iOS 8 Tips and Tricks

     iOS 8 has some pretty nifty tricks in it!  You now have more options when using Safari in iOS 8.  You can now save articles and items you like directly into your Evernote account, your Pocket account, and more.  Just tap on the sharing icon (the box with the arrow up) and choose where you would like to put the article.  You can Tweet a link to it, post it on Facebook, etc.  If you do not see Evernote or Pocket as options, but you have those apps installed on your device, go to the More icon and tap on it.  Then, allow access to the apps you want by swiping to green.  Now you can save to Evernote, Pocket, etc. straight from Safari!

     Students can now have an entire screen read to them in Safari or other native iOS apps such as Pages without having to highlight the sections they want read.  To enable this function, go to Settings.  Tap on General.  Tap on Accessibility.  Then tap on Speech.  Swipe to turn on Speak Screen.  Now, when students want an entire screen read, they simply swipe downward from the top of the screen with two fingers.  Options will also come up to allow students to speed up or slow down the reading.  

     Safari is just one of many upgrades in iOS 8!The camera has gotten some great updates, too.   Now, users can do a time-lapse video and a panoramic photo!  There is also a timer for photos that can be set to either 3 seconds or 10 seconds.  In addition to the camera updates, another nice feature is the notification when an app is using your location information in the background.  Users can even disallow the app from doing so within the notification itself.  This will help users know which apps could be potentially draining their battery life by running location services in the background.

     For parents, a nice feature that has been added is in Guided Access.  Parents now have the ability to select how long the iPad can be used before shutting off, thus allowing parents to limit their child's time on the device.

     Finally, if you update your MacBook to Yosemite, you will then be able to air drop from your MacBook to your iPad and vice versa.  This will be a very handy tool in the classroom!

Blogging Basics

    Blogging is a great way to share your thoughts, ideas, and interests with an authentic, real-world audience!  When a blog becomes popular, there are endless possibilities for the author.  Many employers are now looking at the online presence of its prospective employees.  That means they want to view a person's Twitter, Facebook, Instagram account, and maintaining an effective and professional looking blog is one way to create a positive digital presence.

     The term blogging originated from the words "web" and "log".  So essentially, a blog is a web-log or journal.  But it can be so much more!  A blog is a way to communicate not only with text, but with audio and visuals as well.  It is a place to share your knowledge and expertise!

     Some popular blogging sites are Blogger (which is where this blog is hosted), Word Press, Weebly, and Tumblr.  For the purposes of blogging from the iPad, I would suggest using Blogger or Word Press, as they both have apps for iOS devices.  That means you can blog right from your iPad or iPhone.  If you have typed something in Pages and want to use that on your blog, just copy the text and paste it into a new post!

      Before getting started with your blog, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Read other blogs!  Identify what works, and learn from the experts.
2. Don't share personal information on a blog.  Protect yourself, your identify, and privacy.
3. Take care to write professionally.  Proofread and consider your audience!  
4. Blog frequently.  Stay relevant.  A blog that goes untouched for days or weeks will lose the audience it has built.
5. Comment on other blogs, but be sure to remain professional.  There is a difference between criticizing and commenting.  Bullying and bashing others is no way to create a positive online presence and it is a poor display of digital citizenship.
6. Market your blog!  You won't have a big audience to begin with, so you will need to take it upon yourself to build your audience.  Share your blog address with others on Twitter and other social media outlets.  Ask people you know to read your blog and comment on it.
7. Be sure to enable comments on your blog in order to get valuable feedback from your audience!

Answer Garden

     Answer Garden is one of my favorite new discoveries!  This is a web-based tool as well as a free iPad app that It will allow teachers to set up a question, prompt, etc. and students can put in a 20 character answer.  The app then creates a word cloud that displays all student answers. The more a word is used, the
larger it gets. What an awesome way for students to share vivid verbs, descriptive adjectives,WOW words,words to describe a character, brainstormed ideas, etc. Then they can screen shot the word cloud for
use as a resource later!  Check out the example below done as students shared the vivid verbs in their writing!

TouchCast

     TouchCast is a free app for the iPad, and it is truly amazing!  If you are looking for more than just a whiteboard app, TouchCast is for you!  Teachers can use TouchCast to record tutorials for their students.  Not only can you record a whiteboard lesson live, but you can also insert a Doceri whiteboard creation that was pre-recorded.  You can insert web pages, live Twitter feeds, PDF's and documents from your Dropbox account, Keynote presentations, and much more!  So, a lesson on TouchCast can include the best of many worlds!  Once a TouchCast video is completed, you can upload it to a channel of your own, and then share the URL with your students!

     Students can also create a TouchCast video.  It is such a great tool for students to use to demonstrate their learning.  Students can create a TouchCast that uses a preset theme such as a news cast, a sports cast, a business cast, etc.  These themes have slides that make the creation of the video a quicker process.  However, students can also create a TouchCast from scratch.  

     If TouchCast sounds like a tool you'd like to learn more about, check out the link below to learn and see more!  It is hard to believe such an amazing app is free!!!

http://www.touchcast.com/

Make Beliefs Comics App

     I have been looking for a free app that will allow students and teachers to create comics and save those comics to the camera roll on the iPad.  Getting items to the camera roll on the iPad is the key to using those items in other apps.  Make Beliefs Comics is a free app that does just that.  Once a comic is created, it can be saved to the camera roll as well as emailed to others.  Once in the camera roll, students and or teachers can bring the comic into a Educreations tutorial, an iMovie, a Pages document, a Keynote presentation, etc.  The possibilities are endless!  To get started, simply download the free app and start playing.  It doesn't take long to figure out how to create a fun but simple comic.  Below is a comic I put together in less than five minutes. 

Student Created RSA-Animate Style Videos

As educators, we have probably all seen the incredibly informative and entertaining RSA-Animate videos featuring Sir Ken Robinson. (If not, check one out now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U ).  Well, armed only with iPads, students can now create these types of videos as well! What an awesome and engaging way for students to explain concepts in classes, summarize books they have read, explain their own unique writings, or teach each other new concepts during a jigsaw activity.  The process for creating these videos is VERY easy.

• First, students will need to plan out their sketches and write the scripts to go along with the images.
• Next, they can use a whiteboard app like Doceri to sketch out the images that will help to tell the story or explain the concept.  They will not need to record themselves reading the script yet. When they are finished, they will need to save the Doceri video to their iPad's camera roll.  
• Now students will open up their iMovie app and choose to create a new project using the Doceri video they created.
• They will need to speed up the video in order for it to appear like the RSA animate videos.  Once students have brought their Doceri video down into their new project, they simply have to touch the clip and two options will appear at the bottom left of the screen.  They need to tap on the word Video.  Options will then appear at the bottom right of the screen.  They need to tap on Speed and choose 2x. 
• Now students can record their scripts that go along with the images, and they are finished! Students can share using Apple TV, post to a class Vimeo account, or post to a shared Dropbox account.