Show Me – a great learning app

Show Me is a great learning app for educators. It allows its users to create and share lessons on the iPad. It offers a nice and intuitive whiteboard surface where lessons can be shared very easily.This app , though still in closed beta, looks like it is going to be a great app for educators. Teachers can use it to create lessons on the go and share them with their students. I am hoping Show Me will go open to public in this summer for it is the ideal tool  for this season when teachers have much more free time to create nice staff to share with their learners. I have picked up this video to let you have an idea about what this app is going to be all about.

If you want to get an instant access to Show Me and be the first to be informed when it is officially launched then submit your email to Show Me.


ShowMe iPad App from San Kim on Vimeo.
That’s it about Show Me – a great learning app.

Amplify – Clip and share web content easily

Amplify is a great social blogging service. It allows its users to easily clip, share and discuss things that interest them. It is a great way for educators to share interesting clips with each other or with their students. Amplify lets you not only share excerpts from articles you read on the web but also photos, and videos. What i like the most about this bookmarking tool the social part in it for you can synchronize your amplify with all your favorite social networks and blogs . Amplify is not only for bookmarking and clipping but is also a great social experience to embark on.

Some features of Amplify

Here are the main features that Amplify offers to its uses:

• It is free


• It requires a sign up but you can sign in with your twitter or facebook account


• It allows users to clip parts of an article in a web and share it with others


• It lets you share videos and photos with your colleagues


• It lest you build your own social networks


• It allows you to autopost to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Google Buzz, Tumblr, Posterous, WordPress and more


• It offers a bookmarklet to add to your browser and has also Firefox add-on and a Google chrome extension


• You can schedule posts on Amplify by using Calendar


• You can post to Amplify using a generated email


• You can also share and clip right from your Google reader

How can i gtet started using Amplify ?

Head over to Amplify main page and sign up for a free account or sign in with your Twitter and Facebook account
Now drag the Bookmarlet to your browser
Whenever you want to clip and share anything on a webpage just click on that bookmarklet and there you go.

Apllictions of Amplify in education

Amplify is one of the best educational bookmarking tools for students and teachers. It is easy to use and so students will not have issues in setting up their accounts there. Teachers can use it to clip parts of websites that are relevant to what they teach and then share them with their students.The auto posting feature Amplify offers is a great tool for teachers to let students stay updated about the latest clips they are sharing using the Facebook and Twitter .
That’s it about Amplify – Clip and share web content easily.

Google Image Search – Search Info about any Picture

Pictures speak louder than words. Google realized it and put forward a new service called search by image. It is just awesome , no wonder it is the internet guru Google behind it and you can just expect more amazing features in the coming weeks. So after it has made it possible for users to search Google using voice through a service called Google Voice Search which has been such a success that more and more people are using it now we have Google image search. This service allows users to use images as search queries instead of just the plain old text.

The way it works is very easy. Just drag and drop any image you want to search into the search bar and hit’ I am lucky’ and a result page containing the info about that image will be displayed. You use images on your computer or use the URLs of images you have online .



To get started using this service you need to head over to images.google.com and look for the camera icon the right hand side click on it and select the placement of your picture. Google Chrome and Firefox has extensions to help you quickly search images by right clicking on any image and selecting’ search Google with this image’.
To understand how this feature works read this extract :

Google uses computer vision techniques to match your image to other images in the Google Images index and additional image collections. From those matches, we try to generate an accurate “best guess” text description of your image, as well as find other images that have the same content as your search image. Your search results page can show results for that text description as well as related images.

Watch this short video to how image searches are conducted using Google Image Search.

That’s it about Google Image Search – Search Infor about any Picture.

Cartoon Studio – Free cartoon making mobile app

Cartoon studio is a great mobile app for educators. It allows its users to easily create cartoons and share them with other people  all on the go and for free. I really like this app and think that teachers with iPad, iPod, or an iPhone can use it to create cartoons drilling some communicative functions they want their students to grasp. This is a fun way to let students enjoy their learning and boost their creativity skills. If students have mobile devices they can use it to  create cartoon strips where they can simulate real life situations . Language teachers ,like me, would find it very beneficial as it offers an extra practice for the targeted language in a real life like situations. Cartoon Studio is really one of the best video and cartoon making mobile apps online.

Some features of Cartoon Studio

Here are the main features that Cartoon Studio offers to its users:

• It is free


• It is easy to use


• It has an intuitive interface


• It is student- friendly


• It allows you to create cartoon strips out of photos you have on your pc or online


• It lets you import photos from your computer or browse them online using the built-in image search option


• It offers several backgrounds and characters to use


• Upload and share your cartoons on Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, Tumblr, Wordpress


• Easily view other people's cartoons on Twitter


• It is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and requires iOS 3.1 or later.

How can i get started using Crtoon Studio ?

As i said earlier , this app is very easy to use . To create  your own cartoon you can for example select a background and characters that are already premade for you or you can upload your own pictures . select the ones you want and drag them in to place. Add your speech bubbles and give your creativity a vent.
That’s it about Cartoon Studio – Free cartoon making mobile app.

PuppetPals – Free mobile storytelling app

Puppet Pals is a cool free  mobile app. It allows its users to create their own animated stories in such an easy way that you do not need any extra tech knowledge to do so. This app is totally free and it is one of the best storytelling apps online. Now you can create your own characters and combine them into an animated clip using your own creativity. This is exactly what students need , they need apps to teach them or at least improve their creative skills. If it happens that you have an iPhone or iPad then why not give this little app a try and see how it works , remember it wont cost you a penny.

Some features of Puppet Pals

Here are the main features that Puppet Pals offers to its users:

• It is free


• It allows you to create you own animated shows using photos


• It lets you create your own actors from photos


• It is very easy to use


• Easy zooming and rotating options


• It offers a wide variety of characters to download

How can i get started using Puppet Pals ?

As i said before this storytelling app is very easy to use. Just pick out the characters, drag them onstage and tap record. Movements and audio is recorded for your performance.
That’s it about PuppetPals – Free mobile storytelling app.

Vyew – free Meeting rooms for real time collaboration

Vyew is a great presentation tool for educators. It allows its users to meet and share content in real time. It is completely free and supports up to 10 participants. In fact it is one of my favorite presentation tools because of all it has to offer to us in education. Imagine a tool that enables you to upload documents, files and videos into a room which others can access very easily and start viewing and contributing to. It is really perfect for online collaboration and web conferencing where people can collaborate in real time and share whatever they want and all for free.

 

Some features of Vyew

Here are the main features that Vyew offers to its users:

• It is completely free
• It requires a sign up
• It does not need any software installation or download for it is a web-based application
• It is very easy to use and anyone can right off start on it
• It supports up to 10 participants
• It also provides tools for uploading files, slides,documents, images,and videos
• It provides you with a whiteboard to draw and type on
• It also allows you to share your computer screen with participants in your room
• It supports voice and text chat
• It is compatible with Pc, Mac, Linux and many other systems

 

How can i get started using Vyew ?

Head over to Vyew main page and sign up for your free account

Watch this short tutorial video to see how you can use the above mentioned options

 

 

Applications of Vyew in education

Vyew is just what educators need. The conferencing and collaborative features it offers for free can be used by teachers to make tutorials and invite groups of 10 students at a time to a single room and explain lessons to them, share slides and other relevant staff. Vyew can make your teaching much more fun and students will love it for sure.

That’s it about Vyew – free  Meeting rooms for real time collaboration.

Google Voice Search: Search Out Loud

Google Voice Search is a newly released feature by Google. You no longer need to type in your search query but just speak it out loud and Google will do the rest. I can not believe how advanced Google's technology is becoming. It is making our internet navigation way easier and quicker than anytime before. Not only Google is a great resource for educators but the best one ever.



I am crazily in love with its services and i trust them more than i trust myself. My love for Google and my deep recognition of its importance in our schooling has put me in a relentless hunt for its updates. I have even devoted a whole part of this blog to Google’s Educational Tools that every teacher should be using and i have also written an article entitled What every educator should know about google which has made the biggest hits in many educational forums and blogs. I am also working on many papers about how educators can benefit the maximum from Google , just stay tuned for the updates here and you will be able to discover many more amazing facts about this huge internet guru named Google.
As i said about Google Voice Search, queries are conducted via voice and all you need is Google Chrome 11 or higher and a built-in or attached microphone. Just click on the mic on the search bar and start speaking and whatever you say will be automatically typed in Google search bar and results will be displayed immediately.

What is Google Voice Search useful for ?

This new feature is great for

1. people who want to search for something but are not sure about the spelling of the search terms


2. If you want to search long queries


3. If your hands are busy doing something else then use this voice search to search Google for you

Unfortunately this service is available just in The US for now and here is what Google has said about this:

It will take several days for Voice Search to be available to everyone. Please note Voice Search is available for US English only.

Now watch this short video to learn about Google Voice Search

That’s it about Google Voice Search: Search Out Loud.