Fotobabble

This year I've begun to look at student voice in the classroom and how students can use voice tools in their learning to more effect.  Fotobabble is one app/website that can be used in such a variety of ways and students enjoy using it.  Fotobabble is one of our 'go to' apps and websites because of it's simplicity.

The idea of Fotobabble is simple.  Take a photo, drawing or image of any kind and upload it to Fotobabble   From here all you need to do is press 'record' to record your voice talking about the image.  Press 'stop' to stop recording then 'play' to listen to it. Simple? Indeed!  From here you are able to name it and save it ready to upload to websites, intranets or link to from tweets and more.

If you have an ipod touch, iphone or ipad this process is even simpler by taking a photo from right in the app. Pressing the 'record' button to record your voice and press it again to stop.  From here you can listen to it then get it ready to send to the Fotobabble site or embed into a blog or wiki etc

The simplicity of the website and the app is what makes it so beneficial to a range of learners - young to old.  Here are a few examples of Fotobabble in the classroom - we used it to share our learning and understanding about different aspects of ANZAC Day: https://sites.google.com/site/2012sps8/anzac-day/anzac-work

Three Ring

There are a number of blogs that I subscribe to that have a focus on iPad use in the classroom.  I'm really interested at looking at in depth ways that iPads/iPods can be used to support the classroom curriculum in developing, supporting and sharing learning processes.  I just have to look at myself and how quickly I will google, translate, photograph or record classroom processes each day since I've gotten an iPhone.

Today when looking through my RSS feed I came across a really interesting and timely post (for me) from Apps in Education around Student ePortfolio options for the iPad.  Several of these e.g. Evernote and Coolibah I already have for a range of uses, but one that struck me for its simple but powerful set up was 'Three Rings' - a free app.

Basically, all you need to do is to set up an account with Three Rings.  From here you can add your students' names quickly via typing them or by adding them through an xls spreadsheet.  I went through this process on the laptop via the Three Ring website, as it was much easier to copy and paste my students across!  Next, you can set up separate classes and subject tags to make it more specific and accessible to Primary and Secondary teachers.  Once you have completed the easy 3 steps of setting these up you are ready to go!

Once you download the app and login you are presented with a simple screen that allows you to choose tags, students and classes before you add a piece of work to your stream.  Once you have selected these options you can choose to take a picture, video, voice recording or select something from your photo roll.  If you are operating from the website you are able to also upload files such as PDFs into your stream.  I'm also hoping that this will include movies etc that students have created in other apps e.g. Sock Puppets or music from Garageband etc.  Once you've finished photographing or recording you click the 'use!' button and it uploads to your account. 

In App - easily tag a student then choose the content to add

The app/website allows you to record a piece of learning, tag it to an individual student, class or subject then be able to view the process via the three ring website once you have logged in.  You are able to click on a student's name or subject and it will give you an individual page just for that student's work.  It works similar to a blog where the latest post is positioned at the top of the page.

The Three Ring website stream

Students can also add a note next to the item they are uploading to talk about why they have selected it, the process they went through etc

The biggest thing that challenges me at the moment about it is that it seems to be very teacher driven as the teacher owns and operates the account.  I'm going to give it a trial with my students and see what they think of it.  I can see potential in the app/website.  

What I think I will do is leave our class iPod set up with the account details and teach a few tomorrow how they can share their best work and the work that they want to share.  I'm sure from that few they will quickly teach each other how to add their work and view it.  It also seems like it would be quite easy to have a class wide password that would allow the students to access and add work via the class laptops/website.

On further reading it seems like there is a good group of educators behind the app looking at making strong improvements to the app.  They seem to be listening to feedback that has been presented to them so far - which is always great from developers.  They liken their app to a digital filing cabinet which will allow for conversation between students, teachers and parents.  Can definitely see the potential for this through it's ease of use.

Top 5 iPhone Travel Apps

It's been a fair while since posting here!

Over the last 5 weeks I've taken this small kiwi girl to the big wide world as I travelled around Europe.  I have had the most amazing adventures and feel like through all my experiences I've brought a lot to my life as well as into my classroom.

I downloaded a lot... many... heaps... of apps before I went away and there were a good range of them that were quickly deleted!  This post is a quick wrap up of the travel apps that I found to be the most beneficial and worthwhile.

Here are my top 5 (+1) iPhone travel app picks:

Tripit - Free - http://www.tripit.com/
http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/tripit-travel-organizer-free/id311035142?mt=8

This handy little app was suggested to me by a well travelled friend.  Boy was it worth it's weight in gold! Tripit is simple in what it does and it does it well.
Once you create an account with Tripit and link it to your email it scans through and locates any trip information emails and automatically adds it to your itinerary for that trip.  So you don't need to enter in details and bits of information for your trip - it does it for you!  This was super handy with a trip that had around 11 flights within it! A few minutes after the confirmation email was sent through to my email I would receive an email from tripit letting me know it had been added to my itinerary.  I could flick open the app on my iPhone and there in my 'Europe Trip' would be the new flight added.  There was one flight that Tripit didn't pick up - this was extremely easy to add in my myself from within the app (it can also be done on the website).  The best thing about this is that via the app or website I had access to all my travel scedule, numbers, locations and more!  You can also pay for the full version which includes many features such as a flight checker - that checks to see if your flight is on time or delayed.  If you're a frequent flyer it would be a handy feature!

TripColor - Free http://www.tripcolor.com/
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tripcolor-social-travel-sharing/id459934160?mt=8

Tripcolor was by far my most used app for the entire trip.  It's such an easy to use and effective app that allowed me to be able to share my trip with friends and family via online photo albums.
Once you set up your account you create a new trip - from here you can add photos to your trip, date/timestamp and information/notes about the photo.  The best feature of TripColor was the fact that it used the location information to keep a map of where each photo had been taken.  For example, on my trip to Berlin, I could see all the locations in Berlin I had taken photos.  When viewing it online via the trip photo map I could roll over on the location dot and it would show the photo that was taken in that location! Fantastic!  Check out the TripColor Demo albums here - you need to click on the individual trips to view the map and images.  I will continue to use this even though I'm home - it's a great way to record small trips as well as large ones!

Instagram - Free  http://instagr.am/
http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/instagram/id389801252?mt=8

If you're a photo freak you'll know about instagram.  It's kinda hard not to after their 1 billion dollar sale to Facebook.  Anyway - Instagram is a photo sharing app that is a must have if you love to take photos.  Create a network of friends and new friends to share your photos with!  You can add hashtags (#) to your posts to link them to certain areas, places and countries along your travels.  It's a great way to link in and find some great places to visit while you are there too!

Guidepal Apps - Free - http://guidepal.com/
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/guidepal-city-guides/id507161832?mt=8

Guidepal offer apps for a huge range of cities!  The app provides you with a guidebook to the area you are visiting.  I found their range of apps to be one of the easiest to navigate.  Once open it gives you a chance to explore in areas such as history and information about the city, attractions, nightlife, food and more.  In each section it's clearly laid out and gives a range of information that is very worthwhile reading.  You can also have a look on the map to see what's close to you.  Augmented Reality is built in to the app - once you open the 'Nearby' section it will show you the name, distance and direction to local attractions and more.  A great range of features!

Timeout - Free -  http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/393/time-out-travel-apps-for-iphone

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/london-travel-guide-time-out/id406332146?mt=8

Timeout offers a range of guidebook apps for cities around Europe.  This was my other 'go to' guidebook that I located a range of interesting attractions and points of interest in the cities I visited.  Timeout is a magazine that is published for purchase around London.  It lists the what's what and main events that are great to attend at that time.  It's seasonal and up to date which I really liked.  The app had a great range of suggestions and led me to a pretty amazing Flamenco dancing show while I was in Barcelona! Worth having a look through when you're new to a city to get a range of ideas and information.

Happycow - $3  http://www.happycow.net/
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/happycow-vegan-vegetarian/id435871950?mt=8

Being vegan and travelling to different countries with a range of languages can be a bit daunting! Not with this app! Happycow is a website that lists vegetarian, vegan and health stores in your area.  The app does exactly this but with the added bonus of using your gps information to tell you how close or far away cafes and restaurants are from you.  This was a great app to locate yummy restaurants through the review feature, where previous customers can leave a review and star rating.

Retelling a Fairy Tale

This afternoon our school (Summerland) ran some iPad workshops at The Learning Network in West Auckland.  There was a fantastic group that was a full house of 80 people, all ready to share and listen to what we have been doing this year.  Our principal, Luke Sumich, started the session off with some really thoughtful words... what are you doing with these iPads and why? Where are you going with making sure that learning and your learners are at the heart of what you are doing?  From there we broke off into 4 sessions.  We offered an Art session using Art Rage and Live sketch, Storytelling, Apps for Numeracy, Tools for Teachers and a retelling workshop, which I ran.

Retelling using Draw Free and Puppet Pals

This session was based around the reading strategy called 'Retelling'.  This is one of the CAFE strategies that we have worked on in our class.  The students spent time reading a fairy tale then using the 'Retell Rope' and chart to retell their story to their partner.  A 'Retell Rope' is a rope that has 8 knots down it - one for each area that they need to include in their retell.  It provides a kinesthetic hook for them to hang their retelling information on.

From here we moved into using the iPads to retell their fairy tale.  Over 2 sessions the students were in groups of 2-4 students, they decided on the fairy tale they wanted to retell.  From there the students decided the characters or items they needed to draw and they created these in Draw Free.  The important thing here is that each character is saved to the photo album, so that Puppet Pals is able to access the image.  Once the students completed their character drawings they would head into Puppet Pals and get ready to record.  It's rather easy to import the characters into Puppet Pals through the 'Add Actors' button on the Actors page.  The important thing to note here is that if you have the free version it will allow you to import it but then you won't be able to use it!  So if you want to be able to import your own photos or pictures you need to make sure you have the directors pass.  But it's definitely worth the $4.19 you will pay for the app!

The students select their actors and background and it brings you to the 'stage'.  Here you will have a white rectangle in the middle with your characters and background.  Everything that is inside the white rectangle is what will be recorded, so it's important to remember that if you have an actor outside the white box they won't be in your final video!  Once you are ready to go you can press the red circle to record - on the newer version it lets you pause your recording which is handy.  But the kids basically have 1 take to complete the recording - tough but handy from a teaching perspective as the kids tend to not keeping going back and touching up little things; it sets the bar high!

While recording the students can move their characters around inside the white box and speak.  The movement and audio will all be recorded!

Once the kids have recorded you can then save and export them.  Once you have tapped 'export' in Puppet Pals it will export it into your Photo Album.  If you don't do this, you will only be able to watch your movie inside the Puppet Pals app.  When it let's you know that it's exported you can easily plug it into your computer and download it to your computer through iPhoto.  Check out my students very first Puppet Pal retellings on our class blog here!

There are many different ways that you could use Puppet Pals.  

Some of the ways you could use it are:

• Students that didn't want to speak in front of the class - take a photo, add the student into Puppet Pals and get them to talk
• Sharing their learning - what did I learn, numeracy strategies, reading strategies etc
• End of topic to explain their learning and knowledge from the topic
• Photos from trips as backgrounds and students can recount events that happened on the trip

There are so many ways you could use it!

The following link (click here or on the photo) will take you to a how to sheet that you are welcome to download and use in your classroom to help you get on your way.  Link back to any work you complete or ideas you have and leave a comment to let us know how you get on! 

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_I4f6vGYHk5ODdhNzc5NTktNjA2NC00MjZjLTlhYTUtYWZmNTEwYjgyYjg1

Goodbye Delicious - Hello Symbaloo!

With the change over of delicious and all the problems that have gone alongside it, it has seen me seek out new ways to share and display learning links for my students.  With the change over the kids were quick to point out that tags were missing and it was hard to find links that they knew where to find previously.

So this sent me on hours (yes, hours) long search to find something that would allow me to create several pages but also allow the students to have visuals of the links they are wanting to use.  I really wanted to switch to a more visual form of bookmarking rather than word tags after myself enjoying Pinterest - a visual bookmarking tool due to the ease of use and visual way of organising links.

I had a play around with the delicious stacks - which at first seemed very promising.  Apart from when I kept getting 500 gateway errors from them.  When stacks did work it would only allow me to stack together my first page of links but not access the other pages.  Fiddly and unfun. So, I gave up.  I moved on to trialling websites like favoritus, portaportal, sitemarks and more - all visual bookmarking sites that looked extremely good.  All of them had the same problem for me.  The lack in ability to be able to create a standalone web page that had seperate pages for my links. Painful.

Then I remembered a site that I had previously played with and put into my 'could be helpful' pile of links. Symbaloo.  It's a simple idea - you create webmixes or pages of links.  Each link is a little coloured icon that you can arrange across your webmix.  The webmix can be shared via email, kept private, shared with the world or embedded into webpages.  So this is the angle I have taken.  I am creating seperate pages for each subject and colour coding links with visuals also.  The students used it in the last 2 days of term and the votes were pretty clear - all but 4 students loved the new Symbaloo system because of the colours, images and how easy it was to find links.  The 4 students who didn't like it said that it was because they were used to delicious.  Though 1 student did say he might like Symbaloo more once 'he got used to it' - awesome!

The image from above is from my Daily 5 wiki for the students.  This is one area I have created Symbaloo link pages and it has now become the portal that they will use for links.  They can either go straight to the page or jump to it via the class blog.  You can view the website here.

The colour coding system is quite handy also.  I have a student who is new to my class from overseas and has minimal english.  The links in orange are specifically set up for her - the students were great at showing her that they were for her and the second time on the computer she seemed to understand that this was a great area for her to start.

The other thing about Symbaloo that was a bonus is that the interface works on iPads and iPod touches.  One of my students became a fantastic tester and tried it out.  Unfortunately only 2 of the above links would run on an iPod - this has meant that I've created other Symbaloo's that will contain mobile device friendly links!

The biggest drawback is the time that this takes compared to setting up links in delicious - with the delicious bookmarking paglets it is extremely easy to link and tag websites.  While Symbaloo isn't as easy to tag websites at the moment the visual elements and arrangements for the students makes it far outweigh the time it takes me to add links in!

Balloons

On The Mac.AppStorm site today I found an iPhone application called Balloons. I would LOVE to use this in the classroom with students. It's a fairly basic concept, but one that I think would really hook kids in to writing and geography.

The concept is simple - you choose a balloon, write a message and then set it free. You can catch other people's balloons and see where they have ended up. Each message records when and where the balloon has been with room for the 'catcher' to leave a message with photos and text. You can choose to be anonymous or leave a name. When you set a balloon free you can track it and see whether it's still flying, popped and how many messages have been added to it.

There is a lite version (which doesn't do the tracking) for free and a full version for $2.99 from the iTunes store. I would love to hear from anyone that has used in the class!

Check out the video below to get a better understanding: