teachthrutech

If you are an Accelerated Reader campus, a problem that sometimes arises is trying to determine if the books in your class library or books students bring from home are AR books.  Is there a test for the book?  What level is it?  How many points is the book worth?  As a teacher you hear these questions often.  You can log into AR, type in the book’s title, and search…but that is cumbersome and time consuming.  @stephaniem2012 shared an app with me this last week that can answer all those questions!

AR BookScanner is an app that will scan the barcode on a book and give you all the information you need. The price is $1.99, but if you use AR religiously the app is worth the money.

The app is very easy to use.  Open the app and press the “Scan Barcode” button.

Line the barcode on the back of the book up with the guide that appears in the pop up window.

When the barcode has been scanned, a window pops up with the details you are looking for.  It will tell you the title, author, AR quiz number, number of words, book level, points, and an area of interest.  Even if the book is not an AR book, it will fill in information for any field it can.

Quick and easy…the way an app should be!

For those of you that don’t know, Skitch is a free app that is owned by Evernote that will let you annotate over the top of images.  You can draw boxes, write, type, etc from the app and then save to your camera roll or straight into Evernote.  Learn more about Skitch HERE.

Skitch just took another big step forward.  With its latest update you are now also able to annotate over PDFs as well!  If you have Evernote loaded on the iPad and you are logged into Skitch with your Evernote credentials, choose to “Create from PDF“.

A list of PDFs that are already in Evernote will display.  Choose the file you wish to work with and open it.

When the file opens, use the toolbar on the right hand side of the screen to make your annotations.  You can then email it or save it back to Evernote for use later.  Very easy to use and a great addition for your annotation needs!

I have many teachers using the Book Creator app for projects with their students.  They were looking for an easy way to share their finished products across their devices and place them in iBooks so all students can view each other’s work.  Dropbox is a fantastic, free solution for this issue.

Download the Dropbox app to your devices.  If you do not have an account, create one.  Log into all your devices using the same credentials.

You are now ready to share your books.  Open Book Creator to the “My Books” screen.  Find the book you wish to share and select the action icon at the bottom of the page.  If Dropbox is installed on the device you will see an “Open in Dropbox” option.  Make that selection.

A Dropbox window will open.  Name the file appropriately and select “Save“.  Your book is now saved to your Dropbox account and stored in the cloud.  If you want to add all of these .epub files to one folder you must create the folder first in Dropbox.

To load it to iBooks on your other devices, open Dropbox and locate the book file you want to add.  Click on the name of the file.  It will tell you no preview is available.  That is OK.  With the file highlighted from the list, select the download icon in the upper right-hand corner.  It is the icon with an arrow pointing down into a box.  Choose “Open in iBooks” from your list of options.  That is it!  Your book is now available on that device to view.  You will need to repeat this process for any and all books and devices.

Let your students be proud of what they have created.  Make it easier for everyone to access their published creations.  Dropbox can make this process much easier for you!

Images are becoming more and more prevalent in the classroom.  Students are taking pictures of projects, labs, processes…anything they can!  As digital media creeps farther into education we are constantly looking for ways to create and share what is being discovered.  Quite often more images are captured than you can possibly use.  This is where the Pic Collage app can come in handy.

The Pic Collage app is FREE!  It allows you to bring in multiple images and create your own collage.  You then have the ability to personalize it.

After choosing to create a new collage, the collage defaults to a blank template.  If that is the option you wish to use you can just start adding images by tapping on the screen.  It will give you the option to use the camera, add from your photos, or grab an image from the web.

If you want to change the way your images are organized, background color, etc.  check out the options available through the buttons at the bottom of the screen.  They include changing the background or frame, or you can insert different media options.

There are 18 frame options available to you.  They range from 2 image frames to 9.  After adding photos to the frames you are able to move and resize the photos by holding down on the photo first.  Tapping on each photo will move it to the top of the image so you can also overlap them.

There are 60 color options for you.  One of those options is to search the web.  This opens an additional amount of backgrounds for you to choose from.  Select what works best for your project.

Once you have your frame and background set you can dig farther into the other media options.  By clicking the “+” on the bottom of the screen you get options to add  photos, text, even stickers.  Some of the stickers are in-app purchases so be careful.  Add them to the page, then click to move, turn, or re-size your additions.  You also have font choices to make when adding text.

Pic Collage is a fun app to play with and can be shared through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, and more.  You can also save to your camera roll and use the image in another app to create an even more engaging product.  Give Pic Collage a try.