was the options it gave them to manipulate their collage once their photos were loaded. You can easily crop, replace, delete, add text, change background colours etc.

Here is an example their teacher created for a front page on one of their class wiki.