iPadpalooza Recap Part I

Been MIA for a couple days again. Was helping my sister, b-i-l, and nieces move five and a half hours away. *insertsadfacehere*

Today I went to Austin for Ipadpalooza (Eanes School District). It was super cool ... and that's saying a lot considering how early I had to get up to drive there this morning. *inserttiredfacehere* Of course you can never hit all of the sessions you want to but here is what I learned from what I DID get to see. I am not the best of notetakers so hopefully I credit the correct people with the ideas they actually shared! Note to Self: You had an iPad there with you, dufus. Screenshots. Evernote. Skitch. Dropbox. Learn how to use them properly and quickly enough to keep up!

photo credit: Yutaka Tsutano via photo pin cc

Keynote with Tony Vincent
So silly but ... BingoBaker. How fun is this? Must think of something to use it for. Bingo could be super overdone but used sparingly (and like he did ... where people just had to pay attention as he talked and mark off apps he mentioned).
More
Opportunities
Belong
In
Learning
Environments
Need to look up more from this page. Drat. I can't remember the one he used to dub his own lips in over a picture of President Obama. It was totally ridiculous but the kids would LOVE it and there could definitely be a use for it. It was sort of like Blabberize but instead of "cutting" the picture it superimposed just the lips of any video recording you put in. I remember he talked about screencasting and thinking that I really needed to "get on that." I just dislike the sound of my recorded voice. Intensely. Must Get Over That, too.


Tech Chick Tips and Storytelling Apps
Need to check again. First time ... the SockPuppets and Toontastic "All Access Passes" were not in the Volume Purchasing App Store. Or I used the wrong titles. I wish they would! (Got the PuppetPals one which is awesome ... just want the others, too). I mean, don't get me wrong. The freebie versions are great and have wonderful possibilities. I just HATE that I have this cool tool that is limited even a little bit by red tape and $20 or so more dollars. I wonder how much trouble I'd get into if I just bought a gift card myself and downloaded it the "normal" way. Donate the app to the school, as such.
iStopmotion. I don't know why I'm so interested in that one because I tried stopmotion last summer and it took A LONG LONG TIME. But in a strange way it was fun and I think the kids would like it. They discovered the Lego Super Heroes one on our iPad and totally wanted to do something but as it was like the last week of school ... no time. Would say "always next year" but those particular students were in 5th grade. Well. I told them the Lego one was free. This iStopmotion one is not (in fact I think it was like $10) but it had some great tools that would help facilitate the process. I used Smoovie for mine ... but that meant I had to import all the pics.
MyStory and Storypatch both look super cool. I even emailed our AP to ask about perhaps finding a closet we could turn into a minirecording studio for the school. The library is a hallway and there is always so much background noise on anything we record it spoils it ... anyway. I doubt there is space (or it's on the total other end of the school) but it never hurts to ask.
Already had ScribblePress. Love it!


Ibooks on Steroids (Monica Martinez)
We were halfway through the presentation before I realized that iBooks Author is a Mac app. And you have to have Lion to download it. Now ... do I download Lion? And I only have access to a Mac at home. Not at school. :[
That said, there are workarounds. Will be experimenting with EPub2Go and DotEPub as depending on how many of our iTouches (we have way more of those than iPads) can actually get iBooks ... could be a good way to get info to kids at a station w/o actually having to be right there. Make my own little multimedia book-lets. To start with, anyway. Then we'll see about the kiddos creating.
She did talk a lot about different iBooks. Not super interested in ones you have to buy and most of the freebie classics in the public domain are for older than elementary students. At this point, anyway. It's too hard with red tape to buy things and we don't have very many devices! One day. And we do have our Simple Touch Nooks. Finally. That's another post. :/

iPads in Libraries
This one was done by the librarian at the high school. Have I mentioned the SUPER AWESOME SPACE they had? All sorts of cool rooms for collaborative projects. Or quiet study. A "juice" bar where students could power up their devices with just the USB cord. She talked about piloting a program before their school went to 1:1 (How cool is that? Way to go librarians!). It was really more for secondary librarians. One day, maybe. I'd like to try, anyway. She did share a video clip about a Chicago elementary school library that I need to investigate further. Apparently there are other related clips somewhere.



I will save the rest for tomorrow (Nearpod and DoInk among others ... this means you!). This is already a long post!



PS I WILL NOT stay up to check out the #ReadingRainbowApp. I won't. But you can bet as soon as I get back from the dentist (DISLIKE) tomorrow morning I will. The one free book you get with the app (I hear), anyway. No $$$ left on the current Volume Purchasing Gift Card. If it will even be there. Please be there? And please be cool?