History Maps

Zeitag NYC is a simple, user-friendly app that has thousands of location-based, historical photos embedded in the default iPad map. Teaching about immigration or the history of New York City? Zeitag offers students the opportunity to view the city from a whole new (or old) perspective.  You may want to partner this app with Google Earth (select Panoramio Photos layer), have students choose a given area, and compare life today with life in the past. If you have iPads with 3G, enrich your field trips by using Zeitag to add a historical layer to any spot around the city!

For all you Canadians out there, check out Zeitag Toronto.

Please note: The apps below have a similar concept, but were designed for the iPhone.
Historypin
History Here

Puppet Pals

Puppet Pals allows you to manipulate up to 8 movable characters or images on up to 5 backgrounds while recording  your voice. The free version includes 7 characters and 3 basic backgrounds. The free version can be used for open-ended story telling activities or expressive language lessons, but you quickly end up purchasing the Director's Pass upgrade, which allows you to use any photos from the photo roll.

When my fourth graders were researching New York State, I wanted them to create infomercials about each region.  First, we viewed travel infomercials and charted their styles, information, catch phrases, etc. They then read books, did internet research (from pre-selected links on the class blog), wrote scripts and found pictures online.

I chose Puppet Pals as the recording tool because it would enable the children to get as close as possible to a green screen effect without using video cameras or green screens - which are not yet an option on the iPad, anyway. They would be able to cut out pictures of themselves (and objects) then move them around on the background as they spoke.

The children loved playing around with the placement of their pictures and the objects. They learned about internet searches, taught each other about the New York regions, and were  proud to send the videos to the governor. However,  they would have liked to add text, and they were frustrated that every time they made a mistake they had to restart from scratch. We also had some sound quality issues, but that was because of our headset adapters. The project took longer than expected, so I ended up putting them together in iMovie instead of the children doing it on their own, and that took quite some time because I had to trim off the distracting "Made Using Puppet Pals" title page that is added to every video. Looking ahead, if Puppet Pals does not add some improvements, I might use Explain Everything for this project. It does not have backstage options or the child-friendly interface of Puppet Pals, but it can technically accomplish the same thing,  works well with Dropbox, and it can be used for a greater variety of projects.

Samples Sections:

My Maps Editor

This summer, a kind stranger shared this document:  26 Interesting Ways to use Google Earth in the Classroom. I was getting ready to pilot a 1:1 iPad program, and here were 26 cool things that I could do...just not on iPads!

And then I discovered My Maps Editor, the only free app that syncs with Google  Maps, which then syncs to Google Earth. That means if I am teaching about continents, my students can circle, color code, or label the continents, save their work to their Google accounts, then open then open the map in Google Earth to see it all on a movable, interactive globe. When learning about New York, we can trace the outline of the state so it stands out in relation to the rest of the world. We can zoom in and out of our current location to talk about the different sized communities in which we live. We can create a virtual tour of New York State by creating bookmarks on each city and hyperlinking them to pictures or websites. When learning about explorers, we might draw color-coded lines to track each explorer's journey,  calculate the distances, then attach videos or text notes about each one.  The number of possibilities is extensive, but not endless.  It would be nice if one could undo drawings, access old versions more easily, and select a map more smoothly. It would be even nicer if all of the computer options (KML files, etc.) were available on the iPad.  For now, My Maps Editor is all I have.

I'm hoping that by the time my students are ready for more advanced  functions,  My Maps Editor will put out an upgrade, there will be a newer, better iPad app, or they will each have a laptop that is as fast and light as the iPad. My eyes are on the Microsoft Surface Pro...

Please note: Mapedit (1.99) and Map Editor (1.99) are also worth exploring.  MyMap could do more than all of them, but it has ads and more than 30 dollars of in-app purchases.

Logo Maker

Logo Maker ($2.99) is a neat little app that allows you to design personal logos in just a few quick, easy steps. Users can create a logo from scratch or choose a template and personalize it. The final logo is then exported to the photo album and/or placed on a realistic-looking background. If you wanted to avoid spending the $2.99,  you could probably produce a decent logo by fiddling with Pages, PhotoShop, or any free drawing app, but that would take more skill, creativity, and work.  Logo making is the only thing that Logo Maker can do, which means it does it very well (think laser printer vs. all-in-one fax/copier/scanner/printer).

In my fourth grade tech integration class, we used Logo Maker as part of a lesson on personal branding, which was connected to our election unit.  After a discussion about the various ways presidential candidates create an easily recognized public image, we compared the candidates' logos and analyzed their font, image, and layout. We spoke about other famous brands, such as Nike and Target, whose logos "speak for themselves." Finally, the students were encouraged to think about how they would brand themselves, and we used the Logo Maker iPad app to create personalized logos that could then be placed on stickers, stationary, blogs, and other published work. On a practical note, the students also used (the full name version of) their logos as their iPad wallpaper, which makes the devices that much easier to identify. 

Photoshop Touch

Photoshop Touch is a scaled down version of the real thing. Honestly, I've never used the real thing, but I love working with the app! Professional graphic designers complain about the lack of options, but for regular folks and students, that's what makes it so user-friendly. In my fourth grade art/tech class, we've been using PT to design historical presidential campaign posters using posterizing and filtering effects. The children had a hard time manipulating the colors and the text effects were limiting even for them. In addition, the fact that it doesn't save previous versions automatically led to some frustrating moments. However, they were proud of creating something professional-looking in just a few sessions, and they are excited to learn about the other tools.