Alli's App Smackdown Vol 5 - TCEA

Hi!  Just a quick post from Edubloggercon in the TCEA Web 2.0 Lounge.  My nerdiness is official now.  I am sooooo excited and inspired by what my collegues are sharing!

I'll be quick, but here are my top 5 Apps I saw today!

1. Aurasma - Your students take a pic, this app takes them to a video you have preselected! Great for scavenger hunts!

2. Educreations - Another awesome screencast/show me what you know app!

3. Action Movie - Add stunts and effects like car crashes, explosions, and falling rocks to your video productions!

4. Sock Puppets - Tell a digital story with these sock puppets!

5. PhotoTangler - Take a bunch of pictures and meld them together to make a photo collage.
IDEA: Have students create a brace map of a topic. (ex. parts of an apple)  Then, using the brace map, ask the students to take a picture to represent each part they wrote about (ex. seeds, stem, fruit, etc). Use this app to "meld" the photos together, label it and post it next to the brace map!

2 Disclaimers:

1. I have not tried these yet - I literally learned about them a few minutes ago! If you try them, comment to me to let me know what you think!
2. These aren't on Creek Devices yet...see #1 for a reason why!

HAPPY APPING!!!!

Digital Storytelling

I love technology and I love writing stories.  For me, digital storytelling is super exciting because it melds the two together.  I will be teaching digital storytelling at the CISD Summer Conference and hope some of you will be attending.  I have been working with several new tools to prepare for the session.  One that I just had to share was www.storybird.com 

Storybird has a variety of  artwork in its art gallery that students choose from to illustrate their books. I think this is awesome because it acts as an artful resource so that the students can simply focus in on their writing and thinking.  I also just now learned that teachers can create accounts with sub-accounts for students...so easy!  Teachers can also create assignments for the students within Storybird!  Not only that, students can invite others to collaborate on their stories and purchase the completed stories in hard copy form!

Here's an example:

Season's Greetings on Storybird

I am looking for a class to test with...any takers????