2012 Greatest Hits: Mercy's iPad App Finalists!

As the year ends, I will republish the Drive-thru's five most viewed posts of 2012.  This is #5.

Last week I met with our blue ribbon app selection committee.  These individuals were issued iPad 2s  in advance of our order of "new" iPads for the entire staff.  Our pioneers explored a wide-range of apps which might be pre-loaded on our staff and student iPads.  Since the seventy new staff iPads will soon arrive, we need to pin down our basic starter set.  Teachers from art, science, religious studies, health, and social studies have contributed to the selection.  Our IT Director and our Associate Principal/Academic Affairs also contributed

Here are the finalists.  Your feedback is still (and will continue to be) very welcome:

Animation Creator-- With simple, yet powerful drawing tools, layers, shake to undo, color palettes, color sliders, and easy to use frame management. http://bit.ly/GO8wrC

ArtRage-- A stylish, intuitive painting and drawing package that makes it easy to produce natural looking artwork on your iPad. http://bit.ly/GIcqGr

Avid Studio (or iMovie?)-- an easy-to-use app that enables you to edit video, audio, and photos at the speed of your creativity. http://bit.ly/GGvFz7

Calculator+-- designed with simplicity, usability  http://bit.ly/GPimr8 

CloudOn-- lets you view, edit, and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents on your tablet, which can then be saved directly to your Dropbox. http://bit.ly/zzlBu7

Dragon Dictation-- voice recognition application that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages.  http://bit.ly/GHLDTv

Dropbox-- Simple to use and extremely useful, this file synchronization app will keep all of your files in step.  http://bit.ly/GGPtxu

EMD PTE-- a new education app which provides teachers and students extensive information about the periodic table of the elements. http://bit.ly/GGQENt

Evernote-- helps you remember everything across all of the devices you use. Makes these notes completely searchable.  http://intel.ly/GGbhL8

Flipboard-- Aggregates news, images, video, social networking updates, and shared links in a magazine-style layouts.  http://bit.ly/GJvL7g

Gmail-- brings Gmail "push notifications" to iPad meaning that you can be notified the moment a new message hits the Gmail servers.  http://huff.to/GN1ruO 

Google-- presents you with big, colorful links to several Google services, including Calendar, Docs, Google+, Picasa, YouTube and Google Books. http://ti.me/GGbuP9 

iAnnotate-- "go-to app" for taking notes on lecture slides, annotating important business documents, revising screenplays, grading papers.  http://bit.ly/GIm1gs 

iPhoto-- really powerful image manipulation tools here and yet Apple has made them simple to use thanks to instinctive touchscreen controls. http://tgr.ph/GGFSeW 

ITunes U app icon

iTunesU-- gives access to complete courses from leading universities and other schools — plus the world’s largest digital catalog of free education content.  http://bit.ly/GGibQz 

Keynote-- Keynote allows you to create, edit, and share multimedia presentations with graphics, animations, and charts.  http://bit.ly/GI8O0F 

Kindle-- gives users the ability to read Kindle books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks and PDFs on a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. http://bit.ly/GGOH8T 

LanSchool-- allows teachers to manage computer activities in the classroom from Apple's new device.  http://bit.ly/GH1e7f 

Noteshelf-- Noteshelf is the handwriting note taker that features super natural digital ink. Export your notes to Evernote or Dropbox.  

OneNote-- Create searchable notes with text, pictures and bullets. Then keep your notes in sync using free Microsoft SkyDrive.  http://bit.ly/GFKnCO 

Pages-- Create, edit, and view documents wherever you are. Pages works with iCloud and looks brilliant on Retina display. http://bit.ly/GHvnag 

PowerTeacher -- Is designed to integrate with Pearson's student information system, PowerSchool. http://bit.ly/GMQdX6

Prezi Viewer-- View and present your prezis anywhere with simple, intuitive multitouch gestures. http://prezi.com/ipad/

Pulse News Reader-- An RSS client that displays your feeds in a simple grid configuration that scrolls horizontally and vertically.  http://zd.net/GRu4Tt 

ShowMe-- ShowMe allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials and share them online. Extremely easy to use http://bit.ly/GMsIsp 

Wolfram Alpha--   Alpha is a long-term project to make every bit of systematic knowledge available and, more importantly, computable. http://macw.us/GHTi4V

Word Web Dictionary-- fast searching, spelling suggestions, definitions, usage examples, synonyms, related words.  http://bit.ly/GOdreM 

App Recommendations from MACUL 2012

Naturally, when I was at the Macul Conference last week, I was on the look out for promising iPad apps.  Here are half a dozen that I have downloaded to my iPad for future investigation:


Zite
"Zite is a free personalized magazine for your iPad that automatically learns what you like and gets smarter every time you use it. Zite delivers all the great news, articles, blogs, and videos you want – and helps you discover new stuff that you'll love."


EMD PTE
"This is by far the best periodic table app out there. It's receiving continuous updates and it's free."

EMD's dynamic periodic table of the elements

Wolfram|Alpha
"With Wolfram|Alpha on your iPad, you can explore a vast world of knowledge, whether hanging out at the local coffee shop or relaxing on your couch. Use Wolfram|Alpha to discover new information about the world and to breathe expert knowledge into any facet of your life."  

iPhoto

"There’s so much power built into iPhoto for iOS, you need to touch it to believe it. Using only your fingers, you can make a blue sky bluer. A landscape greener. Or a smile brighter. From the moment you touch the screen, the way you see things will never be the same."


Prezi Viewer
"View and present your prezis anywhere with simple, intuitive multitouch gestures. Drag to pan and pinch to zoom in or out of topics, just like you do in any map apps. Revise and retouch your prezis, correct typos and adjust your presentation on-the-fly. Prezi Viewer is the perfect companion to your Prezi experience."


Explain Everything
"Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design tool that lets you annotate, animate, and narrate explanations and presentations. You can create dynamic interactive lessons, activities, assessments, and tutorials using Explain Everything's flexible and integrated design." 

Dragon Dictation & Movie Making

I had the unusual experience recently of using my iPhone to help make a movie. No, I didn't use its movie camera. Instead I used the dictation app, called Dragon Dictation. I dictated my script over the phone and emailed myself the text. Now, granted, I might do something like this just for the geeky heck of it. But in this case it was pretty helpful. I was scripting a narration to accompany some movie screen captures , and I needed a rough idea of the timing, since the audio would have to be synched with the video (I used the iPhone as a stopwatch for this).

Below is the result. In addition to Dragon Dictation, I used GarageBand, iPhoto, Keynote, Voila, and iMovie. I worked much harder on this than my last module, but you'll see that I was not up to smoothing out all the rough patches.

I Love Being Lost in La Mancha

Ordinarily creating a study guide for students is a bit of a chore. However, I've always enjoyed fashining guides for my Lit into Film class. When Tom S. and I created the class a few years ago, we both thought it was pretty important that students have a guided viewing of the films, so that they would be prepared for discussion. Since we selected films that we really liked, it was no chore to comb through them for good discussion topics.

Two years ago, I began to convert my guides to Google Docs with hyperlinks, so that they popped out with YouTube and jpeg examples of film techniques that were merely defined in prior semesters. Putting the guides on Google Docs also allowed me to link them easily to Moodle.

This summer I have begun to improve the guides by using the screen capture software, Volia. I recently completed a study guide for Lost in La Mancha, a film directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe which "chronicle[s] the making of a movie that was never actually completed . . . Terry Gilliam's repeated (and repeatedly failed) attempts to bring the story of Don Quixote to the big screen." It's a wonderful documentary, a genre unappreciated by most students.

Voila has permitted me to inch through the film and pull out illustrative images from La Mancha. Viola allows for publishing directly to iPhoto, where I edit them before import the photos into the guide. I am very pleased to show off my handiwork and look forward to more summer fun with Voila:

Lit into Film Study Guide for Lost in La Mancha

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Terry Gilliam on location in Spain-- Voila screen capture from Lost in La Mancha.

Summer Play with Jpegs

Jpeg Joy
I've kicked off my summer vacation with a flurry of jpeg activity. Before I begin my show 'n tell, I should remark that I received lots of classroom compliments for the iPhoto calendar I whipped up for S-7. This creation came in the wake of the "Ann Arbor" Images book that I described in My Friend, Flickr. Also I am pleased to report that I have now converted all my Lit into Film guides into hyperlink format (See Hyperlink Heaven).

Recent Developments!

For the past two weeks I have been dropping jpegs into movies. My first effort was a film review of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. I enjoyed dropping the jpegs into iMovie so much I have the notion of adding a "Five Star Review" to my web site each month. When I told fellow Web Warrior, Rick Strobl, what I had been up to, he tipped me off on an application that sent me off on a bender. I've completed my last two jpeg movies with PhototoMovie (Check out the free trial). In an afternoon I completed an eight minute movie for my film class on documentaries. Basically it's a podcast with jpeg illustrations. Obviously, for a film class, this has tremendous advantages. But I also wish to try it with my government classes and will check back in next week after I am done raiding the public domain jpegs at the Library of Congress!