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Category: iPad apps

Haiku Deck slide

Save Haiku Deck slides to your iPad

nancy

After attending a presentation on iOS creation apps I did this weekend, a participant asked me about the best way to save Haiku Deck slides to her iPad so she could use them as the basis for Thinglink and Pic Collage projects. If you are not familiar with Haiku Deck, it is a free iPad app that allows the user to create beautiful presentations using Creative Commons licensed images (and they are gorgeous). The themes are simple and elegant and the app is easy enough for primary students to learn in just a few minutes.

The presentations can be exported directly from the app as a PDF or PowerPoint, but saving the slides as images requires a few extra taps and button pushes. It turns out that the best way to save your work as images is by doing screenshots of each slide as you play your presentation.

To do it, create your Haiku Deck. Click the Play button.

Haiku Deck slide

As you proceed through your presentation, take a screenshot of each slide by pressing the Home and Sleep/Wake (Power) buttons at the same time. You will know you are successful if you see the screen flash white and you hear the camera shutter sound. The resulting screenshots will be saved to your iPad and can be accessed and used just like any other photo.

First Grade Writing with StoryKit

nancy

Just before winter break, I was in need of a quick project that first graders could do independently while their teacher and I pulled individual students to work with us. We decided to use Storykit and have them create books about the holidays.

Storykit is an iPhone app created by the International Children’s Digital Library. It works well on the iPad, but if you are looking for it in the iTunes Store, you need to look in the iPhone Apps category. It allows users to create an electronic story book that they can enhance by adding pictures, drawings, text, and audio. Books can be accessed through the StoryKit app or shared via email.

We showed the students how to create a page, take and insert a picture, and add text (about 5 minutes total), then paired them up. The children were asked to take a picture of their partner, ask the partner what he/she liked about the holidays, and then type the response using the format “He/She likes…” After the first child had taken a turn, the second partner took the iPad and created a page about the first child.

The whole project went much better than we ever expected. When there was a problem the children collaborated and solved it themselves. They helped each other spell unfamiliar words, use the camera, and troubleshoot problems. Using four iPads, the first graders were able to create pages for 26 children in just under half an hour. No adult help was required, the kids were engaged and empowered, and the resulting books were adorable.

They could have been published just as they were, but later that week, to complete the project, the teacher had the students draw cover pages, which they photographed and added to their books. She also worked with small groups on the spelling. Had she wanted to, she could also have asked each child to record a sentence. The books were saved on the iPads for the students to read and were also shared with the families via email. Here is an example (children’s faces blurred for privacy).

Screenshot of book

I could see this project being used in many ways at different times of year. It could be a “get to know you” book for the beginning of a school year. Kindergarteners could create an “I see” sight word book, perhaps with pictures the teacher has already added to the camera roll.

Tech Tuesday: Using Weather Apps

nancy

lightning

“…after all it is more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be” (Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth).

Perhaps. However, weather is an important area of study for our students. They examine different aspects of weather as early as kindergarten. The weather apps on the iPad can help with this, but they also allow students to do much more. All require an internet connection to download current weather.

InstaWeather Pro (regularly $1.99; free for a limited time) adds a weather overlay to your images. You can take your own pictures or use images from your camera roll, apply the skin, and then share.

Educational applications: Class weather book, compare predicted weather with actual weather, add weather to 365 project photos, tweet your weather, take a picture of the same plants at regular intervals and see how weather affects their growth, etc. Matt Gomez is using it to document the weather in his Texas kindergarten classroom.

Apple‘s default weather app and other similar apps* can be used not only to check the weather, but may be incorporated into the curriculum in a variety of ways. The possibilities are endless. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

  • Mathematics ideas: Use a weather app and Easy Chart (basic version is free for iPhone, also compatible with iPad; $0.99 for iPad HD version or iPhone advanced pack to add more functionality) to compare temperatures or wind speeds over time, in different places, or at different times of day. Compute mean, median, and mode of high or low temperatures over the course of a week. Give students a temperature and have them try to find a city with that mean temperature this week. Graph the difference between expected highs and lows.
  • Language arts ideas: Use the information from the weather app to list facts or write an informational paragraph. Write about how the weather influences your activities. Use the InstaWeather image as the background for a haiku or weather-related senses poem. Create a PuppetPals video to explain a weather phenomenon.
  • Social studies/science ideas: Compare local weather to weather in other parts of the world. Use one of the video capable apps to observe the ways weather moves across the continents.

*For example, there are apps by the Weather Channel, Weather Underground, AccuWeather, Weather +, WeatherBug, and others.

Please share the ways you might use weather apps in your classroom in the comments.
Image courtesy of PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay.com.

Originally published on Technology at Chaparral.

Tech Tuesday: Bluster!

nancy

App: Bluster! (Free)
Subject: Language Arts
Grade level: The stated grade level in the app is 2-4, but it could be used by 1st graders who are already good readers and would be a good review for many 5th graders.
What it is: A word matching game from McGraw-Hill where players can work on rhyming words, prefixes and suffixes, synonyms, homophones, adjectives, and other skills. The app comes with over 800 words. More words are available via in-app purchase ($0.99).

This game uses weather sound effects and backgrounds to engage players. Each game consists of three rounds in which players need to sort 30 words into the three spaces in the center. Players swipe through the word list to find words that match according to the selected type. When all three words in the center spaces match, they are cleared from the list. The object of the game is to make all ten matches and clear the word list as quickly as possible. The game keeps track of the fastest times. The game times a player game in which you are timed as you place the matching terms in the given boxes from the list until all words are used. 10 matches wins one round. In addition, students are able to play the game in a team mode in which students are able to collaborate to complete the task together. The object of the game is to make all matches from the word list provided as fast as possible to get the best time.

Two things that would greatly improve this game would be to have the game pronounce the words in the list and to display the type of match players need to make during game play, but even with these shortcomings, it is still an excellent game and one that students will enjoy.

Note: When setting up the game, it may be best to refer to the “grades” as “levels,” since students may need to play either above or below their actual grade level to be challenged.

Variations:

  • Single-player mode: Students play at their own pace and can tap the sun to pause
  • Team mode: Students share an iPad and work together to find matching words
  • Versus mode: Students compete head-to-head to see who can clear the word list first

Extension idea:

  • Have students who are playing alone or in Team mode note unfamiliar vocabulary words while playing, then use the Dictionary app to look them up. They could even illustrate them with a drawing app and add to a class vocabulary book on the iPad or in the class library.

Key for success:
Make sure students know how the game works ahead of time. In Team mode, there are weather elements that can freeze the opponent’s move if properly timed, allowing the player to get ahead.

Additional links:
Using Bluster! during RtI

Originally published on Technology at Chaparral.

Tech Tuesday: Puppet Pals HD

nancy

Puppet Pals icon

App: Puppet Pals HD (Free)
Subject: All
Grade level: All

What it is: An animation and story-telling app for the iPad that comes with several characters and backgrounds. Students select characters and backdrops, then create a movie by moving the characters with their fingers while recording narration or dialog.

Upgrading to the Director’s Pass version ($2.99) provides access to many more characters and backdrops from the developer and also allows users to create their own puppets and scenes.

Educational applications:

  • Demonstrate understanding of a lesson
  • Create a news story about a current or historical event
  • Provide opportunity for ELL students to use language in an engaging way
  • Create presentations for classroom projects
  • Reader’s theater or poetry reading for fluency
  • Persuasive writing
  • Many, many more; please share in the comments if you have a wonderful idea

How to share with the outside world:

  • Save your project
  • Export it to the Camera Roll
  • Open it in the Camera Roll and email it or upload it to YouTube

Key for success:
Planning! Students can re-record while working on their project, but there is no option for editing saved work. Students working on more sophisticated projects should decide beforehand which characters they will use and what will happen. If they are working in groups, having a script, or at least discussing who will say what and when is important. Having a storyboard would be very helpful.

Download printable directions for using Puppet Pals HD.

Additional links:
Introduction to Puppet Pals HD
Practical Lesson Plans Using Puppet Pals HD
Persuasive Writing and Puppet Pals HD

Originally published on Technology at Chaparral.