Haiku Deck - Free iPad App

Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is a free iPad app that allows  you to create wonderful presentations easily.  Haiku Deck allows you to choose from different styles and themes and then gives you access to free Creative Commons licensed photos.  It is so easy - kids can use it too!  On February 15th, the Haiku Deck blog written by Claire, gave some great ideas on how to use Haiku Deck in the classroom and iTunes gives a list of great ideas too.  Suggestions?  Science lab presentations, homework assignments, summarizing discussions, book talks, sharing books, reports, visual resumes, poems, highlights of lessons and pitching ideas.  Teacher presentations are always the key to how student's are going to listen - this tool can definitely make the difference.  On the Haiku Deck web site - they have a gallery of different presentations that students, teachers and other professionals have produced.  Here are a couple:

Catherine Carr created this presentation on Mobile Learning using Haiku Deck....

Ken Shelton created the presentation below.....

Can you think of great ways to put Haiku Deck to use?

Aurasma in Action!

Sherri Kushner and I trained a group of librarians on the many uses of Aurasma Augmented Reality.  Aurasma allows educators to using image recognition to access videos, pictures, and 3D models.  Follow the instructions that Sherri's students have provided and follow the Chute Middle School Channel, the TCEA2013 Channel, and the IDEA Public Schools Channel and you will see engaging Aurasma Auras are.

I am including some of the target images you will need to see some of the Auras on my TCEA2013 Channel and IDEA Public Schools Channel.

RJ Palacio visited IDEA Public Schools in September.  Her book WONDER is amazing - after following the guide above, aim your device at this image and see what happens.

This is the second book TEACH TWICE has come out with.  Scan this image to see another book trailer.

When you scan my business card, you can see that not only can you have one overlay or option, but several.  You can program your buttons to make calls, go to websites, or view pictures and videos.  

Can you think of all the different ways you might be able to use this APP in your library or classroom?

LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU....

Do you ever wonder why people ask you questions that can easily be found on Google?  And, don't you wonder why they just didn't search Google to find it?   Google has a site called, let me Google that for you, the URL is: http://lmgtfy.com.  The best part of this site is,  after you Google what ever they were asking about, the site gives you a link to a short video of how easy it was to find the answer.  Scroll over the image below to see....




Since this site does take a short video, it lends itself to mini tutorials that you can use with students.  Can you think of other ways you might use this site?

App of the week: Dragon Dictation

What do you do with a room full of little ones and a bunch of iPads?

You could have them play games, take photos, or search for library books....

But what about something more ambitious like write reflections or create stories, tasks that require keyboarding skills? 

Dragon Dictation to the rescue.

Dragon dictation is a voice-recognition app. It allows the speaker to dictate their thoughts and instantly see them in text. It recognizes a variety of languages...40 at the time of this posting.

Tap the screen to start and tap it again when you're done speaking. Dragon dictation shows you where to speak into your iPad or other mobile device.

Once you've completed your message, you can edit, cut, copy, and paste it into other applications, or send it directly to your favorite social-networking site.

Why leave it just for your first-graders to dictate the stories they want to tell? Use it yourself to create a to-do list, send an e-mail, or create your latest blog post.