It is often a challenge deciding how much time should be spent teaching students how to use an app, especially when that time is at the expense of curricular time. For this reason, I always seek out the most simple, intuitive apps to use with my students, and it’s even better when those apps are free. Case in point, I am planning several short documentary activities with my students, including rock and mineral snapshot activities. I plan to have students create short videos about a particular rock or mineral sample. I will then stitch these videos together in iMovie or Final Cut to create a complete video gallery of rocks and minerals which can be used for content review. So, the question is, what app do I use for this? In a perfect world, where 54 licenses of iMove for iPad were free, I would be able to spend some time teaching basic video editing and create some fantastic products. However, in reality, I need something quick, easy, and cheap. Enter Videolicious.

Videolicious is a free, native, universal app which allows users to easily upload photos and short video clips, add music and a video narration, and have a simple, professional documentary created. This app requires no prior video editing experience, nor does it even require teacher instructions. Check out a quick overview video here. I plan on explaining the assignment and letting kids get to work…the way it’s supposed to be. I expect them to gather images from the web and take photos and video clips using the iPad cameras. They will write scripts and put it all together to create their videos, which can be easily emailed to me for final compiling and editing. I’ll be trying this out for the first time next week, so I’ll have to re-post with the results. I’m pretty psyched to try videolicious out as it may prove really useful throughout the rest of the year.

Tags: Apps, Videolicious, Science, Rocks and Minerals, Documentary, IPad Video Editing

So this afternoon, as I do every single year, I sat by my computer to watch the live blogs of the Apple iPhone 4S event. I already knew a lot about the new features upcoming in iOS5, mainly from the WWDC last June, and the Apple Distinguished Educator Institute in July. It was nice to revisit these features and start to ponder how they may be applicable in my classroom. Here are some of my initial thoughts.

Siri

I anticipated this feature after reading a bunch of rumor websites which leaked some of the details during recent weeks. But seeing Siri, Apple’s new iPhone 4S based personal assistant, in action, I’m completely blown away. The intelligence of this software appears to far exceed anything artificial intelligence I’ve seen before. I’m really excited to try it out. The only downside is that it appears as if this is an iPhone 4S only app. There was no discussion of integrating Siri on previous iPhone models, iPod touches, or iPads. This is a shame as I could see this tool being extremely helpful in students research and communication. I guess I’ll have to look in to iPad 3’s when the time comes.

Find my Friends

This is a neat little app that allows you to physically locate your friends and family on the iPhone 4S. It’s neat, but nothing ground-breaking.

Wireless Mirroring

I’ve been mirroring my iPad 2 on my Smartboard using a VGA cable. I do this almost everyday and it works quite well. The downside is that the VGA cable is big and clunky. I’m really looking forward to being able to wirelessly mirror my, and my students’ iPads to my projector through an Apple TV. I really think this will make sharing a lot easier and more manageable in the classroom.

iMessage

This is going to be a big addition to my classroom. If managed properly, iMessage can act as a student response system, digital discussion medium, and even simple way of asking questions during a lesson, activity, or test. The challenge will be keeping student discussions monitored and focused. I’ll have to experiment with this one next week.

There’s a bunch of other features that I’m excited about, and then the whole iCloud thing to deal with. It’s going to be a bit complicated getting a class set of iPads set up properly to take advantage of iOS5 and iCloud, but I think it will be a great improvement. I can’t wait.

Check out all the Apple videos here.

Tags: IOS5, Apple, IPhone 4S, Siri, IMessage, IPads, Find My Friends

One of the challenges I have faced since the start of this iPad pilot program has been how to create digital lab activities. I need to be able to give students focused questions, some open-ended, some multiple-choice, and some in various other formats. The students then need to be able to easily submit their work for assessment. I considered using a word processing app, like Pages, but found that starting a complete lab activity from a blank document is a bit overwhelming for students. I considered creating pdf forms which could be filled in on the iPads and then submitted digitally, however, between the purchase of Adobe Acrobat to create the forms, and the $10.00+ apps to read and annotate the forms, that options was a bit to pricey. Then I stumbled across FormEntry.

FormEntry is an app, available through the Mac App Store, which allows you to create forms for iOS devices. These forms look like native apps when run on the devices. You can create a variety of question types, including text fields, paragraph responses, spinner wheels, date and time pickers, check boxes, and even photo selectors. The creator of the form has some formatting options, including the ability to add icons to the “app.” These forms can easily be distributed to the devices over a shared wifi network, and, when completed, can be submitted via email, or directly to a server. Both the Mac app and the accompanying (free) iOS app are really simple to use, and work perfectly. There are, however, some limitations, including that fact that you cannot include images as part of your form, and that the length of your questions is somewhat limited. The developer insists that these issues will be addressed in a future release. Even despite these shortcomings, FormEntry has completely changed how I have my students complete labs in my class. It’s definitely worth checking out. Learn more about these apps by checking out this overview pdf.

Tags: Lab, Labs, Digital Labs, FormEntry, FormEntry Touch, WidgetPress, IOS Form, Form App

Like in many disciplines, in Earth Science, students must be comfortable explaining their thoughts through the use of diagrams. Throughout the year, we create dozens of illustrated notes to help students visualize complex science concepts, including thes seasons, the rocks cycle, plate tectonics, and weather fronts. One particularly drawing-intensive unit is our mapping unit. Students must be able to draw isolines on both weather and topographic maps. Since I got my iPads, earlier in the year, I've been searching for a simple drawing app. The app needed to be incredibly simple and easy to use, inexpensive, and most importantly, it had to allow you to set an image as the background. I don't have styluses (styli?) for my students, so it also had to be easy to control by finger. After exploring dozens of apps, varying in price from free to more than $19.99, I stumbled across BusinessBoard. This simple app does everything I need. It is really just a bare bones whiteboard app with simple photo background and email sharing options. When I got the app, it was free, but it seems to have gone up to $0.99, still worth it in my opinion.

So my first experiences using BusinessBoard involved students practicing the drawing of isolines. I uploaded a dozen or so field maps into the iPad photo albums for student use. These maps are simple diagrams with some sort of data values all over, including temperature and elevation values. Students then used their fingers to draw in isolines. It was great as it was easy to start over after mistakes were made, and it was easy to switch over to new maps. I didn't collect any work from this app yet, but the process should be simple using the email sharing options. The only thing missing from this app is an undo button. If you're looking for a very simple, minimal whiteboard app, check this one out.

Tags: Topographic Map, Contour Map, Isolines, Drawing, Whiteboard App, BusinessBoard App, BusinessBoard

An important concept in Regents Earth Science is that the altitude of the star Polaris above the northern horizon is approximately equal to the observer's latitude. In this case, the term altitude simply refers to the angle of something above the horizon. Traditionally, this measurement would be made with instruments called astrolabes, sextants, or even clinometers. For years, I had my science students create their own astrolabes using this template. They would then use these instruments to measure the altitude of a cardboard Polaris I hung in our school's atrium. They would measure the altitude from various locations, simulating what it would be like to measure the actual altitude from various locations in the northern hemisphere. When I got my first set of iPod Touches, I was excited at the potential uses of the built-in accelorometer for this lab. Low and behold, developers designed a variety of astrolabe apps that accomplished the same thing as the more traditional instruments. Using the iPods instead of the astrolabes made the activity more engaging and fun, and it allowed students to really undertstand the concept of altitude.

This year, I have been using iPads, and so I immediately sought out an astrolabe app that was native on the iPad. I was very excited to find SeeLevel. This app allows the user to look "through" the screen using the device's camera. A bullseye on the screen can be lined up with any object while the angle above the horizon is displayed on the top of the screen. Despite my constant fear that students would drop the iPads, the activity went well and students really grasped the concept. Check out this photo of the kids in action. By the way SeeLevel can also perform a variety of other measurement tasks, and is definitely worth checking out. It's currently available for $0.99 on the iTunes Store.

Tags: Polaris, Latitude, Altitude, Clinometer, Astrolabe, Sextant, SeeLevel, SeeLevel App