A couple of years ago when I started iPadApps4School.com I did something that I wish I had done when I started FreeTech4Teachers.com. That is I created a structure for categorizing my app reviews according to grade level. I was also smarter about my use of tags. Both of those decisions have made it relatively easy to find things on iPadApps4School.com
If you visit iPadApps4School.com and click on the "free iPad apps" tag in the right-hand column it will pull up all of iPad apps I've reviewed that are free. Below the headline of each review you will see a category tag of "pre-K," "elementary school," "middle school," or "high school." Ten reviews are listed on each page. Below the last review you will see a link to view older posts.
You can subscribe to iPadApps4School.com via email (I post there once or twice a week) or via RSS.
Monday's post about Parapara Animation was quite popular and prompted questions from readers looking for similar tools that either work on tablets or offer more features than Parapara Animation. Here are some other sites and apps for creating animations.
ABCya Animate is a web-based tool from ABCya that allows students to create animated GIFs containing up to 100 frames. On ABCya Animate students build their animation creations by drawing, typing, and inserting images. Students can change the background of each frame, include new pictures in each frame, and change the text in each frame of their animations. The feature that I like best about ABCya Animate is that students can see the previous frames of their animations while working on a current frame. This helps students know where to position items in each frame in order to make their animations as smooth as possible. Students do not need to register on ABCya Animate in order to use the tool or to save their animations. When students click "save" on ABCya Animate their creations are downloaded as GIFs. ABCya Animate is also available as an iPad app, but the iPad app is not free.
Animation Desk is an iPad and Android app (free and premium versions available) for creating short, animated videos. The app allows you to create drawings using just your finger on your iPad's screen. In the free version of the app (the version that I tried) you can create up to 50 scenes in each of your projects. In each scene you can include as little or as much as you want to draw on the canvas. There are a few different brush and pencil effects that you can use in your drawings. The opacity of the colors you choose can be altered too. When you have completed drawing all of your scenes hit the play button to watch your animation unfold. If you're happy with your animation you can export it to YouTube.
Draw Island is a free online tool (tablet-friendly) for creating drawings and simple GIF animations. Draw Island offers you your choice of four canvas sizes on which you can draw. Draw Island offers two canvas sizes for creating simple GIF animations. To use Draw Island just head to the site and select a drawing tool. You can draw free hand (or should I say free mouse?) or select pre-defined shapes to use in your images. When you're done drawing just click the save button to download your drawing or animation.
JellyCam is a free program for creating stopmotion movies. Using JellyCam you can create stop motion movies using images from your computer or images that you capture via your webcam. Once you've selected images you can quickly arrange them into a sequence. After the sequence is set you can specify how many images you want per frame. A soundtrack can be uploaded to your video. JellyCam uses the Adobe Air platform. If you don't have Adobe Air Runtime it takes just a couple of minutes to install. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use JellyCam.
This morning's episode of CNN Student News features a report from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of the Korean Peninsula. It's an interesting look at the nuances of international boundaries, particularly boundaries between enemy countries. The report shows us how a few feet means the difference between legally and illegally being in North Korea.
To learn about the history of the conflict between North and South Korea, take a look at the The Korean "War" For Dummies produced by Keith Hughes.
Today is the deadline to file and pay your income taxes here in the United States. This is a good time to share some resources for helping students understand the history and purpose of income taxes. And good luck to everyone who is scrambling to file their tax returns today. (This is the first time in years that I'm not scrambling to file on time).
To explain the origins of income taxes in the United States, CBS News hosted author Kenneth Davis. Davis is the author of the popular "Don't Know Much" series of history books.
To see how tax revenue is distributed is What We Pay For. What We Pay For uses
publicly available tax data to show you how your tax money is
appropriated. On the left side of the screen you will see the total
revenue and appropriations for the entire United States. On the right
side of the screen you can enter your filing status and pre-tax earnings
for the year to see the approximate amount you will pay toward US
budget items. You can enter your pre-tax earnings as an annual figure,
monthly figure, weekly, daily, or hourly wage.
The IRS website, Understanding Taxes,
is a good source of lesson plans and individual learning materials
about taxes and budgets. In the teacher section of the site you will
find lesson plans like this one (opens as pdf) designed to teach students about services for which tax revenue is used.
