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iOS Tips and Tricks

Explore tips, tools, and strategies for using iOS devices in education. Discover resources to enhance teaching, learning, and productivity.

Five Forms Solutions for iOS

by Miguel Guhlin February 7, 2017

written by Miguel Guhlin

“My admins are looking for a way to do teacher evals,” wrote a colleague, “using self-created forms that have drop-down boxes, not just text. Any suggestions?” This question got me thinking about all of the different ways to do forms. Let’s do a quick review of available solutions for filling out forms on any mobile device.

Solution #1 – Forms Connect

This solution, available in iPhone and iPad app versions, as well as a pro version, defines itself in this way:

The FormConnect and FormConnect Pro apps allow you to create various types of forms including patient intake, customer contact, onsite inspection reports, invoices, expense reports, proposals, purchase orders, surveys, and more. The data collection app will set you back $14.99, offering an impressive list of features.

Solution #2 – iFormBuilder

Zerion Software’s iFormBuilder boasts an impressive list of features, including data encryption and secure data storage on the device with an internet connection. Some key features include “27 element types, powerful smart logic, and smart table search.” Although a robust solution, cost may become a factor given that pricing starts at $5K+.

Solution #3 – GoFormZ

GoFormZ offers the ability to scan existing printed paper forms via the web, then convert them into a mobile-friendly form. The form will work on all mobile devices and via the web.

You can use the form editor to create drop-down lists, automate calculations, embed maps and photos, and add data sources for list items. Setting up an account is fairly quick.

Solution #4 – WuFoo for Education

five Branding itself as a “choose your own adventure story” for form development, Wufoo automatically builds the database, backend, and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast, and fun. Because they host everything, all you need is a browser, an internet connection, and a few minutes to build a form and start using it right away. It comes with 400 + templates.

Solution #5 – Microsoft Forms and/or Google Forms

Forms creation solutions from Microsoft and Google make it easy to get started. While neither offers an exclusive iOS app (yet?), accessing these forms are a cinch via the iOS Safari browser. Whatever tool you decide upon, both offer a wealth of features that make form creation and data aggregation easier (read Forms Smackdown blog entry for more details).

Also, Google Forms has a series of templates (if you need inspiration from the old Google Forms templates, be sure to investigate those before “early 2017” when they will go away) to get you started. I have no doubt Microsoft Forms will eventually feature a template gallery, too!

five

February 7, 2017 0 comments

iOS Tips and Tricks Microsoft

Using OneDrive to Back Up Your iOS Camera

by Miguel Guhlin January 31, 2017

written by Miguel Guhlin

“I’ve taken so many pictures and videos, but I can’t get them off my iOS device!” Many fall into this trap. Caught up in the excitement of capturing and creating content, they fill the limited storage of their iPhone or iPad. Data is lost as teachers reset the device to clear content. Let’s take a look at an option you may not have considered, Microsoft OneDrive.

To the Rescue

Teachers attending a TCEA Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) event asked,”How do we use Office 365 accounts to backup photos and videos?” Another question that follows is “How do we share photos taken at school events with a wider audience?” The answer is Microsoft OneDrive, available for personal (5 gigs of storage) and work (1 terabyte up to 15 terabytes for school accounts).

The hub of Microsoft’s mobile apps, OneDrive makes interacting with various Microsoft apps possible. The iOS version offers an elegant interface (sans complex options) that you can use in the following ways:

Access and open OneNote Notebooks
Automatically upload camera photos, which feature camera information like camera used, shutter speed, aperture.
Create photo albums to facilitate sharing
Scan and digitize paper documents, whiteboards, and business cards

OneDrive now features Scan, a way to digitize paper documents and save them direct to OneDrive!

Miscellaneous features such as monitoring your storage space, the ability to modify settings, accessing offline files, and setting up multiple Microsoft Office 365 accounts are also included.

Once activated, OneDrive will upload pictures and videos from your device to your account. On your mobile, as well as online, you also can organize items into albums for sharing, allowing viewing and/or editing. The Album image thumbnail rotates to give you a preview of the contents.

Save Photo or Record Video to the Cloud

OneDrive makes it easy to take a photo or create a video that can be saved directly to cloud storage. This eliminates the hassle of creating a video, then figuring out how to back it up. Instead, your photo or video is saved directly to your OneDrive account. See how you can do this with this guide.

onedrive

As you can see in the screenshot above, the video recorded straight to OneDrive (bypassing the iOS Camera Roll) and appears with a time/date stamp. Sharing options for this Microsoft product (view/edit with a link or not) for Business/Education reflect your school district administrator’s preferences. OneDrive personal accounts provide individuals with more flexibility.

Interact with Photos Online

If you back up your camera roll to a personal OneDrive account, the photos will be available to you at OneDrive.live.com. You will see the “Camera Roll” folder appear inside your Pictures folder. To see Albums of Photos, and to access a specific Photos menu, be sure to click on the left sidebar, as shown below.

Share Albums and Photos

You can access photo albums and, as shown below, modify the sharing options:

onedrive

One neat feature that OneDrive-based photos have is the auto-tagging option. OneDrive automatically tags photos, as seen below, with one-word tags:

onedrive

Conclusion

Offering a multi-function feature set, OneDrive provides you with backup and creation options. You can backup photos or videos you have saved to the Camera Roll and use OneDrive to capture photos/videos direct to the cloud. Finally, you can use the iOS Send To menu to save to OneDrive. Give it a try and avoid the hassle of other, less effective methods.

January 31, 2017 0 comments

iOS Tips and Tricks

Quote Makers, Engage!

by Miguel Guhlin January 23, 2017

written by Miguel Guhlin

Leaders, looking for an easy app to use to spice up important quotes that you include in your staff missives, parent newsletters, or student projects? How about a simple way to highlight key ideas in assigned student text? Typorama may fit the bill for iOS device users!

Quote Makers, Create!

I love collecting quotes, often snapping a photo of my favorite quotes at Buc-ee’s while I’m traveling or jotting them down in my handy notepad. The best part of being out on the road is encountering truisms, as well as listening to K-12 and adult learners share their stories.

Just last month, I spent some time in Edinburg facilitating Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) professional learning. We kicked off the session reflecting on a powerful quote from Microsoft. Using Typorama, I recreated the quote below.

quote

Don’t you think this is more engaging than words on a slide? Typorama is a VERY COOL iOS quote app! Once you start using it, you won’t be able to stop.

Scan this image with Aurasma to listen to the audio introduction from Dr. Katie Alaniz, author of “Digital Tools for Today’s Classrooms,” the book from which this quote was taken.

Quote Makers, Adhere to Copyright!

Typorama combines a wide range of copyright-friendly backgrounds and text styles and allows watermarks to be inserted as well to advertise your campus, district, organization, or event. What’s more, you can use pictures from your camera roll and then add powerful quotes from students, staff, or even your own creations.

Note: Don’t have an iOS device? You can make your own image quotes with Google Draw or Powerpoint, but you might also give one of these a try: Recite.com, Quozio.com, BeHappyMe, and/or VizzBuzz

Not satisfied with the pictures that come with Typorama? Save pictures from any of the popular free image sites, several shown at the bottom of this blog entry, to your iOS device and then add your quote. The New York Public Library just released their digital collection for use, so be sure to include that in your list of image sources.

Learning Connections

As written in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), “Students must develop the ability to comprehend and process material from a wide range of texts.” Using a quote generator like Typorama, you can help students identify topic sentences or key ideas represented in text.

Tap into the excitement students experience when creating quote a work of art. This work can be displayed via social media or made into a “mini-poster” for bulletin board placement. And you can also help students “summarize the main idea and supporting details in text in ways that maintain meaning.” Whether for professional development (e.g. book study, article jigsaw) with adults or ask ing students to work in small teams with a buddy to analyze text, this type of activity is powerful for engaged learning.

Quote Makers, Share!

Learners can, as encouraged in Digital Media in Today’s Classrooms, “Collaborate to create an online clearinghouse of student-created media.” This clearinghouse can serve as a resource for students to use as they support one another in preparing for exams. The clearinghouse can be any one of the following:

OneDrive-based Image Clearinghouse

Hallway bulletin board
Google Photos – Easy to create a shared album, enable multiple staff/students to add content.
OneDrive Photos – Easy to add images to a folder, as well as share edit rights or view only link.
OneNote Online Notebook
School or classroom Instagram account

Steps to Make and Take

quote Here are the steps you can take to create your Typorama quote project. Remember, these techniques can be used whether you have the app or not. If you and your students are on a computer, try one of the aforementioned, browser-based, free quote generators.

Read a selection of text, online or from paper.
Choose your favorite quote or come up with your own based on what you have read (better activity).
Start up Typorama, select a background from their image search results or use a picture you have taken with your camera. Remember, you can always find a picture online. The image should reflect a key word in the quote text.
Modify the text and image features and then share it online.

Enhance with Augmented Reality

Using the iOS app Aurasma, you can convert these student-created image quotable quotes into “hyperlinked” images. That is, you turn each image into a “trigger” that when students point their iOS device to it, it has students reading the quote aloud, sharing a short anecdote.

Reminder: TCEA members, don’t forget about the upcoming January 25, 2017 Augment Your Reality Lunch-and-Learn webinar where we will share more ideas for using AR in the classroom.

Use the Aurasma app on your Android/iOS device and scan the quote picture above to listen to audio via Voxer!

More Than Quotes

This is a perfect app for both adult and K-12 learners to use. You can use it for creating memorable vocabulary words, summarizing fictional texts, and posing problems in social studies or history class. Please comment below and share how you would use Typorama in your classroom.

List of Copyright-Friendly Image Resources

January 23, 2017 0 comments

iOS Tips and Tricks

Pick This App

by Peggy Reimers January 20, 2017

written by Peggy Reimers

I love working in the brick and mortar building of TCEA HQ, but it is also invigorating to get out on the road. The best part of workshops is connecting with teachers. I love hearing what their students are learning and what technology they are using to get the learning accomplished.

This past week I was in Amarillo, Texas delivering the Google for Education Educator Level 1. We kicked off the three days with a sharing activity of favorite tools. I overheard Jodi Stary and Krissy Clark from Canyon ISD talking about a VERY COOL iPad activity with their second graders. When you hear a great idea, it just needs to be shared with the world.

PicPlayPost is a free app to create collages with photos, videos, GIFs, and music.Here are the steps Jodi and Krissy wrote on the board for their Shapes Project.

Choose your favorite app to write your shape name and take a screenshot. (Suggestions: a Chalkboard app, Doodle Buddy, Notes or ABC Magnetic Lite or use your favorite drawing or painting app.)
Use the camera to take a photo of the shape found in the real world.
Use the camera to shoot a video of the child explaining how many vertices and faces are on the shape.
Open up the PicPlayPost app.
Choose the #3 frame. (You can add up to nine videos or images per project.)
Insert the pictures and videos.

A collage of three pictures of student's work with this partular app. — Pictures provided by Canyon ISD

I also asked Jodi and Krissy to share one of their student’s shape. Take a look at this wonderful example by second grader Tayden.

This is a perfect app for kindergarten, first, and second grade students. It could also be used for vocabulary words, life cycles, or math story problems for third and fourth graders. Please comment below and share how you would use PicPlayPost in your classroom.

Featured Image: Screenshot by author

January 20, 2017 0 comments

iOS Tips and Tricks Microsoft

Improved Teaching with Microsoft

by Miguel Guhlin January 19, 2017

written by Miguel Guhlin

“We sure wish Class Notebook worked in OneNote Online,” several teachers remarked to me at a Fall Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) session. Microsoft was listening. On January 18, 2017, Microsoft improved teaching and learning with OneNote! These new features expand integration for OneNote’s most popular add-ins, Class Notebook and Learning Tools.

Big Announcements

Today, in the announcement, Microsoft shared their two popular add-ins are now available for OneNote Online, as well as OneNote for Windows 10 (the free version that comes installed with Windows 10). Some additional enhancements were also covered.

OneNote Enhancements

You already knew that YouTube, Vimeo, Slideshare, Sway, Docs.com, MS Forms, and Office Mix could be embedded into a OneNote page for easy student access. As of today, you can also embed Quizlet, ThingLink, GeoGebra, Wizer and Sketchfab 3D! Check out Marjolein Hoekstra’s (@OneNoteC) example OneNote Notebook (as well as her demo of Padlet embedding!). OneNote has also been enhanced to include stickers for student feedback. These stickers won’t peel off!

improved

Class Notebook

For teachers, Class Notebook for OneNote Online and OneNote for Windows 10 means easier distribution of content to all students in a class. It also empowers teachers to review student work sequentially (click and grade your way through a class roster with ease). This is phenomenal since it adds class management functionality the online and app versions of OneNote 2016 (the cadillac version). These features are rolling out on January 18 for OneNote Online. A new version of the Win 10 OneNote app will allow you to enable the feature via the settings in the Options menu.

Learning Tools

Learning Tools, which provides access to the Immersive Reader, dictation, and more, has now been expanded. It works on Word Desktop, Word Online, OneNote Online and Office Lens for the iPhone. A great dictation feature translates you when you say “period” or “question mark” and inserts respective “.” or “?” inline. Other new features include six new languages, as well as the addition of three dictation languages.

Office Lens Adds Immersive Reader

Image Source: Microsoft Blog

You may have missed the message that Office Lens for iPad and iPhone now includes Immersive Reader, which “lets you hear text from a scanned page read back to you as words are highlighted,” functionality. This is an incredible addition!

Microsoftastic Updates!

Thanks to Microsoft for modeling continuous improvement, listening to teachers AND students, and implementing these changes.

January 19, 2017 0 comments

Content Areas Google Tips and Tricks iOS Tips and Tricks

Take Storytelling to New Heights with This Free App

by Lori Gracey January 15, 2017

written by Lori Gracey

Toontastic 3D from Google is the latest storytelling app available, and it’s absolutely amazing. Students can draw their own characters, easily animate them, record their own narration, and create unbelievable stories. And did I mention that the powerful and open-ended app is free???

Available for both Android and iOS platforms, Toontastic 3D is perfect for storytelling with cartoons. There are no ads, no in-app purchases, and no registration, email address, or logins required. Google recommends the app for students ages 6-12, but I believe high school students would enjoy creating with it as well. And it would work with students working in pairs or alone. In addition, the app works just fine without Internet access. Finished animations are saved on the device in the app, but can also be exported to the photos app or library. Check out this 30-second video about Toontastic 3D.

Toontastic 3D As with any tool, the strength of the learning that results comes from how much thought students have to put into it in the first place. So they should definitely be asked to storyboard their cartoon first and have it peer edited for clarity, flow, and understanding. The app encourages students to use “Story Arcs” in planning their masterpiece. According to the website, “A Story Arc is a scaffolding tool that helps you map out a story’s plot. Whether they’re learning Language Arts or Science, kids can practice communication skills using story arcs as formulas for convincing arguments.”

Recommended Story Arcs

Short Story (3 parts)

BEGINNING Where you introduce the characters and the setting of your story
MIDDLE Where something happens, like a problem
END Where your story wraps up

Classic Story (5 parts)

SETUP Where you introduce the story setting and characters
CONFLICT Where you create a problem for your characters
CHALLENGE Where you make the problem even more difficult
CLIMAX Where you help the characters solve the problem
RESOLUTION Where you show the problem has been solved

Science Report (5 parts)

QUESTION Start by asking a research question. What do you want to know?
HYPOTHESIS State your hypothesis. What do you think will happen?
EXPERIMENT Explain your experiment. What data are you collecting, and what’s your control?
RESULTS Analyze your results. What observations did you make?
CONCLUSION Make a conclusion. What did you learn, and do you have any more questions?

Ways to Use Toontastic 3D in the Classroom

There are absolutely a TON of ways to use this resource:

At the beginning of the year, the teacher can share a cartoon she has created previewing the upcoming learning for students. Students can interview each other and then create a story about their friend using a photo they take of them. They can create a “welcome to our school” animation for parents and visitors.
In social studies, have students create cartoons about a state, historical figure, or time period they are studying. Or take primary documents and create a story about what they reveal.
Students can retell a particular incident from a book they are reading, create a book talk promoting their favorite book, or retell a story from a different character’s viewpoint or with a different ending.
If you really want to test your students’ creativity, ask them to create a short cartoon explaining a new math or science concept.
Design public service announcements after students have researched a particular problem in their school or city.
ESL/ELL students can use the app to illustrate vocabulary words.
Campuses can do their morning announcements using Toontastic 3D, whether created by staff, volunteers, or students.
If a concept is particularly difficult, the teacher can create an animation tutorial explaining it for students to watch whenever they need to.

Toontastic 3D empowers your students to be the actor, narrator, cartoonist, animator, director, artist, writer, or creative genius that they want to be. Download it today and get them started!

January 15, 2017 1 comment

Chromebooks Good Teaching Google Tips and Tricks iOS Tips and Tricks Microsoft Special Needs

Dystopian Learning No Matter the Device

by Miguel Guhlin December 28, 2016

written by Miguel Guhlin

“You’re just a shill for Google,” a district colleague joked when I shared I had been selected to participate in the Google Certified Innovator program in 2010. I laughed for a moment. If that moment was funny, the fact that I became a Microsoft Innovative Education (MIE) Expert in 2016 must generate a few more chuckles. And some wondered at my efforts with a 1:1 Apple iPad classroom. Work in education, you soon find yourself avoiding a dystopian, technology singularity.

The Big Three, which includes Apple, Google, and Microsoft (let’s refer to them as AGM going forward), are competing for space in today’s classrooms. Each boasts new, powerful software, hardware, and online spaces that bridge the learning gap for educators around the world. From Apple’s Distinguished Educator (ADE) to Google Certified Trainer to Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Trainer, each program connects you to a vibrant community of educators.

AGM’s respective efforts involve getting educators to adopt education versions of their consumer technologies. While claims of classroom transformations must be taken with a grain of salt, there are real benefits. Let’s explore some of the benefits below.

Drink the Kool-Aid!

“Have you drank the kool-aid?” When you drink the kool-aid, you suspend your cynicism of AGM’s intentions. Instead, you embrace problem-solving with the technologies at your disposal. The more active the AGM-affiliated educator community, the better off you are. These communities connect via various social media, email lists, and face-to-face gatherings. All are focused on helping you bring the power of their technologies to bear on overcoming learning challenges.

Solving Learning Challenges

How would you approach the problem below?

Students need to adapt propaganda techniques seen in presidential candidate advertising. After analyzing those techniques in several video segments, students must create their own version. The version will connect to their reading of TIM, Defender of Earth, a dystopian novel featuring a dinosaur in a world-saving battle with nanobots.

How would you approach this from your particular AGM perspective? For fun, let’s jump right in and see (in alphabetical order):

Apple

Students could collect video clips, recording relevant clips using the iPad’s built-in camera. They must provide a brief analysis of the propaganda techniques in the video, then transition to their application of the techniques to a TIM, Defender of Earth main character. They could use one of these free apps (Shadow Puppet EDU or Touchcast) to create narrated video clips and then stitch the production together in iMovie ($4.99), Videocraft ($3) or Pinnacle Studio Pro ($13). Videos would be turned into the class Seesaw account (free), appearing on the Class Seesaw Blog after the teacher approved them. Students in other groups could offer feedback via the Seesaw app on their iPads.

That’s one approach to solving this challenge using Apple. Let’s take a look at another way.

Google Suite

After reviewing YouTube versions of commercials and advertisements, students decide to use video annotation tools built into YouTube. They annotate parts of the video, highlighting the parts that exemplify a certain technique. Upon completion, students organize a Google Slide featuring still images, incorporating a comic strip storyboarded in Google Draw, and a video they recorded to YouTube using either their mobile phone with the YouTube Capture or their Chromebook’s webcam with ClipChamp extension($49 per classroom per year). Other students incorporate audio into their Google Slides presentation by recording voice-overs using Nimbus Screenrecording extension (free). And others might use Adobe Spark (free) or WeVideo ($250 per classroom per year) online.

Microsoft

Students might create a OneNote notebook, providing a written analysis of several videos from YouTube and Vimeo. They can copy and paste the video link (a.k.a. embedding) into a OneNote page, the video appearing for viewing. Then they use their MS Surface Pro 4 tablets to record a video rendition of their advertising. They could blend propaganda tips into the video and then add their explanation of what they did. As a final step, they create a view link for their OneNote Notebook. This makes it possible for anyone with an Internet browser to view the OneNote Online. Their teacher can make a class Sway highlighting the published products and share it online via Docs.com. Students with special needs are able to interact with the OneNote Notebooks their classmates create using the Learning Tools add-in.

Conclusion

You may have seen several possible ways to overcome the learning challenges in the scenario presented. In fact, like most educators, you imagined ways for all technologies to co-exist and empower students. Settling on only one technology may lead to an unwanted dystopian learning situation. Consider blending technologies instead. With that in mind, what would your technology classroom utopia look like? Please share in the comments!

December 28, 2016 0 comments

iOS Tips and Tricks

Saving Time with Your iPad

by Lori Gracey December 23, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

If there’s one thing that all teachers ask for more of, it’s time. There simply is never enough time in the day, week, or year to get all of the things done that absolutely MUST be done. The good news is that technology was invented for that very reason — to save us minutes and hours. But are you taking advantage of your iPad’s time-saving features? Here are two tips guaranteed to give you back at least a little of your life.

Repetitive Writing

Educators spend a lot of their day (and night!) writing the same things over and over. Maybe it’s your email address or the name of your campus or even the title of a particular unit of study. Gain a few minutes back and create a shortcut for the words and phrases you use most often.

Open the Settings app.
Open General.
Open Keyboard.
Tap on “Text Replacement.”
Tap the “+” icon in the top right-hand corner.
Next to “Phrase,” type your email address (for example, lgracey@tcea.org).
Next to the word “Shortcut,” type the three letters that will be the shortcut for your email address (lgr for my email address).
Tap “Save.”

Now, when you go into ANY app, if you type your shortcut, your email address will appear and you can simply tap the Space key to drop it into place. There’s no limit to how many shortcuts you can have, so be sure to take full advantage of this time-saving feature.

Favorite Websites

We all spend a lot of time surfing the web these days. Having your most-used websites available for fast access is important. While Safari doesn’t offer a bookmarks bar by default, you can turn one on so that your favorite websites are always there for you.

Open the Settings app.
Open Safari.
Tap on “Show Favorites Bar” toward the bottom to turn it on (the button should be green for on and white for off).
Open Safari. You’ll now see the Favorites Bar right below the address bar.

Apple tries to help you out by automatically putting a few suggested websites into the Favorites for you. But you can edit them easily.

In Safari, tap on the Bookmarks button (to the right of the address bar).
Tap on Favorites.
Tap the Edit button at the bottom.
Tap on the red “-” symbol to the left of any website name to remove that site from the Favorites list.
You can tap, hold, and drag on the slider control to the right of any website name to move it up or down in the list.
You can create a folder to be on your Favorites Bar by tapping “New Folder.”

You can add sites to your Favorites Bar by first going to the website you want to add.

Tap the Share button (to the left of the address bar).
Tap on the Bookmark button in the popup. You’ll see the Add Bookmark dialog. On the popup, you can edit the same of the website (it’s usually too long) and choose where you want the bookmark saved.
Tap on “Location” at the bottom left of the popup and then “Favorites” to add the website to your Favorites Bar.

Of course, if it’s a website that you go to every single day, you can save even more time by simply making a shortcut to the site.

In Safari, type in the address of the website and press Go.
Tap the Share button (to the left of the address bar) to access the popup.
Tap “Add to Home Screen.” You can then edit the name of the website (again, it’s usually too long) and then tap “Add.” What looks like an app will now be added to your iPad screen.

Every time you open this “app,” it will quickly and automatically take you to the website. Since it’s just a shortcut, it takes up almost no space at all on your device, so you can have as many of these as you need and even organize them into folders, if you want.

While these tricks may not seem like much, it’s surprising how much time they can actually save you. Give them a try today and then sit back and relax with the time you’ve gained!

December 23, 2016 0 comments

Chromebooks iOS Tips and Tricks

Merry 3D Printing from TCEA!

by Miguel Guhlin December 11, 2016

written by Miguel Guhlin

While some report that 3D printing isn’t a thing anymore, it remains one of the top tech trends for the foreseeable future. That may be because 3D printers are finding their way into classrooms and homes with startling alacrity. This blog entry shares a few choices for printers, design tools, and sources, as well as mobile device apps.

3D Printers for Home

Wondering what printers you can get for your home? Consider these three offerings, ranging from least expensive to most expensive. The Dremel IdeaBuilder packs a punch to your wallet, but offers the most flexibility and versatility in its options. The Mod T also has adherents who praise its small size as perfect for your office desk. Whether you’re looking for a home printer, or considering a small 3D printer for the classroom, there’s something available to match your budget.

Looking for 3D Printing Designs and Tools?

Look no further than Thingiverse and 3D Warehouse! They have literally thousands of designs already created and ready to modify or use as is. And if you want to design your own, consider these two programs for use on your device of choice:

Tinkercad – A wonderfully easy to use, web-based 3D printing tool.
SketchUp Pro – This $695 program for Mac and Windows computers is available at NO CHARGE to K-12 public schools! Click the link to find out more about TCEA’s offer.
My SketchUp – This browser-based version works great on Chromebooks and is available at no charge.

Also, check out this round-up of 3D printing apps for your mobile devices.

3D Printable Ornaments

Never worry about breaking glass ornaments again with 3D filament-based tree decorations. These curios are easy to design, modify, and print for home and office. More importantly, they make it easy to print take-home designs for students.

Find more designs online with these apps at Thingiverse using their iOS app (free) , and 3D Warehouse using SketchUp Viewer for iOS ($14.99).

Updated on 12/1/2021 with new content.

December 11, 2016 0 comments

Google Tips and Tricks iOS Tips and Tricks

Digitizing Your Memories with PhotoScan

by Lori Gracey December 7, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

If you’ve got some spare time over the Christmas holidays, you might consider digitizing all of those photos you have lying around. A new, free app from Google, PhotoScan, makes this easy.

Available for both Android and iOS, the app scans photos using your smartphone’s camera in a way that eliminates glare and shadows to improve overall quality. It will also automatically crop out edges, like the white border of a Polaroid shot. Google says it should work with photos in frames and picture albums, too. That can certainly save you some time.

When scanning a photo, the app asks you to line up a circle in the center of the screen with four dots located near the corners of the photo. The app then takes multiple individual images and stitches them together. That reduces the glare you might get when taking a single photo from one particular angle. Photos are automatically cropped, rotated, and color corrected. You can save them to Google Photos with one tap — and then, when you want to find them, you can just search for “scans” inside Google Photos and they’ll all come up. (You can also save them to your camera roll or share them to other apps.)

The app is so easy to use that you could even have your children or your students busy digitizing the past. So grab those old photos and get busy scanning them. You’ll be glad you did!

December 7, 2016 0 comments

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