Price Drop Apps for Kids

If youre a teacher or a parent reading this and you have just been given or bought an iPad for use over the Summer holidays then check this site out.

iHeartthis app have blogged a really useful article listing lots of Apps for kids that are currently on sale or FREE.
If you see something you like you have to act fast because this will be for a limited time only and tomorrow those Apps may well go back to normal price.

This is the perfect opportunity for teachers of Foundation, Key Stage 1 and parents of young children to access more relevant Apps to support children's learning.

The good news is the list is updated daily, so keep checking back to make sure the Apps you had favourited are still on offer.

For more information contact me: barbaraainscough@mac.com

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Archbishop Sentamu Summer School

Its been a hot few days here in the Hull area, indeed some of the hottest days of the year so far!  Ive got to hand it to the Year 6 transition students for attending the Archbishop Sentamu Summer School, when this kind of sunshine is very tempting to keep you outdoors....

Thanks to Jacqui Thompson for organising this action-packed activity week. I know the students attending it have had a great time and got lots out of the event. They've had a chance to make new friends, learned new things, including how to use an iPad for learning and not least how to find their way around the Academy.



My groups were asked to consider using the theme of 'Moving On' to create a short iMovie project on the iPad. Students shared their private thoughts about how they feel about moving from primary school to the Academy.

Most students had never used an iPad before and were introduced to the following apps:
Camera and video
Safari
Morfo
PuppetPals
iMovie

All students very quicky got the hang of things and the creativity and ideas flowed easily - very little, if any support was needed.

Ive uploaded a couple of the projects here for you to view:

More of the projects can be viewed directly from my Vimeo account here.

For more information contact me: barbaraainscough@mac.com

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New Face Blurring tool on YouTube

Most teachers I speak to can see the real potential and value in the use of YouTube, and that's not just for curriculum enhancement, but also to support Class Blogs or e-portfolios.

YouTube Blur Tool Hates Your Face

However, the same old concerns are raised again and again, such as - 'its not-safe for children to be seen on', 'its unprotected', 'open to violation' and so on.... I must add that all of these concerns are genuine and should never be taken lightly or ignored, but before you know it, the teachers' enthusiasm for using YouTube at all has gone in an instant.
For the busy teacher, the battle against security issues is just too hard to fight.
Im pleased to be able to announce that if you are keen on exploring the idea of embedding student 'learning videos or diaries' in a school blog, there is some good news enabling you to tighten -up security issues. YouTube has recently made available a new-editing tool specifically designed to enable blurring of faces, which can be accessed from the YouTube video editor. Watch a YouTube video about it here.


On his blog Mr Byrne has provided detailed instructions on how to use the tool which Ive summarised below. This is complete with screenshots to help you 'switch-on' the various options, and I'd recommend any serious teacher blogger, who is considering adding footage of pupils onto their school blog visits this article for more information.

How to use the Face Blurring tool:
1. Upload your video to YouTube.
2. Open the enhancements option for your video.
3. Select blur all faces from the quick fixes tab. NB. Blurring is irreversible so make sure you have a back-up of the original video - just in case!

For more information contact me: barbaraainscough@mac.com

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Printing Solutions for iPad & iOS devices

Im pleased to be able to say that the iPad is bringing the paper-less classroom revolution closer to the classroom day by day - at long last!

However, as much as schools can see the benefits of moving towards a paper-less classroom and indeed the benefits including no more broken printers to fix, having to log errors in the ICT book, needing to call in ICT technical support to fix printers, going over budget on printer cartridges and being reprimanded by the Headteacher :-(
..... the reality is, there will be times when we still need to use a  printer!
For some schools teachers may request that students email themselves documents to print either in the print centre or at home. These schools are reporting that paper consumption has reduced considerably.

Once schools get underway in using their iPads effectively within and across the curriculum, inevitably one of the next questions will be, "Can I print some of the children's work?". 
And the answer is "Yes you can!"

There is a great article on various printing solutions here from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning and I need say no more - just read it!

The Printing Apps mentioned in the article include the following, there is plenty to go at here if this is something you are keen to get sorted now:
Epson iPrint - free - for iPhone & iPad
Print Magic - for iPhone & iTouch
ACT Printer - for iPhone & iPad
Doc Printer - for any ios device
Air Sharing - for iPad

This article from PCWorld.com is also useful and may help you further in making your mind up.

Other Apps to consider include the following but Ive not been able to test all of them myself!
AirPrint Activator it's FREE and works really well.   

AirPrint allows you to print from the new generation of Apple iPhones, iPad and iPod Touch to a printer shared over your personal WiFi network. You only need to run AirPrint Activator once.  Once it's been turned on it will remain on even after a reboot.

Printopia - for iPad - allows you to 'print' digital pdf files to designated folders on the computer that it is installed on. Students can submit their coursework and assignments as PDF's.
However, be aware of some of the quirks, for example if you print a Pages or Keynote document (from iPad) with an embedded video in it, the printed doc will only display a video poster frame for the video part.

A great tip I came across was to install Printopia onto any old Macbooks which you may have lying around, too old to be of any real use for anything else.  It costs about £13 and it makes use of a redundant laptop.  Simply add the printers you want to print to into the printer list on the Macbook running Printopia and that makes them available to an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch on the same subnet as the machine with Printopia.

Printer pro - for iPad

For more information contact me: barbaraainscough@mac.com

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Aldbrough 2012 - Animation

Year 6 pupils at Aldbrough Primary School created 4 short animations during an animation workshop.  The theme was tenuously linked to 'Sporting Activities'...... watch them and you'll see what I mean by tenuous!
Thanks to Mrs Last and Mrs Clayton for arranging the day.

Good luck and farewell to Year 6.

For more information contact me: barbaraainscough@mac.com

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Create short quizzes - Socrative

Socrative is a FREE student response system designed for teachers to engage their students through quizzes and games for a range of IT devices.... and it works really well on iPad!
For teachers that like to create short quizzes to check on learning, for a plenary or a lesson starter then check out Socrative now.
Its easy to use and a quiz can be created within minutes or simply ask questions orally and use it as a voting system.  Feedback from students is instant and results are easy to view by all.
Quiz answer options are multiple choice, True/ False or short answers and choose options to run the quiz as a teacher or student paced activity.

Im currently using Socrative with pupils in UK KS2 for Comprehension and Inference activities - Literacy. Take your class book, prepare a set of questions about the book, then have fun checking pupils' understanding and comprehension using a quiz.
The quiz can of course be prepared by groups of pupils for use on their class-mates which makes it a great tools-based app.
Socrative is brilliant for plenary activities too - a quick check at the end of a lesson to see what level of learning and understanding has taken place.

You can of course just use Socrative Web in a browser. This means you dont need to download the teacher App onto your iPad at all.
Go to t.socrative.com, click registration, create a distinct virtual room number and you are ready to go in 60 seconds.
The teacher site is supported on on any web browser on a laptop, desktop, or mobile device.
For student access they simply go to m.socrative.com, enter the virtual room number given by their teacher and click “Join room” - ready to go in seconds.

Socrative is currently in Beta which means you get the software for free.
The team just want your feedback on how they can improve the product. Please let them know by emailing: support@socrative.com

For more information contact me: barbaraainscough@mac.com

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