Ipad apps in the School Library:   Mary Catherine Coleman;  Librarian, St. Stephens and St. Agnes School; Alexandria, VA

School has cart of 18 iPads in library and mobile carts elsewhere in building.  Each student assigned the same iPad everytime they are in the library.
Popplet–graphic organizing app (this is one we use at my school as well).  Creates bubbles where you can put in brainstorming.   Coleman created a lesson around research unit.  Students given five questions to answer about their research and then they created a popplet from the information and then presented to class from their popplet.  They could add photos, links, etc.   (Popplet Lite — you can only create one at a time).

 

 

Video apps–Videolicious and Screen Chomp.   5th grade lesson on how you can use keywords in a search, how do you customize Google searches.  Students chose a historic event to research (had to discuss what qualified as historic); then performed their search on Google and find three reliable websites using the website checklist to evaluate them.   Used ScreenChomp to take a screen shot of the web page that they were evaluating and then they recorded their evaluation over it (along with highlighting) etc.

Next part of project — They had to answer five questions on their event.  And then wrote a script and created a Videolicious video including screen shots or images from the website to tell their story about the event.

Story Mark and YouDoodle– Students in groups, picked a poem.  Took a photo of their group and illustrated it to go with the poem in YouDoodle. Then they uploaded the photo to StoryMark which allows you to add a audio file to the picture of themselves reading the poem.

Sketch Nation– allows you to create your own iPad game.  They picked a book they really loved and then to create a game of it.  Had to think of the characters, the obstacles the character would face, etc.  You can select genre of game, draw or upload pictures, think of ways the character could get more lives.  Then had to test the game with three students, go back and edit their games, and then unit ended with a game day where all students got to play other students’ games.

Felt Board — storytelling app.  Allows you to create a felt-board story.

Scribble Press– almost like a mad libs for books, and students can just fill in words, and illustrate a book, or you can have a blank book.  Her students wrote a holiday book for a relative.  You can email the book or submit it to Scribble Press to be printed.  Another class used it to create a story of their science fair project.  Took photos all along the stages of their science project and then published into a scribble press book.

Comic Life — can create your own comic strip.  Can upload pictures, can choose frames, etc.   Third graders created comic books about books they liked.   Fifth grade researching a person from the revolutionary war, and created a strip about the person.   Comic strips can be printed and posted around library.

FaceTalk — lets you upload image and make a face talk.  Students in elementary used it to record a book talk.   Fourth graders used it for their biography project and created a Facetalk about the person’s life.

Wanted Poster app — Third graders read trickster tales and talked about commonalities, features of tricksters.  Students read a trickster tale and then created a Wanted Poster for that trickster.

Animoto — She has a fiction book award club and they vote on best books and create video trailers that can be shared on the announcements.

Aurasma — Augmented reality app.  Can layer a video over an image of something. So if they aim iPad at a book, it could play a video.    She has a library scavenger hunt periodically, and gives clues about author.  If the students have the right book, when they hover over the book, they get the response that they won. Avoids problem w/QR codes with students going around library just randomly scanning QR codes to get right answer.  They only get a video when they scan the correct book.

QR Codes/Vimeo/Dropbox are all ways to share some of these products.

Library has become a testing ground for apps and teachers getting engaged through the library role.