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!

Symbaloo

Our classrooms all have laptop carts and I've been looking for a way to organize sites our students use on a regular basis. Through the power of twitter, I found Symbaloo.  Symbaloo is a simple start page that allows you to organize and access favorite sites on one page. It has a great look for kids (as well as adults). Symbaloo allows you to create various webmixes, so I created one for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades as well as a subject area for the main subjects. Our school uses Google Apps, so using Google Sites, I create a home page for each grade level. I made that page include the webmix with more general sites (our school homepage, AR, IXL, etc.) I then created a Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Keyboarding, and Just for Fun site for each grade level. Click here to see our 2nd grade example.
Symbaloo is very user friendly. You can increase or decrease the size of your webmix. You can personalize the icons for each individual square. You can add or delete sites on your webmix any time. You can also embed it in another site, email the link to anyone, keep it private, or share with the world. 
I have shared this with our teachers and they are excited about how easy it will be for their students to access web sites. We also plan on sharing the google site for each grade level with parents so they can make it their homepage on home computers.
Symbaloo is free, but there are paid accounts as well.  Check it out! I think you will be pleased.

Robotics Using Lego Mindstorms

I presented on Robotics Using Lego Mindstorms at the Martin Institute Summer Conference. Here is the link to my presentation. Also, click here for the conference wiki. Many presenters shared their slides and handouts on this wiki. Great stuff!

Newseum

Newseum is a great resource for social studies, government, and history classes. If you click on the Today's Front Pages link, you will see 760 front pages from newspapers in 76 countries. You can click on the image of a paper to view it larger. Not only are there today's front pages, but also archived pages and Top Ten (which shows the top 10 headlines from that day).
The Newseum keeps an archive of national and international front pages that chronicle events of historical significance....topics range from Super Bowl wins, natural disasters, weddings, elections, political events and more.
There is even an app for the iPhone and iPad!
Just a note, you probably want to preview the site before showing it live to students in case some of the headlines are controversial or inappropriate.