Print from your iPad or iPhone

PrinterPro for iPhone, normally $4.99, is free today and can be used to "print attachments, documents, and entire web pages right from your iDevice."  It can print to wifi printers and printers attached to your desktop PC (requires downloading the free Printer Pro software to your PC).  The PrinterPro app includes tips and instructions for printing from your documents, clipboard, photos, web pages, and Dropbox.  In most cases, you simply click on the "Open in" arrow to send to one of the supported print options.  Since it can print from your photo album, anything that you can fit in a screenshot on your iPad can be printed.  I used it to test several types of printing situations this morning and it works great. 



Printer Pro 3 for your iPad is $6.99, but the free app for iPhone worked great on my iPad.

Apptivity with LabelED

Mr. Brandon, a 5th grade teacher at WGS, shared a great app and apptivity he used with his class a few weeks ago, and I am finally getting around to highlighting it here.

from iTunes

Using Safari, students found an image of a skeleton which they saved to the camera roll of their iPads.  Next, Mr. Brandon demonstrated using LabelED to drop pins on the skeleton to label all the bones.  Students worked in groups to use the LabelEd app and their saved picture to label bones. After a quick check to verify that everyone correctly labeled the skeleton, students were able to test their knowledge in a multiple choice or location style quiz generated within the app. They get instant assessment feedback as they practice with the app and the results can also be captured and sent to the teacher. 

Besides being an engaging way to study the skeleton, there are so many exciting learning examples in this activity, including searching the Web responsibly for images, saving images, creating a digital product, multi-tasking, collaboration, self-directed learning.  I'm definitely inspired to use this app and teaching model in the library.  I especially love that he didn't create the LabelEd activity and give it to the students to take the quiz only.  They learned so much more by doing all of this themselves.  

Note:  This app reminds me of TinyTap, an app I reviewed in an earlier post, geared toward younger students.  You might want to check it out, too.  

Flipboard - Design Your Own Magazine of Blogs, News, etc.

Is your email inbox crowded with newsletters and blog, facebook, and twitter updates?  If so, you probably delete a lot of emails before you even read them, including announcements from sources that you really meant to keep updated when you first subscribed to them.  I've been using Google Reader for years to corral all of my RSS feeds from blogs and news sites, but Flipboard with its magazine style layout makes keeping current more fun and social.

You pick the content you want to include in your "social magazine," including Google Reader, news sites, facebook, twitter, Flickr, and so many more.  Flipboard builds your magazine separated into source chunks and updates it several times a day to bring you all your content in an easy to read format.

image from flipboard.com

If you find something you want to share, your favorite tools are embedded for easy use.  So, you can like, share on Facebook or Google+, tweet, and/or email right from Flipboard.  It's a great way to manage your time and the overwhelming flow of information.  Plus, the app is free, so give it a try.   

Multi-Tasking App for the iPad

If the iPad is ever going to truly replace your laptop, it's going to have to get better at multitasking.  Paper Helper takes the device one step closer. When you open this app, you have a simple document editor on one half of the screen and a browser window on the other half.  Now, you can take notes and organize your research while you are looking at it all on the same screen.  It also allows you to maximize either half of the screen to full screen, too.
 

Paper Helper was $1.99 in the iTunes store, but I got it for free from the Apps Gone Free app. I noticed it was also free on App Gratis recently. Both of these sites favor game and photography apps, which aren't always useful in an education setting.  Checking the daily free apps only takes a few seconds though, so you don't have much to lose. 

Two Great Photo Sharing Apps

How do you get pictures from your iOS device to your computer, or share with other people?  E-mail? Syncing through your iTunes account?  I find both somewhat time consuming. That's why I love two apps I discovered this week that make transferring pictures from my iPhone to other devices easier.

Wifi Photo Transfer app.  Simply open this free app and it will give you a URL to type into your browser's address bar.  Then, you can download up to 100 images at a time as a zip file to the computer.  This is perfect for transferring pictures to others without having to connect your iOS device to their computer.  I can see this working for us in the classroom, too.  Students may want to use the iPad or iPod to take pictures and then work with their images on the laptop or desktop computers in the classroom.  I will be loading it onto our cart laptops as soon as I get a chance.

Bump is another free app that offers quick photo transfer.  I actually heard about this app months ago from my husband who uses it for sharing contact information with friends and business associates.  But, I love the ability to share photos much more.  Both devices have to have the bump app loaded and open.  Next, you select the photos from your camera roll that you want to exchange. Then, you bump your iPhones/iPods together and the images are transferred.  You can also bump the photos to a PC by going to http://bu.mp and bumping your iPhone/iPod and the computer's space bar. What could be easier?  Well, it could be easier if it worked with Internet Explorer.  For now, it only works with the Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome browsers, so we won't be able to use it for transferring files between iOS devices and our computers.  Still, it will work between devices.  Now, it will be much easier to let students share the photos they take for collaborative editing projects.   

Three Reasons the Rover Browser Should be on Your iPad

Safari is great, but educators should really have the Rover browser on their iPads, too.  Here are the three reasons I promised:  1)  It can play Flash Videos, 2) content filters reduce inappropriate information, 3) collection of great resources by grade level.  And, a bonus reason... it's FREE!

An app for wirelessly transferring photo files

WiFi Photo makes moving your image and video files from your iPad, iPod, or iPhone easy. Download the free app, open it, and type the URL into your browser. Your camera roll will appear on your computer. You can download pictures one at a time, or choose several at once to download in a zip file. Videos will be downloaded to your media player where you can create and save a playlist of videos you choose from your iDevice. Love it!