APP Time: Haiku Deck

Move over, PowerPoint! You, too, Keynote!

And Prezi...I never liked you anyway, so peace out.

This has to be the easiest way ever to make a slideshow presentation, hands down. I love it, I love it, I love it. Haiku Deck, a FREE app, lets you make simple presentations in record time. Now...can you add bullets and transitions and all that other presentation mumbo jumbo that you think you need to display information? Nope...but you know what? After you use Haiku Deck to share information with your students or have them use it to display what they have learned, you'll realize how much more you can do with less.

The concept behind Haiku Deck is that you use fewer images (one picture per slide, actually) and short phrases and sentences to tell your story. You tap on the slide to start typing your text. Then, to add a background picture...well, you have your pick of images to choose from. Haiku Deck will use the text you have entered to suggest images, or you can search for them by keyword. There are oodles of pictures, beautiful pictures, licenced by Creative Commons, to choose from. In addition to using the pictures on Haiku Deck, you can use ones you already have on your iPad camera roll to make your presentation more personal.

You can showcase your presentations with an Apple TV or VGA cable directly from your iPad, just as you would Keynote. Just swipe your finger across the screen to move on to the next slide! To share your Haiku Deck creations online, just create an account with your e-mail. By doing so, you can access your presentations online via the Haiku Deck website. Once your creations are available in your gallery, you can set the privacy level to your presentations (that way if you have students who create work you would rather not share publicly, you can set it to private).You can e-mail your presentations to yourself - and they will automatically convert to a PowerPoint presentation or Keynote. You can also embed them into a blog or share on Edmodo, although it's a little tricky to get it to show up just right. I've created a Haiku Deck on my grant writing tips, which you can view on the right side of this blog. However, that's been the only place (and size) I've been able to stick it.

Download Haiku Deck (you have nothing to loose, or pay) and play around with it. The simplicity of it will engage your students. They could easily use this app to share anything from poetry to a short report about a region of the United States. The next few weeks until Winter Break are as good a time as ever to try something new!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/haiku-deck/id536328724?mt=8
http://www.haikudeck.com/
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/y4fJV0Zvf2/grant-writing-tips

APP Time: GarageBand

It's been a while since I have reviewed an app. With all the websites and blogs already devoted to listing education and/or free apps, I almost feel like it's irrelevant. However...this is one app, one function that you may not realize has the potential to allow your students and yourself to share what they know. It's not free, but the possibilities that your students will have to create and record their own shows, podcasts, and reports are priceless.

GarageBand ($4.99) is an audio and music recording app for your iPad. It simplifies the entire podcasting process to the point where anyone, teacher or student, can record themselves speaking, create and add background music, and publish to iTunes. There are features about GarageBand - such as automatically saving your work and nice, big buttons and graphics to guide you along - that making creating a recorded show nearly fail safe (I will mention a few things to keep in mind at the end of this post). Once you and your students have had some practice, it takes very little time to create a fantastic sounding podcast.

Let me back up a minute - podcasting, simply put, is creating a recorded show and then publishing it through an RSS feed (a site with hosting capabilities). The platform I use to host my podcasts in my classroom is Podbean (setting up an account is free, and for the volume that classroom podcasting takes up, you shouldn't need to upgrade to anything more). Prior to GarageBand, making podcasts was a pain - make sure they are speaking directly into the voice recorder, not deleting or recording over their work, uploading it onto the computer, configuring...I'll stop there. With the built-in microphone in the iPad, you don't even need an external mic to amplify your voice. Students can create music using virtual drums, keyboards, guitars, and "Smart Instruments" that have basic beats already programmed (I like to direct my students to these for time's sake). It's fairly easy to delete, add, and adjust the volume throughout your project - in fact, your students will probably be teaching you a few things about how to use it once you get started. This article on Appstorm helped me tremendously on how to create a podcast set-by-step using this app.

Why do you need this, when there are already so many other things that take presedence over having your students record themselves speaking? Podcasting has many functions and appeals in education. As the teacher, you can record yourself speaking about a concept you are learning in class, then publish it so students can access it though the site hosting your podcasts, or they can subscribe to them through iTunes so they receive them on a personal mobile device. I have the RSS feed for our classroom podcasts set to automatically appear on our class Edmodo group, so they can access the links directly through there instead of typing in the web address. Unlike video recording, students can have a script (that they have written), so the focus is on speaking and fluency. Anything can become a podcast - a classroom newscast, book reviews, a how-to for math problems...the list goes on and on. Podcasting is a great "carrot" to get your students writing, speaking, and being creative.

A few things to keep in mind with GarageBand - from personal trial and error:
1. TURN OFF the metronome FIRST THING - otherwise, you will hear it all through your podcast. Yeah, Mrs. Sponaugle didn't think about that the first time her kids used GarageBand. Oops.
2. Set the meter - plus (+) sign in the right hand corner - to ON for automatic, so it will make the section longer as you continue to speak. Otherwise, your students (and you) are going to get frustrated when it keeps cutting off at 8 bars.
3. Turn the volume up for the audio recorder for students with soft voices.
4. Like I said above, encourage your students to use the "Smart" instruments with the preset beats.
5. Create a sample "song" (what GarageBand calls your creations) yourself so you get a feel for how it works.
6. Make sure you or your students give each song they create in GarageBand a new title, otherwise you will have New Song, New Song2, etc.

There are also multiple articles in the Apple help section of their website to guide you along. If you are looking for a new way to utilize your iPad in your classroom aside from using educational apps, look no further.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garageband/id408709785?mt=8
http://ipad.appstorm.net/how-to/lifestyle/making-a-podcast-with-garageband-for-ipad/
http://www.podbean.com/

Music to My Ears: Tour the States!

It's Friday, it's late, and I'm tired. I have lots to say but not much energy to get it out. However, I thought before I sack out for the evening, I would share an awesome music video - "Tour the States" by Renald Francoeur. I came across this while I was "pinning" last night and found this infectious tune to be too good not to share with my students and my blog followers (Do I have any of those? For the sake of my tired teacher psyche, let's just say I do:-).

Makes you want to take a little trip somewhere, doesn't it?

 

My students love, love, love this song and its awesome artwork. By now, the "Fifty Nifty United States" song is getting a little old for my fifth graders, and the beat and lyrics to this piece have them well on their way to reciting all of the states and capitals (whether they realize it or not!). It's from an album titled Brain Beats, a collection of educational songs for this generation of students. You can purchase the Brain Beats CD from Marbles the Brain Store. The album is also available on Amazon and iTunes, and you can download "Tour the States" individually from either source for $0.99.

I haven't been able to find the music video anywhere but YouTube, so I used the YouTube Downloader to get the video to my Dropbox file to share it with my class at school. Regardless of what grade you teach, things like this that get your class excited and saying "How did they do that?" make it all worth it, even when you are out-of-your-mind tired. Good night!  



My Thoughts about Mister Rogers

"One of the greatest gifts you can give anyone is the gift of your honest self." - Fred Rogers
Even though you're probably one of the 3 million people that have seen this video by now, I felt compelled as a techKNOW teacher to share it with you. If there is any one person outside of my family that I want to emulate in my teaching, it may very well be Mister Rogers. The creativity and adventures he shared with his young viewers impacted and engaged many of us growing up. I'm sure that you (as well as myself) can recall at least one episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" you watched as a child - how to make crayons, anyone? His kindness and gentle nature give me hope that those of us who aren't so loud and verbally outspoken can impact the education and the conscience of our students.
Television in the 1950s and 1960s was what the Internet is today - new, "cool," and a commercial medium. Fred Rogers took an interest in using television programming to enhance the lives of and teach children, without advertising and leisure entertaining (I added the word "leisure" there because Mister Rogers was both educational and fun to watch). For many, his show modeled a safe and loving home, a caring father figure, and how to pretend play without the zing of cartoon characters or video games. I, for one, loved, loved, loved Mister Rogers' puppets! He saw the potential to use new technology to impact those around the world, children he would never meet but would nonetheless nurture. In a way, you could say he's the original techKNOW teacher.
My favorite thing about Mister Rogers is, like the quote I began this post with, he remained true to himself. He didn't become loud and flashy to attract young viewers to his program. In fact, Fred Rogers may have been seen (and especially would be today) as an unlikely television star - a guy with great ideas, but not the persona to pull it off on camera. Yet it was the fact that he was calm, gentle, and soft spoken that set him a part from the rest. It not only made him unique - it made what he taught his young audiences about life stick. He walked the walk, proof positive the volume of your message isn't measured in decibels.
So, enjoy this "jazzy" version of a beautiful song that encourages all of us to be curious, make believe, and grow the great ideas inside of us. Perhaps if we as teachers instill these values in ourselves and model them in our teaching, our students will absorb them, too.

APP Time: Story Writing Apps

I've been on the hunt for sometime looking for writing apps for my classroom iPads. My goal has been to find some things that would entice students of different ability levels to write and share. Here are three that I think fit the mold.
Story Maker HD (a FREE app) allows students to design characters and scenes to "illustrate" their stories. They type their text on to the page along with their illustration, then name their story after it's completed. Students can then access the "gallery" where they can read each other's work. While simple, fun (the kids will love making the characters) and to the point, one thing I don't like about this app is that you can't add "pages" to your story - one scene and text is it. It would be great for a poetry unit for students to write a poem and then add their images. Students in the lower grades or with limited writing ability would be best served by this app. For $0.99, you can download add-on story packs (Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, The Wizard of Oz, and Little Red Riding Hood), which provide you with more character and image choices for students to recreate a classic fairy tale - great for a unit on teaching point-of-view or for writing fractured fairy tales!
A similar app is Story Patch ($2.99). Although it's not a free app, you get what you pay for with this one. Like Story Maker, students can select characters and scenery for their stories. You have the option to add pages to your writing so it reads more like a book. After students save their stories, other students can go back and read each others writings straight from this app. You can also convert your story to a pdf with a touch of a button and e-mail it to yourself or parents - a great way to share student work. The one thing I didn't like about this app was, while you can change the size of your characters and image and move them around the page, you can't change the direction they are facing. I know that's silly, but I like my people looking at each other, that's all. Story Patch could be utilized at any grade level K-5.
This next app actually involves no writing at all - and that's okay! Toontastic (FREE!!!) lets students choose a scene (or draw one), select characters, THEN - instead of writing the text - you move the characters around the screen and use your own voice to bring the story to life! Basically, students are creating their own animated cartoon! And...they get to pick the background music to set the tone for each scene!!! Too cool!  It's really like making your own cartoon - hence the name! Student creations are saved so they can be viewed later on the app. You can also go to ToonTube through this app to watch Toontastic creations from all over the world! I got a lot of ideas for how to use this app just by watching those alone. What I LOVE about this app is that it take students through the parts of a story, from the conflict to the resolution (even showing them a diagram). What I don't like is the limited number of background scenes there are to choose from - like, there's four. You can purchase additional scenes for $1.99 each, or $9.99 for an entrire set. Any grade level would benefit from this app. This would also be a good app for speech therapy.
Hopefully you decide to add some of these apps to the next chapter of your iPad use!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/story-maker-hd/id428879894?mt=8
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/story-patch/id388613157?mt=8
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toontastic/id404693282?mt=8

Voki

March is not my favorite month.

I'm tired. The kids are tired. And this year, Old Man Winter decided to have a sunny disposition. No snow days. Not one. So, to make the sprint to Spring Break a little more...I don't know, fun maybe - here's a way to incorporate technology with langugae skills.

Meet Voki.

Voki is a way for you and your students to make a speaking avatar. An avatar is an animated online character. You can customize the way your avatar looks and what it says - and use your own voice to make him, her, or it come to life. Using Voki (which is free, unless you choose to sign up for a Voki Classroom account) you can embed your creations into your classroom website or wiki to showcase your students' creations or to add a friendly message or directions for an online activity.

Which leads me to how you can use Voki to add a punch to your instruction. Kids LOVE to "play" with Voki to make characters that resemble themselves or other crazy critters. They can also record a 60 second message for their avatar to say. Why not make an assignment out of this? Students can create an avatar for a book character and write a short script for their person to "say." They could introduce themselves by turning themselves into an avatar to post to your classroom website or wiki - or have their avatars recite poetry they have written in class! Students could research a person in history and create a Voki to share what they learned. While the fun factor is sky-high on Voki, the opportunity to improve writing and speaking skills is through the stratosphere. My students start to quickly see the correlation between the written and spoken word when they go to create their Voki critters. It's also good for applying summarizing skills, as 60 seconds isn't long to get your point across! The Voki website also has a lesson plan section that can be accessed by teachers for more ideas on how to "embed" avatars into the classroom.

Tip: You can create one account for your students to use if you don't want to subscribe to Voki Classroom (I don't). That way, you can still save their avatars if you want. Or, just have students log on to the Voki site, create their avatar, and embed it to a wiki or other online space you use in your classroom. It won't be "saved," but it will be viewable.

Try playing around with Voki yourself! Maybe you will find a way to add it to one of your assignments before the end of the year!

http://www.voki.com/

Shutterfly Share Sites

I hope you are enjoying your Monday off from school, teachers! I decided that for today's post, I would share a "share" site. The popular photo web service, Shutterfly, isn't just for uploading and ordering prints. As an educational tool, Shutterfly's share site feature is an easy-to-use, FREE way to create a classroom website that parents and students can access to review their school year.

Let me stress that it is incredibly easy to create a Shutterfly share site for your classroom. Absolutely no knowledge in "html" mumbo jumbo is necessary. You can upload an unlimited amount of pictures to your share site to feature your students engaging in classroom activities or field trips. Up to 10 videos can be uploaded to your site, however...remember my previous post on Animoto? On your Shutterfly share site, you are able to add different features to personalize your site (more on that in a minute). One of the things you can add is a "widget," which means you can embed code from other websites...such as the Animoto videos you create for your class! So, if you are using Animoto, you can technically add as many videos as you want as well!

Back to the other features Shutterfly lets you add on your share site. You can add a calendar to post classroom events and messages for upcoming events. In addition to Animoto videos, there are countless other widgets you can include to give your students access to things you may have viewed online in class - just copy and paste the code from another website. You can add the weather and a Google Map to post locations to places you have "visited" in your classroom. In addition to pictures and video, you can also upload files. I have found this to be very helpful in giving my students access to organizers and documents we use routinely in class. I've also been able to upload games created in PowerPoint so that students can review with them at home.

Last but not least...you have to create a Shuterfly account in order to upload pictures and create a site (which is free). You have the capability to password protect your site, so only students, parents, and their families are able to view the content you post. If you have your parent's e-mail addresses, you can add them as members of the site and directly send them the link and password. They can receive weekly (or monthly) updates that you make to your site to keep updated.

It takes a little time to play around with the features and layouts, but I have found my Shutterfly share site to be a fun and functional way to keep my students and their families connected to the classroom. Take a little time on this holiday weekend to check it out!

http://www.shutterfly.com/sites/create/welcome.sfly;jsessionid=14FC5F4A566C719493ECA31A61AF4B5B?fid=4d40f90688ac21fa

Animoto

Hmmm...
So starting something "new" in the busiest month of the year wasn't exactly the best idea. Well, it's a new year, and I resolve to get this blog on a roll :-)
The first techKNOW tool I have decided to feature is Animoto! This website allows you to take your pictures and videos and quickly create a presentation with transitions and music. It's almost like creating a "music video" of sorts for your memories. Once you create an Animoto presentation, you can embed it into a website, blog, or share it via e-mail. In order to use Animoto, you must create an account. The only way anyone can see your creations is if you choose to share them. There's also a free iPhone app, so you can use the pictures and video you have taken on your phone and directly convert them into an Animoto masterpiece!

As an educator, you are able to apply for a FREE pro account, which allows you to make presentations of unlimited length (the free account for the general public allows you to create presentation of no more than 30 seconds). Once you have an educator account, you can create up to 50 student accounts under your name, which gives them the opportunity to use Animoto individually for classroom assignments. Their are multiple video "themes" to choose from and music selections - all you need to do is upload and arrange your media clips, and within five minutes you will have your multimedia presentation.

The possibilities for how you can use Animoto in the classroom are endless. Create videos for your students to look back on classroom events such as Field Day or holiday activities. Take the pictures and/or video to make a presentation looking back at an exciting science lab activity or field trip. Students LOVE to look back at themselves and their classmates - and at the same time, it allows them to recall what they did and what they learned! Sometimes I select a student or two to be the "super stars" of the movie and record them saying a few things about what they learned or what the activity was about. That way, they are hearing themselves talk about what they have learned. Visit the Animoto for Education link to get your FREE educator account for the new year and see other examples for how you can use this resource in your classroom.

Remember, if you use it and you like it, make comments below and share it with your peers!http://animoto.com/education