Smilebox Reminder

Teachers, don't forget you get a free smilebox premium account. Create slideshows, cards, newsletters, and more with this great application! Here is my Christmas card from this year to give you an idea of how cute your creations can be!

This ecard generated with Smilebox

Thanksgiving Word Cloud

Here is a family or class activity for Thanksgiving...
Have each person list 3-5 things they are thankful for this year.
Go to http://www.wordle.net/create and type in everyone's answers (if the answer has more than one word and needs to stay together,

 put a ~ in between the words like my~dog).
Enter 2012 THREE times in the list to make it larger. (the more times you enter a word, the larger it is in the word cloud). Make sure words that are the same are typed the same like Family not family (capitals matter!)
Click Go.
Print out the word cloud and save it for each year. Compare/discuss what your family values. 

National Mock Election for Students

In 2008, our school participated in National Mock Election for students. We used laptops set up as voting booths and students came with their class to vote for President. We are going to be doing this again this year for the 2012 Presidential Election. Voting via this website takes place Oct. 25-Nov. 1. It's very easy to register to set up your class or your school. There are resources for educators as well as I Voted stickers that can be printed on Avery labels.
Help your students learn more about the voting process and this election by participating this year!

Printing from your iPad or iPhone

This application runs on a mac computer and will allow any networked printer to be used from an iPad or iPhone. It's a great deal for $20! We use it at my school and you can select what networked printers you want to use to print from iOS devices. You just need to run the application from a computer that is always on.
It's called Printopia and here is the website.
I highly recommend it if you are wanting to print from an iOS device without purchasing a new printer.

Free Apps (8-16-12)

My Story is free for a limited time-get it QUICK! Great storytelling app for the iPad.

Marble Math and Shake-a-Phrase are going free on Friday, Aug. 17 ONLY! Marble Math is for ages 8-12 and Shake-a-Phrase is for ages 8+.

Twist Carnival is free for limited time. 4.5 star rating. Rotate pieces of candy to fill the candy jar in this matching game.

VS. Racing is free for limited time. Arcade racing game. 4.5 star rating.

Silent Film Director is free for limited time. 4 star rating. Allows you to create short silent films with a variety of video effects.

iBlast Moki 2 HD app is free for limited time. 4.5 star rating. Physics based puzzle game.

8-10-12 Free Apps (limited time)

*Please note these are not free forever....please check price before purchasing. I am not updating posts as the free time limit expires.

Free iOS math apps for young math learners (FREE TODAY ONLY):
http://www.kidcapsuleapp.com/fb/appFridayGrid.php?promo=appFriday_2012_08_10

Free apps from today's update of AppsGoneFree:

3D Rollercoaster Rush
Arcade type game on high speed roller coaster tracks. 4 star rating. Free for limited time. (iPhone only)

Pinch n Pop!
Matching type game-combine "squirms" to control their population. 2.5 star rating. Free for limited time. (iPhone only)

Scrap It! Baby Years HD
Digital scrapbook app for iPad only includes lots of stickers, paper styles, ribbons, letters and numbers, and more... Free for limited time. 5 star rating.

NxtApps 4 Kids
Educational game to help your child practice basic math. Free for limited time. 4.5 star rating.

SunrizerXS Synth
A Virtual analog synthesizer with lots of features. Free for limited time. 5 star rating. (iPhone only)

Tapsteroids
Protect your space ships from asteroids in this arcade type game. Free for limited time. 4 star rating. (iPhone only)

Megacity HD
Challenging logic puzzle game where you build a Megacity. Free for limited time. 4.5 star rating.

Rat on a Scooter
Great name, huh? :) Distance game-help your rat jump different distances. Four modes of the game. Free for limited time. 3.5 star rating.

Parachute
Navigate a teddy bear through caves in this arcade type game. Free for limited time. 3.5 star rating.

Monkey Flight
Sling monkeys through the air to collect fruit in this arcade type game. Free for limited time. 3.5 star rating.

8-9-12 Free Apps (limited time)

I recently downloaded an app called AppsGoneFree and I love it! (see previous post) Every day, it gives you a list of apps that are free for that day or for a limited time. I started posting these on Facebook and twitter and my friends enjoyed it, but I started thinking not everyone wanted 5-7 updates of free apps every day...so I am going to try to post them in a blog and for those interested, they can check the blog post rather than me jam up their Facebook page or twitter feed.

*Please note these are not free forever....please check price before purchasing. I am not updating posts as the free time limit expires.

Free apps from today and yesterday's update:

Centipede: Origins
This is an updated version of Atari's classic arcade game, Centipede. Free for limited time. 4 star rating.

Kayak Pro
Travel app-compare flight, hotel, and car rental deals. Free for limited time. 4 star rating.

Dream Machine Pro
App determines when to play sounds based on your sleep patterns.  Free for limited time. 3.5 star rating. (iPhone only)

Doodle Notes
Arcade game where you tap notes to make music. Tap the notes before they exit. Free for limited time. 4.5 star rating. (iPhone only)

Chasing Yello
Arcade type game-jump over logs, rocks, and collect stars to power-up. Free for limited time. 4.5 star rating.

Signature for PDF
App allows you to add text or your signature of PDF files. Free for limited time. 3.5 star rating.
(iPhone only)

Hungry Turtle for iPad
Hungry Turtle for iPhone
Physics-based puzzle game where you try to feed the hungry turtle. Free for limited time. 4.5 star rating.

Flip Movies
Add a flip book effect to videos with this app. Free for limited time. 3.5 star rating. (iPhone only)

Follow the Rabbit
Puzzle game where you try to collect coins dropped by the rabbit. Free for limited time. 4.5 star rating.

About Time-time tracker
Keep track of your day with this productivity app. Free for limited time. (iPhone only)

Flight!
Paper airplane game which includes challenges. Free for limited time. 5 star rating. 

Free Apps!

Who doesn't love free apps for your iPod, iPhone, or iPad? With limited budgets in our school systems, anything we can get for free is always great! I recently stumbled across the AppsGoneFree app and love it! Each day, it lists apps that are free for that day or for a limited time. I check it every day and there are great apps going free regularly. Some are educational, some are photo apps, some are games, but you can check them out and only get the ones you think you will use (or your students will use!)
I have started posting on Facebook and Twitter the apps that are free and include the link from iTunes to share with my friends and PLN when I know about free apps. I've had lots of comments telling me they look forward to my free app alerts, so if you do this, I encourage you to SHARE AWAY!

innovatEd Event (FREE and online)

innovatEd is a professional development opportunity for educators on Thursday, April 19 from 5:00-8:00pm at Presbyterian Day School in Memphis, TN.  We are hoping for a great turnout from Memphis area educators, but all sessions will be streamed live, so no matter where you live, you can benefit from this event!

There are already over 100 people registered to attend, so we have five presentation rooms during each time slot. Presentations will be posted by early April...we are close to having that finished.

This event is being sponsored by MAIS-TEC (Memphis Area Independent Schools Technology group.) A great team of individuals is We wanted to provide a professional development opportunity for teachers in Memphis and around the world. The focus is innovation in education....what can we do in our classrooms to keep the students engaged and interested while covering our curriculum.

Presentations will be 15 minutes long. There will be people skyped in to present as well as live presenters. We still have about 3 sessions to fill if you are interested in presenting.  Click here to fill out the presenting proposal form.

We hope you will tune in online or join us if you live in the Memphis area. If you live in Memphis, a pizza dinner will be provided by MAIS-TEC from 4:30-4:55 during registration.

ScribblePress App

I want to tell you about my new favorite app for the iPad2...ScribblePress. It's basically an app where students can create a story and illustrate it. After creating it on the iPad, they can share it to the ScribblePress gallery online, email a link to their story, and share it to iBooks on the iPad2 they are using.

Students can create an original book or start from a template where they fill in the blanks in a story already created.  Once they fill in all the blanks, they then illustrate their story. Another neat feature is there is clipart they can use, lots of different marker colors and tip sizes, stamps, and they can even use the iPad2 camera to take a picture and include it in their book.

When I first downloaded the app, I was disappointed because students needed an email address to create an account. I contacted the company and shared with them that I work with 1st-3rd graders who didn't have email accounts. I mentioned sites like Kerpoof that allow teachers to set up an account and then create student user names and passwords so students can login without an email. The people at ScribblePress are amazing! Within a few days, they contacted me about helping Beta test their new groups feature. I was able to create an account and set up multiple classes. I created a student user name and password for each student.

I have used this with 1st and 3rd grade classes. They have all loved it and seeing the excitement on their faces to hear their book will be published on the bookshelf of the ScribblePress site is wonderful!

After the students finished their books, we emailed the link to the teacher and the teacher then forwarded it to the students' parents. When the parents click the link, they have the choice to read in browser or download it for iPad/iPhone, Nookcolor, or Literati/Kobo. Parents can also share on Facebook, Twitter, and email the link to others.

Here are links to a
1st grade class bookshelf (books made using a template),
3rd grade class bookshelf (books made using a template), and
3rd grade class bookshelf (books made from original stories).

I also think this would be a great way to "show the learning" at the end of a unit...students create a book sharing what they know (for example) about the Solar System.

If your students blog, copy the link and paste it into their blog post to share it with their followers.

One minor thing to note: if you are going to share the books to iBooks, I recommend only putting 3 sentences on each page to prevent text from being cut off the bottom of the page in iBooks. This isn't a problem if you are only reading the books online.

Give it a try...all of our teachers that have used it have LOVED this app!

Cool Photo App! GroupShot

I received an email today about GroupShot. It's in the app store for $.99-not a bad price, so I thought I'd share it on my blog with you. I usually try to blog about free apps and software, but thought less than $1.00 was worth mentioning! (Please note it is $.99 for a limited time, then will be $1.99).

Here is the description from their website:
"GroupShot solves a common problem faced in group photos, a person isn't facing the camera or has an expression that doesn't fit the rest of the photo. Usually we take several shots with the hope that one will be perfect. With GroupShot people can pick and choose the best photo of them and integrate it seamlessly into a new, high quality, original pixel level photo."

When you watch the video on their site, I think you will like what you see.
Basically, if you can't get everyone looking at the camera at the same time and take multiple shots, it will allow you to replace people's faces using their face from the photo that is best of them.
Watch the video...check it out...I just purchased it and it's so neat!