iPad App Proposals

Our sophomore curriculum this quarter is about writing for specific purposes and audiences. I wanted them to write for a very specific audience and purpose, so I created an app proposal assignment. This was inspired by the grant proposal I wrote to get the class set of iPads.  Here is the overview of the assignment:


21st Century Skills Grant Opportunity
I am awarding grants for iPad applications for classroom use. These grants are designed to support students in developing their 21st century skills of collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Individual grants will be awarded up to $10 per application. In order to be eligible for a grant, you must complete the grant application and include a Works Cited that lists 3-5 credible sources. This application must be submitted by Friday, January 27 to cacox@aps.k12.co.us. 


The requirements that it meet 21st century skills is directly from my own grant proposal. I put in some of my own money to actually buy the apps from the best proposals. Many of them were pretty excited to do this. I liked that they could actually see results from their work. I had a few who wanted to try to write an app for games like Angry Birds, but quickly realized they would never convince me of their educational value. Unfortunately, some of the best written proposals were for apps that I can't put on the iPads at this time. One Twitter proposal was excellent, but the temptation for them to just chat with their friends is a little too much for my kids right now. I also had a great proposal for Cliff Notes. I plan to use that one at some point, but we are not reading anything to use the app with at this time.


Here are a few sample proposals:

Name the application: Book Creator for ipad

Price of the application: $4.99

Overview - In 200 words or less, explain what the application does and why you want it.

This application, Book Creator for ipad, lets you create a book and can even help make your projects and book reports way better than multiple pages and post it to ibooks for sharing with friends and the world. The reason why i would like have this app is because, its fun and enjoyable for all ages. It lets you write, draw and add pictures to make it more creative and enjoyable to read. I believe that this app will be good for the classroom because, we are able work with groups but also with ourselves, if necessary. If this app is chosen it will be good for book report and a great way to make them more interesting and enjoyable to read as a teacher. This app helps the learning environment in the classroom with collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. These are astounding 21st century skills that are appropriate for the environment in the classroom. This app will help with writing skills and with learning new vocabulary.

Choose two of the skills for a 21st Century student (collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking), and explain how the app will support student learning in 200 words (each).

Creativity: This app shows creativity through many different ways fathomable. For example, its a rate A app that is suitable for children and adults of any age. According to Red Jumper Studios its "The simple way to create beautiful books."  They have also stated that its "Perfect  for the classroom." This app will help with creativity in the classroom because, how many students want to read a book the write about a 3 page paper focusing on one single aspect? No they want it to be fun and exciting with pictures and they want to do they project, therefore if this app is chosen then there will be more students doing there work and turning it in, instead of slacking off and not turning it in. When you add pictures you put more depth into it and more meaning for the reader, so that the reader can picture it how it should be rather than the way they will picture it when they are reading the story.

Collaboration: This app, Book Creator, helps use the 21st century skills including collaboration. This app will help the students with the grammar, word order, and spelling. Your story can be posted to ibooks so that the other kids in other classes can read them and you could get feed back about what they thought about the story. When the story is posted to ibooks it is automatically scanned and searched for viruses and for appropriateness. Its a simple way for you to work with friends and able to get the work done. When you work in groups, its more comfortable so then its more likely for them to finish there work faster and on time instead of late. Teachers for all grade levels will enjoy this app, because its easy and fun, and the kids will have more fun doing projects and learn at the same time,  teachers enjoy this because its enjoyable for them to read and grade instead of reading 6 classes of papers.

Works Cited (3-5 sources using MLA format)

        L

1. "Book Creator" App Store. 

            Apple, 16 Jan 2012.

            Web. 30 Jan 2012.

2. "Reviews" Book Creator for ipad

            Red Jumper Studio, 2011

            Web. 30 Jan 2012

3. Emily, "Publish ibooks with ipad -ipad review", Padgadget.

            Padgadget, 2010-2012

            Web. 30 Jan 2012

Name the application:ThinkBooks
Price of the application:4.99
Overview - In 200 words or less, explain what the application does and why you want it.
ThinkBooks is a place to store your notes, take your notes and usThinkBooks to plan and or creat a peace. Use the outline and your notes to creat something astonishing, using paper and pencil would not be nearly as creative. I want this app because the impact of it could turn unwilling learners to willing educated students. ThinkBooks is an app designed to help critical thinking become simpler, this example points to how young minds struggle to want to learn. Saving questions that students did not get answers will help students understand more. As a student myself I struggle to know how to start projects or what layout I would use, this experience suggests that ThinkBooks can easily help myself and other students with getting started to finishing. The number one fear for most people is public speaking I am convinced that ThinkBooks will help reduce fears of public speech. I am convinced that ThinkBooks will help educators along with students collaborate.
Choose two of the skills for a 21st Century student (collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking), and explain how the app will support student learning in 200 words (each).
21st century skills involve the four c's( collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity) critical thinking and creativity persuaded me that ThinkBooks is an app that will not only help but be fun as well. It is my strong belief that creativity is what motivates young learners like myself to learn. ThinkBooks ables young minds to have notes, privet thoughts, and questions all at the same time. Using your notes and tools in ThinkBooks like layout and design a peace that is easily done and creative to work with. Ever tool on ThinkBooks is linked to work together to help students, teachers, and parents with multiple things. English class is a struggle for a lot of students, making writhing peaces and taking notes I'm convinced will be much more creative in ThinkBooks. Being a student in high school thinking critically is a struggle. ThinkBooks is an app that takes anything you put into it and helps you get a better understanding of what's going on. Writing new peaces always feels like something is missing, using this app it "helps you create, incubate, and improve your best ideas. Stimulating your thinking think books helps make great ideas even better
Works Cited (3-5 sources using MLA for) John "App Review: ThinkBook- A New Way To Take Notes" John's IPhone. Jmay Live LLC, May 6th, 2011. Web. 1/30/12Stout, Kevin."ThinkBook" 148apps. TrouserMac Industries,May 4th, 2011. Web. 1/30/12.
What is Words With Friends?
Words With Friends is a multi-player word-game almost exactly like the board game, Scrabble. This game has the same rules and point distribution as Scrabble. It's a very popular game, with over 20 million people playing it. This game can be played in the classroom or online with different people. We can use this app after we are done with our main work, or during any other free times. It can even be used as vocabulary warm-ups when everyone comes into class. Not only is this game fun, challenging, and very competitive, but it is very educational. It's a perfect game for an English classroom because it strengthens our basic english skills. This is a really great quality game, even though it sometimes crashes. Plus, it's a free game! So you can get this game for free, and spend your money on other students apps. This game is extremely fun, so students will be excited to come to class and learn english skills. Lastly, this will help limit all the talking in the classroom and will create more collaboration about english skills we need to know.

Why get Words With Friends?
Creativity: In this game, players are encouraged to be creative in making words. Players need to find the best and biggest word that can be made. They also can help themselves in winning the game by creating words that might make up a word.
Communication: Students that can't find a word to play can ask each other for help to find different words. Also, students can use the resources around them, like a book or dictionary, to find a word if they get stuck.
Critical Thinking: Players will have to use different skills to win the game. They will be using their vocab and root words to determine words they didn't know. If players have difficult letters to use, they'll be using their problem solving skills to use the letters in the game.Lastly, Players can be timed every turn, so that they will think quickly to get the best word.
Collaboration: This game will help people learn more about each other. If students play against other students who they never talk to, then everyone can see the different skills and personalities everyone has. Also, this game is competitive, so students will learn to be competitive in a classroom setting, and have fun learning in the classroom.

In conclusion, the facts clearly state that this game is the best choice for this class. This game is propably one of the best and most popular apps for any device. Students and other people have enjoyed and learned a lot from playing this game. And on top of that, it's free and has pretty good quality. If students have loved to play Scrabble, so this game will be enjoyed by the the class. As a class, we can take a day every week to have a Words With Friends tournament to see who has the best english vocab and quick thinking skills. I think students will enjoy doing that, and they will be better educated in the areas Words With Friends covers. This game will not only strengthen their skills now, but make them better for their futures in highschool, and in college. You can't deny the fact that this will be a great app to get for the whole class. To conclude my propasal, this is an all in all great game to get, and will help our class succeed in our grammer, spelling, and word usage.

notebook apps

I have been browsing through apps trying to find one I like for students to use for taking notes. My favorite so far is Notability. I needed one that can handle typing, handwriting, and sound. This does all three pretty well. I like that you can create different folders for each student, but would love it if they could password protect their folders. I am still concerned about students "accidentally" messing with each others' work.

I also gave them options to work with Paper Port and Notes Plus. They both have the features I like, but I prefer the look and navigation of Notability. Since these notes are for student use and won't be graded, I don't care where they put them for now. If I need to grade them, I can always have them send their work via e-mail. I am still not loving any application to keep track of my feedback. Still searching...

gmail is killing me

I have been battling with gmail for over a week now. I tried to set up individual accounts for each of my iPads through gmail so that they can easily send their work from the iPad without having to log in with their private accounts. The initial set-up was time consuming but had minimal issues. Once I set up about 20 accounts, I needed to use another IP address to create the rest.

I went through each of the iPads to set up the accounts and still didn't seem to have any problems. The issues began when I tried to use the accounts. Over half of the accounts didn't send. I had to go through resetting passwords on most of them. They would work for a while, then not work. EXTREMELY frustrating when I was having them e-mail me their work. In my attempts to reset passwords, I often had accounts disabled for suspicious use. When I used my phone number to get verification codes, I hit a limit where I couldn't use the number anymore. I tried to send gmail a message asking for help and still have not had a response.

I am assuming that it has something to do with their privacy policy updates because google docs hasn't been working well the last few weeks either. I have deleted all the accounts from the iPads for now and will give it another try in a few weeks. BUMMER.