Challenge 3 Reflection

I explored all three apps this week. I spent the most time with screen chomp & explain everything since I had already explored educreations when we were exploring apps on our own. Screen chomp was actually a bit challenging at first because I wanted another page and couldn't figure out how to get one. Eventually I realized that I could erase the first page and write the second. I also wanted to be able to write the whole page and then record it but it made more sense to write a line record then audio & then write the next line. I also managed to cover the microphone in the middle of the video so you couldn't hear my audio. I like the explain everything app better. I found it to be more user friendly. I wanted to demo a homemade play dough recipe for parents but I didn't want to make play dough for my classroom this early in the summer. I even thought about making it for my niece but she is leaving for vacation so she wouldn't be home to receive it in the mail. So instead explained how to use a Keurig. Additionally, I am having some Internet connection issues since the storm so I don't think it posted to my blog... I will try again tomorrow.

Check out my Scribble Press book: Mike and the Great Outdoors

Check out my Scribble Press book: Mike and the Great Outdoors:

Written & illustrated by me!

http://ebooks.scribblepress.com/book.php?g=ACG7KTD6


Sent from my iPad

Check out my Scribble Press book: How many?

Check out my Scribble Press book: How many?: It is a digging deeper math book.

http://ebooks.scribblepress.com/book.php?g=99H445Q9


Sent from my iPad

Reflection on Challenge 2

The apps we used this week will be fun to use with kids. I especially like Story Kit...one, It is simple to use & two, the kids can narrate their stories. I can see kids illustrating books and me scanning in their illustrations, then having them narrate, I could even transcribe their words into text. I also like the idea of having simple text books that the kids could read to themselves as a fun way to practice reading and build sight word knowledge or even some basic math skills. I think that I would have kindergarten students illustrate on paper since the drawing features lend themselves to pictures with less detail. I can also see making some books where children can tell about their families using photos. I think this weeks tools are more kid friendly for kindergarteners to use. I don't foresee using dictation with kids mostly due to the fact that so many of them have articulation errors in their speech to begin with; I think I would spend more time editing rather than just typing what they want to say. I do like the other 3 programs but must admit I would be very frustrated if what happened to me with story robe happened to my students. I know my local copy was available to view but if I am taking the time to produce finished work like this I would want to share it with their families. Also, I set up google reader and what a fast way to view everyone's posts & I noticed that sometimes you can view things on the computer which just don't work on the iPad. All in all a good week.

Sharing a story with you

This is a story shared with you by the StoryKit iPhone application.

Click here to read the story.

Sent from my iPad

Story Robe

Well I have this cute little video about Woodland Animals but Story Robe keeps freezing when I go to email it so I can't seem to share it. I will keep trying to get it onto my blog but sometimes technology has a mind of it's own. Up to the sharing point it was pretty easy to use.

Scribble Press Reflection

So I like the book making with scribble press and I could see using it with kids. However, I did run into one problem...when I published the book to iBooks the text on two of my pages covered the bottom part of my photograph that I had taken & used in my story, even though it did not do this on my draft. I went back in to edit and fix this but it did not allow me to click on the photo & re-size it. I then erased the pictures and took the pictures again, re-inserted them and re-published the book but the published book did not reflect the changes I had just made to the two photos. This was a bit frustrating but I decided to leave it alone since I can't seem to find a way to make my changes show up. I will just keep in mind when using photos to leave a larger margin for the text.