Today I took the time to "study" three apps on my iPad. First, I checked out a News app called Newsy. You are able to filter the types of articles you wish to view or flip through the pictures and descriptions at your own pace. I clicked on a sports link and silly me, thought I would be directed to an article....nope it was a video. This is me, still not use to the wonders of an iPad. Now, I understand why there is a playlist. You are able to directly "like" this on Facebook, post a comment on the video, share to Facebook, Twitter or through email. There is also a great feature to drag the video into a library. This is a great app for students to easily navigate through current events and find videos they are interested in and share. Pretty impressive.
Next, I navigated my way to the Language Arts icon and chose an app called Lazy Town. What a great interactive book for elementary students! The sound gets me interested immediately from the start. You are able to chose a book off the shelf (or purchase). I was curious to see how much they cost and the book I was looking at was $1.99 and you could view customer ratings and reviews. Since my iPad doesn't have any books, I was able to "try" them. The music doesn't stop at the intro, it continues throughout the story, along with sound effects. There is a narrator that reads as the words highlight along the page. Great reading tool! At the bottom of the screen, there are options to translate to Spanish, have a pop up screen for sign language (very cool!), a play my voice option, bookmark, play, stop, and pause! You were able to skip back and forth through the book, similar to skipping a DVD. Great listening activity for younger kids!
Last, I played on the Doodle Buddy app. It was much like a paint program on Microsoft, but much, much better! You could use your finger to write/draw on the screen and select colors. You could choose a background, text font, decals, and stamps. Don't forget about the fun sound effects, for example, placing a chicken leg stamp on the page makes a "yummm!" sound and a cat goes "meow" and well, you get the idea. You could easily save the image to your album or email it. This is great for an introductory iPad activity for younger students that are not yet able to read.
Thank you iPad for reminding me, once again, why I need you :)
Good reviews. Thanks!
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