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!!!!

Alli's App Smackdown Vol 4

This Monday was an amazing day for me and (hopefully) the teachers at Denton Creek.  The only thing that would have made it better was if the Cottonwood Creek teachers could have been there.  My mobile device hero, Tony Vincent came to present a full day workshop on ways to integrate iTouches and iPads in the classroom. He shared many great apps and ideas!

That said, it was hard to select my top 5 apps of the week!  Here are some that excite me right now!!!

1. Skitch (iPad only) - Use drawing tools to annotate screenshots, websites, pictures and more.  Great for students to practicing labeling, locate text features, etc. Students can save pictures with annotations to the camera roll of the device for later.  Simply plug in the device to save pictures to the network or use Bump to send the picture to someone else's device.

2. Tour Wrist - Use this Map app to go on virtual field trips, discuss landforms, observe different kinds of rocks, etc.  Great 360 panoramic views!

3. Splice  - Film videos, edit, add transitions and titles all on your device with this app!

4. Socrative (Student) and Socrative (Teacher) - Think you need clickers for student response?  YOU DON'T!  Socrative is a response tool that can be used on any device or computer to poll, question, test and discuss concepts with students.  Login as a teacher to create your "room" and post questions, exit tickets, quizzes, etc.  The students then can use the app on an iPad/iTouch or navigate to the room on a desktop or laptop to answer! Learn more at www.socrative.com/ or ask me for a quick demo.  :) You have to see this in action!

5.  Sparklefish - This Madlibs-style game teaches parts of speech using audio. Students can create funny stories and then listen back to them!


Happy Apping!

Tips and Tricks for Blogger

Today I am blogging live from TENOR ITS, a regional technology integration group meeting.  The presenter right now is covering some tips and tricks for using Blogger.  Some tips are new and some may only be new to you, but here are some great tips and tricks!

• Threaded Commenting: Now it is easier within the comments of Blogger to reply to a comment on a blog. Prior to this, all comments were "lumped together" under your post.  It was difficult to see if someone was commenting on the post or on another comment. Now, your readers can comment on each others' comments in a more organized way!

• Connect with Google+: If your Blog is linked to your Google+ account, you can then send your blog posts to people within your circles.

• Custom Mobile Templates: You can now customize the way your blog will appear on mobile devices. Many times all of our hard work spent customizing how our blogs look is wasted when our readers are reading from a mobile device.  Now you can set up a special "mobile look" for your blog.

• New Blogger Interface: You may have noticed a link at the top of your Blogger dashboard that allows you to "try" the new blogger interface.  This interface will eventually be permanently updated for all blogs, so now is a great time to try it out!

• Stats Available: The stats page has been updated.  You can now see where people are viewing your blog and from what type of devices.

• Blogger App for iOS:  Have you used the Blogger app?  It makes it easier to post on the go!  I could see students blogging live during class from an iDevice simply by logging into this app.  TIP: Check your photos - sometimes the formatting gets thrown off when posting photos from the app.  You may want to go in and check your posting on a desktop or laptop to be sure photos and formatting "look" right.

Need help using any of these cool features?  Let me know!!

Laptops as Netbooks

This year at the Creeks, we have reimaged our laptops to work like Netbooks. This holds some benefits (faster computers, automatic login, etc.), but also means we have to get creative with saving documents as students do not have access to their H or S drives.

Here are some ways to save documents from laptops!

1. Flash Drive - Encourage students to bring flash drives or use one "class" flash drive to pass around. This option allows for minilessons on saving to a flash drive and safely ejecting a flash drive, which are two valuable skills for our students!

2. Google Apps - Since Google Apps automatically saves in the cloud on the Internet, have students complete projects within Google. Google has comparable products to the Microsoft suite. Below is a comparison chart:

• Documents - Word
• Presentation - Power Point
• Spreadsheet - Excel

The best part of Google Apps? It allows students to focus on content since the products are a lighter version of the Office products. Instead of getting caught up in animations, students can focus on their thoughts and ideas.

3. Fileway and Edmodo - If your students are creating projects in Microsoft Office or Smart Notebook on the laptops, try using a storage tool like Fileway or Edmodo to keep the files. Students can save their documents to the desktop of the computer (short term only), upload the document to one of these tools and then delete the file from the desktop. When ready to work on the file again, they can return to the storage tool and download the file, again saving as a temporary file that will be deleted once the student uploads the new version of the document to the storage space.

For more information about Fileway and Edmodo, check out the links below.

Fileway

Edmodo

Happy saving! As always, let me know if you have questions or need help!

App Smackdown of the Week - Vol 3

This week, I again got to work with my awesome teammate, Sarah Daugherty, on an Appy Hour. This time, we focused on Math apps.

What I love most about these sessions is that the teachers are give TIME - to play, explore and think about what will work in the classroom. We get to be true facilitators, asking questions, providing ideas and joining in the collaboration. I'll be offering sessions like these at the Creeks once a month in the spring.

Want to see some of the awesome apps the teachers found? Check out their favorites by following the link below!

www.wallwisher.com/wall/appyhourmath

What are your favorites? How do you use iDevices in Math?

Alli's App Smackdown of the Week - VOL 2

This week, I got to work with my awesome teammate, Sarah Daugherty, on a professional learning session called Appy Hour - Language Arts.

The teachers there did an awesome job participating in a Wallwisher, posting their favorite apps to use in Language Arts activities. Check out their favorites by following the link below!

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/appyhourLA

Some of my favs on the list?

Dragon Dictation - great for fluency!

Magnetic ABC's - word work, anyone?

FlipCards - Practice vocabulary...great for ELL students!

What is YOUR favorite Language Arts app?

Alli's App Smackdown of the Week

The title of this post is taken from something AWESOME we did at edCamp Plano called the App Smackdown. Everyone took turns going to the microphone and taking 2-3 minutes to say what cool apps and sites they were LOVING at the moment!

So in honor of that...here are 5 apps I am LOVING right now!

1. Songify - Simple recorder that turns your spoken words to sound! Cool for poetry or for having students explain science processes like the water cycle or math problems! Share via a classroom Twitter account and your parents will be impressed!

2. Breakfast Maker - This app lets you decide what you want for breakfast and helps you cook it! Why is this educational, you ask? Well, what a great prewriting activity for a how-to writing or a different way to teach sequencing! If you like this one, you'll also find others like Thanksgiving Dinner Maker, Snowman Maker, Pizza Maker, etc.

3. StoryKit - Create your own stories and illustrations or change some old favorites!

4. Idea Sketch - A great mind mapping App! Organize pre-writing, brainstorm ideas, work on word and vocabulary associations all from your iTouch.

5. Google Earth - Just like the desktop version of Google Earth, you can "fly" to any location, view pictures and videos and learn more about Geography! Great for charting explorers' paths, finding the birthplace of a famous person, learning about local and national landmarks and more!

What apps are YOU loving right now? Tell me in the comments!

Please comment if you read this post so I am held accountable for writing more!