Archives For interactive

iBooks: 8 Suggestions for the Next Update

kcroy —  May 6, 2012 — 5 Comments

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I love reading on the iPad, and iBooks is by far my favorite reading app. In my opinion iBooks has the smoothest user interface and offers the best reading experience. I love that it syncs with my iPhone and I love the ability to search, leave notes, define words, and highlight text. I really get a lot of reading accomplished between my iPad and my iPhone during the day as I wait in lines and other places. (The other reading apps I have downloaded and have used include: Kindle, Nook, and Google Play Books. iBooks trumps them all.) There are some features I like on the other apps and some new ones I’ve dreamed-up I’d like to see added in a future upgrade of iBooks.

Here are my 8 suggestions to improve iBooks:

1) Moveable Bookmark: The red bookmark in the top right corner is great as it always remembers where I am in a book, even when syncing with my iPhone. Sometimes, however, when I open my book I have to hunt around where I am on the page.  I wish the red bookmark was moveable. I would simply drag it down to the paragraph I was reading on the righthand side.
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New interactive dictionary/thesaurus apps browse words like branches of a tree: Help Kickstart a free app

kcroy —  March 26, 2012 — Leave a comment

EXPLORING WORDS WITH VISUAL THESAURUS APPS “lorrain croy” lorrain croy

Two new interactive apps for the iPad use tree-like branching to visualize words, and excite students about words and the relations between them. The apps have hot new user interfaces, and very different business models.

WordNodes on Ivory

The first app (codenamed ‘WordNodes’) aims to be published this summer. It pairs a great experience with a low price. Created by nonprofit IDEA.org (http://www.idea.org/about/), the app will display visual clusters of related words, including synonyms, antonyms, as well as more general, and more specific words, and commonly confused words. Within the node for each word are multiple parts of speech, definitions, and etymologies. Students can bookmark works, label them with tags, or share using email, Twitter, Dropbox, or Evernote.

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App Review: Bubbling Math for the iPad

kcroy —  March 5, 2012 — Leave a comment

A Review of Bubbling Math iPad App by Tappy Taps Written by Sue Gorman

Children will love doing math using the Bubbling Math App that has math levels, goals, awards and music!

This fun math app provides early learning for kindergarten and helps those in 1st – 4th grade practice and gain proficiency in math skills.

In the Task Configuration section, parents and teachers can set what task to practice from addition, subtraction, multiplication and division at levels from off, easy, medium hard and expert. You can also control the speed of each experience from slow, normal or fast. What I really like about this is the personalized learning aspect as the child’s mastery level can be set differently within each operation. Continue Reading…

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Review: Mac Call Recorder for Skype is Awesome!

kcroy —  March 3, 2012 — 2 Comments

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Wired Educator’s Grade Card is out and Ecamm’s Call Recorder plug-in for Skype receives our highest marks.

Wired Educator is very excited to post our review Ecamm’s Mac Call Recorder.  It is an incredible solution for voice and video call recording in Skype. We found it incredibly easy to use and a worthwhile app the we plan to use on Wired Educator to produce podcast interviews with teachers, administrators, developers, and other interesting individuals impacting technology in education.

Call Recorder in the Classroom:

I wish I had Mac Call Recorder a couple of years ago. My students and I contacted award-winning author AVI for a Skype interview. It was one of the most rewarding and worthwhile Continue Reading…

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Worth Ave Group Announces $150,000 in Grants and Prizes to Schools

kcroy —  February 17, 2012 — Leave a comment

WEWGGrant

Wired Educator is excited to announce a great opportunity for schools and educators.

Announcing Worth Ave. Group’s “Technology in Education Grant to Honor America’s Greatest Teachers!

Worth Ave. Group, the most respected and valued name in full-service electronic device insurance, is giving away over $150,000 in grant money and prizes to schools. Worth Ave. Group provides full-service electronic device insurance that is affordable for students, teachers, parents, and schools covering iPhones, iPads, laptop and desktop computers, TVs, digital cameras, PDAs, and other portable devices against accidental damage and theft. Worth Ave. Group has been providing insurance and peace of mind for over forty years to thousands of customers across the nation. They are trusted by over 2,000 schools for insuring their technology. They are licensed in all fifty states and underwritten by Hanover Insurance Company.  We are proud to help announce their giveaway and contest and recommend their services to individuals and schools for affordable and reliable insurance. Please check them out at: www.worthavegroup.com

Click HERE to for the contest rules.

One Grand Prize:

• $25,000 school technology grant

• iPAd 2  16GB for the ‘Best Teacher in America’ (The teacher with the most nominations nationwide.)

• 30 iPod Touch Devices for your classroom
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Alien Buddies FREE all day Friday: Great Learning App for Ages 3-7 for iPad and iPhone App

kcroy —  January 26, 2012 — Leave a comment

Alien Buddies will be FREE all day Friday, January 27, 2012. Go grab it.

Alien Buddies is an ‘out of this world’ educational app for children ages 3-7 focuses on colors, shapes, letters, numbers, problem solving, shape recognition, sequential counting, fine motor skills, and lots of creative play. It’s fun and I big hit.

Alien Buddies sells for $1.99 and is a universal app for iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch Device, but you can grab it for free for a limited time.

Here is the link to their website: http://www.alien-buddies.com/

What a great learning tool!  Hope you check it out and share it with the young learners in your life.
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Anime Studio 8 Brings Animation into Your Classroom with Ease and Excellence

kcroy —  January 12, 2012 — Leave a comment

WE Anime

Digital Story Telling is at the forefront of Education and there are many powerful and fun options available on a variety of devices, but until now one genre has been significantly absent, animation. Animation has traditionally been a laborious process and a consumer of time, making it difficult and impractical for a student project in a typical classroom. Until now.

Ever since I saw my first animated film as a child I wanted to make one.  I gave it couple of attempts in high school, but nothing turned out like I wanted. I personally found the process to be difficult and time consuming. My finished project  was lacking. Later, as a veteran English teacher, with a strong interest and background in both art and technology, I continued my search. My students shared their interests in creating an animated story.  Again, I tried many types of software, but nothing came out as we had hoped and it was difficult to learn, and an incredible investment of time. Some of the software I tried was expensive too.

Well, I have finally found the solution; I am proud to review and recommend Anime Studio.

Anime Studio is powerful, easy to use, inexpensive, and

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12 Days of Giveaways with Wired Educator: Days 4-6

kcroy —  December 17, 2011 — 1 Comment

Day 4 6

“On the sixth day of Christmas Wired Educator gave to me….”

Okay, the busy activities of the holidays forced an unexpected interruption of our giveaway, but we’re back and the prizes are about to become very interesting.

Today Wired Educator is giving away eleven apps for your iPad and two books. That’s a lot of prizes! You are going to need a Facebook account to win today, as your assignment is simple; you need to ‘like’ our three sponsors of today’s giveaway on their Facebook pages and leave us a note on Continue Reading…

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How to View Flash on the iPad (…and other iOS Devices)

kcroy —  November 7, 2011 — 16 Comments

Question:

Can I view Flash sites on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch?

Answer:

Yes!

How to View Flash on the iPad (…and other iOS Devices)

How can I view Flash sites on an iPad? I have been asked this question often enough. I have recommended iPads to many individuals and schools and occasionally someone asks this very question. Competitors pointed out the inability of the iPad to view Flash at its release, and have tried to make its inability to view Flash as a weakness or fault. Most educators familiar with the iPad realize the new standard for video is and will continue to be HTML5 which nearly everyone is adopting. Flash has been viewed by Apple as old, outdated code that hasn’t even tried to keep up. Flash just isn’t good for tablet devices, some say, citing battery consumption and other problems. Still there are those that would like to view Flash on an iOS device like the iPad and it can be done.

For those seeking possible solutions for viewing Flash on the iPad we have a variety of solutions for you Continue Reading…

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Learning With Portal: Video Games in Education

kcroy —  September 17, 2011 — 1 Comment

Attention: Valve, the Makers of Portal is giving away free Mac and PC versions of the 2007 physics-based puzzle game until September 20th.  Hit this link. 

Valve, the creators of  the popular and award-winning game Portal, is promoting their Learning with Portals Educational Program by offering their 2007 phyics-based game Portal free for the Mac and PC. Valve has recognized the increasing role video gaming is playing in education. Portal and Portal 2 are being used in by educators and students to teach critical thinking, and physics.

Video gaming has the potential to capture the students interest and teach them physics, critical thinking, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem solving. It also offers the students the opportunity to be creative while trying to apply skills. (And they have fun too.) A great way to integrate tech and  goal-oriented learning.

Any time you mention video gaming in education you are going to have critics.  I think that is too bad.  I would love to see more schools implementing this, but doing it the right way.  If your reaction is immediately negative, I encourage you to hit the link to the video below.  This is NOT turning children lose on video games. It’s about investigating and exploring math, physics and more inside a virtual world and about how people can make such cool products.

Download the free game now Continue Reading…

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