Little Miss Student Teacher : itunes store

Showing posts with label itunes store. Show all posts

Sunday, 23 March 2014

My Educational App Collection

Good morning all,

I have been posting a few app reviews lately and thought it was about time I showed you my app collection. It's taking a while to come up with this many educational apps and I have had some great sources; the Ipadopedia, a children's literature unit I took in first semester and a music education unit I just completed.

But lately I have found a new source, the Education section of the iTunes store. This section of the store caters for varying levels of education, from early childhood straight up to self education for adults. It is meticulously organised, much like my iPad, and has great sections:

Reading
Maths
Physics
Chemistry
Music
Writing
Life Science
Geography
Astronomy and Earth Science

And so we begin the journey through my iPad! I have provided a picture of each folder and the apps they contain and what section I find them useful to store under.

LMST BLOG

COACHING

DEMONSTRATIONS

DIAGRAMS

DOCUMENTING

LITERACY

MANAGEMENT

MATHS

MEASUREMENT

MUSIC

SCIENCE & GEOGRAPHY

SOUND MANAGEMENT

And as usual, all apps I have posted today are available on the App Store however please note some are free and some are paid so please check before you press the little green button!

Miss Tracy xx

Sunday, 16 March 2014

In Review - The Teacher's IpadoPedia

Hey readers,

Recently I decided to peruse the (free) shelves on the iTunes bookstore and was astounded by the number of free books available in the education section. I came across textbooks, guides and many other wonderful things and promptly downloaded all that I could see. The first book I decided to read was 'The Teacher's IpadoPedia, An A-Z of using iPads in the classroom' by Philip Johnston.

The Teacher's IpadoPedia

An A-Z of Using iPads in the Classroom

Philip Johnston

After my first placement and some of the material we have been covering in class, I have come to realise what an impact technology can have in the classroom, both good and bad, and how this comes into play when I eventually am in the classroom. For these reasons, I decided to go with this book first and was pleasantly surprised with what I had found.

This book blew my mind! Not only was it incredibly well written and set out, Johnston commented on a large range of topics including:

attendance
managing homework
archiving
coaching
photocopying
quizzing
creative writing
taking notes

The book is divided into categories, with app listed which can either perform a task or help aid the process of the mentioned categories. Not only is there a wide range of apps, free and paid, to cover the categories but the book is cross references when apps have multiple functions.

The actual layout of the book is clean with small chunks of information and plenty of pictures to accompany. The great thing about this being an eBook is that often the text is interactive! Beside the text, you will often find videos which demonstrate an app and how it works and text is often hyper-linked to show you exactly what app you should download and where to find them.

I have already downloaded some of the apps and can see their potential for use of them in the classroom. Other I have been able to integrate into my university life! Overall I enjoyed reading this book, it was not text heavy, it flowed well, you could jump chapters without feeling lost and the interactive nature made finding what Johnston what talking about incredibly easy.

Philip Johnston has also step up a great website for the book which includes sample pages, links to download the book as well as a contact page if you would like to speak with the author. The website can be found here.

As Johnston said in the foreword, reading this book does not mean you have to apply everything that you read about but rather take what you like and make it work for your classroom. There are some great apps listed and the great thing is the discovery, while Johnston may list the app for one use, you could find a totally new use, either for the classroom or for your personal life!

For those of you who are still unsure, you have nothing to lose as this book is 100% free to download from the iBookstore!

Stay tuned as I discover more education eBooks from the iTunes bookstore!

Miss Tracy xx

Sunday, 9 March 2014

In Review - Blogger, the App

Good morning!

Now, I'm sure many of you readers also maintain a blog and perhaps even use Blogger as your preferred platform but how many of you knew that Blogger had an app?

I came across the app awhile ago, completely by accident, and since it cost me a total of zero cents I promptly downloaded it. After playing around with it for a bit and placing it in the 'LMST Blog' app folder on my iPhone, I finally got a feel for what I could this app for.

The app itself is quite easy to get the feel for, you log in and you will see the first screen on the photo set below. From this menu you can see your posts, both published and scheduled and your blog. The blog view is similar to that of the second picture in the photo set above, only it will be your blog! The post list view, shown in the second photo below, is quite similar to that of the web version of Blogger however less tags are shown. From this menu you can also edit or delete these posts by simply pressing the encircled arrow.

You can also change the app's settings and create new posts from here. And this is where my problem with the app begins. As you can see from the third photo featured above, there are similar inputs as the web version, post title, post content, labels and locations. There are also the options to add photos, either from your mobile library or by using the camera. However not similar to the web version is the easy ability to create text, move photo around, add links and format text; some of these features are not even present while others take time and plenty of patience to take form.

While these are deal breakers for me using the app solely for blogging, it doesn't stop me from using the app to make quick fixes and check up on scheduling dates. Check out the app for yourself and let me know what you will do with the app!

DOWNLOAD THE BLOGGER APP

Perhaps my next review will be on the web version of Blogger? You never know!

Miss Tracy xx

Sunday, 15 December 2013

In Review - PicStitch

Hello again,

As you may have already noticed, I like to use photo collages in my blog posts and they would not be possible without the wonderful app of PicStitch!

I'm a big user of Instagram, stalking and and posting alike, so when I saw a few posts with the hashtag #picstitch, I couldn't help but check it out. This led my down the rabbit hole.

My favourite feature of PicStitch is its simplicity. The interface is dark, with very little advertising space, and uses very little text. There are something like 280 collage templates to choose from but this wasn't enough and I ended up paying $0.99 to unlock all templates. You can chose your photos from various sources, including your photo album, camera, Facebook, Dropbox and other social media sources.

When it comes to putting the collage together, even simpler! Just choose the the photos your using and then what edits you would like to make. There are various options for editing including enhance, effects, frames, stickers, focus, orientation, crop, sharpness, splash, draw, ext, red eye, whiten, blemish and meme.

When your done editing, you have the option to change your layout, the aspect ratio of the frame or to re-size your photos. Adjust the product in the frame and then move onto the next photo. Repeat then fiddle until you're happy!

The last step is to save your photo. Again, many options to choose from. I usually go for the option to save to my photo album but here is where you pay for the free app, usually you are exposed to 30 seconds of a movie trailer or an app advertisement. Not much to bear but enough for me to feel impatient!

PicStitch is available from the iTunes App Store, free to download but any add ons are paid. I highly recommend this app if you feel the need for a collage!

DOWNLOAD PICSTITCH FROM HERE!

Happy blogging, and let me know how PicStitch works for you!

Miss Tracy xx

Little Miss Student Teacher