Tech Academy 2012 @ EM-S ISD

My New Favorite iPhone Camera App

My husband and I recently took a road trip, and along the way I played around with several camera apps on my iPhone. The end of the school is year approaching and with summer coming quickly the photo opps are all around, so I wanted to share my experience with a camera app that I think might be helpful to you!

I should mention that I have primarily been a native iPhone camera app user since entering the era of my iPhone (that's definitely an era right?!?), but I found myself getting frustrated, primarily with the focus, lighting and speed of my shots. I started exploring some different camera apps (I like Instagram, but I wanted something with more features) to see if I could find one that I liked better. I compared a few different apps in the end of my hunt, mainly Camera Awesome, and Camera+. My favorite is....Camera+. I should forewarn that it is $.99 app (normally I try to keep all things free on this blog), and I think it's well worth it, but for a free suggestion (and for the Android peeps out there) read on.

Focus AND Exposure Adjustment
You can do more than tap for a focal point of your photo (like in the standard iPhone app) by using a second finger to set the exposure of your image before snapping the pic.


Speed of Capture
Camera+ allows you to capture a photo and then quickly turn around and capture another. If you continue pressing on the camera button pictures will keep being snapped by the app. This helps ensure you don't miss a moment.

Clarity
This is by far my enhancement feature of the app. After capturing your photo, select it in the Lightbox to edit. Then select Clarity and watch your photo come to life. These feature has done some serious good for my photos. Check out the images below. This picture was taken traveling at about 65 mph on a highway in Tennessee. The first image is the original, the second was adjusted only by adding the Clarity effect.

Filters
If you want to fancy up your photo even more you can dig into some of the many filters that are offered in this app. You can apply an Instagram-ish filter if you prefer, or choose from the many filters in the categories of color, retro, and special. For the example below I added the HDR filter. You also have the ability to customize the intensity of all filters with a slider which I really like.

Take another look at this before and after...

Share-ability

From Camera+ you can easily share your pic by posting to Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr. You can also save your photos into the Camera Roll of your phone from your Lightbox (you can also change the setting so that photos go straight to your Camera Roll or to both your Camera Roll and Lightbox).

To top it off, you can go back and change the settings of your photo at anytime from the Lightbox. You can also bring in your photos from the Photo app on your phone in order to add features and effects.

So yeah...I'm loving this app. It does cost $.99 in the AppStore, and I'm not a spokesperson for them in any way...it's just a great app that I've really enjoyed! If you have $.99 cents to spare I definitely recommend checking out Camera+!

Free Alternative and Android
Now, if $.99 is something you do not wish to spend on a camera app, Camera Awesome is a great alternative. It lets you set the focus and exposure of a photo like Camera+, and it has a nice "Awesomize" feature for your photos that does a great job of enhancing your image, plus it has an easy share feature.

I didn't forget about the Droid users out there, and though I didn't have the opportunity to check these out first-hand, I did find a couple of apps that sound quite good. You might want to take a look at  Little Photo (FREE) or Camera Zoom ($2.99); both look to have some great features.

Happy warm weather photo taking!!

FREE Entirely Online Education Technology Conference from Google

Thanks to Steven Anderson (@web20classroom), I learned of this FREE (yay free!!) education technology conference that is put on by Google and entirely online. It is called Education On Air, and there is a variety of different education technology topics represented in the sessions. You can see the full schedule here (note all times are Eastern).

When: May 2nd
Where: Online through Google+ Hangouts On Air
Time: 12-10pm (Eastern)

All of the sessions are presented by educators. You can get even more details here and check out the very informative FAQ page if you want to know even more!

A Few BrainPop Features I Forgot About

I was in a session earlier today about BrainPop at my local education service center, and decided that there are "A Few BrainPop Features I Forgot About". Since I forgot about them, I thought some of you might have too. Our district is fortunate enough to have a BrainPop subscription, but if your district is not, have no fear, there's some wonderful free features too!

If you have ever seen a BrainPop video you know that they are short and sweet, as well as very informative (if you haven't, click here to view one). I think they are a great way to intro a concept or reinforce. They can be class activities or individual student activities. Also, BrainPop is adding to the collection of activities that support their videos and the concepts that they deliver. Read on to learn (or be reminded) of a few.

FREE STUFF! That's right, I said free =)
You can get free stuff from all of the BrainPop sites (BrainPop, BrainPop Jr., BrainPop Español, BrainPop ESL), but it's best to go from the main BrainPop site so that you can see ALL of the free stuff from ALL of the sites! Just go to the main BrainPop page (brainpop.com) and click the button for free stuff. 

Search By Standards
I think this comes in particularly handy when you have a student or students that are struggling with a particular skill but it's also good for many more reasons. Just click the Standards button, select your state/subject/grade, and then click the link for the proper video or resource. It's not just videos listed here, but also games, which leads me to...

GameUp

These games are ALL FREE and intended to be reinforcement for skills that are demonstrated in the videos. This being said, they work well after a video has been watched, and also for reinforcing a concept that has been covered in class in a different way. The games can be accessed by clicking the GameUp button on the main page, or after a video has been watched.

That's just a few, but there's lots of other great things on their site too. I definitely suggest that you go check it out or revisit if you haven't been there in a while. Enjoy and Happy Friday!!

A Collection of Mind Mapping Resources

There are many sites available for creating mind maps online. I recently had a teacher approach me about online resources for creating mind maps and through my digging I've found a few favorites.

I've known of a few of these for a while and others are new discoveries. It seems the list for these brain storming resources is growing rapidly. Some are purely web based while others have smart phone apps and sync up across devices. It's really a choice of personal preference and they all work a little differently so...without further ado, here's a few =)

MindMeister (iOS, Android, Chrome, Web) - This is a great mind map for collaboration and it is available in the iTunes App Store and the Android Market. You can have 3 active mind maps when you sign up for a free account. *Helpful Tip - Once you click sign up look at the bottom of the site for the FREE account link as it is not featured on their page).

Mindmaps (Chrome, Web) - I really like the simplicity of Mindmaps and the fact that you do not have to register for an account to use it. To connect ideas you just drag the red dot from one idea to another.

Lucidchart (Chrome, Web) - Lucidchart works by first dragging the shape you want onto your document. To connect the ideas you drag from any corner of a shape. Lucidchart allows you to collaborate easily with others through a provided link, plus they provide a free upgrade on your account for educators (make sure to click the button on the homepage for this)!

bubbl.us (Chrome, Web) - My favorite thing about bubbl.us is the speed at which you can add ideas to your mind map. To add a "sibling" bubble just hit the tab key while you have a bubble selected. You can also add a "child" bubble by pressing ctrl + enter on your keyboard.

Want Instagram style pics on your PC? Try pixlr-o-matic!

So I have been a fan of Pixlr (pixlr.com) for quite some time now. Their online photo editor is quick and has a lot of great tools (see prior posts about it here and here). I've noticed other resources on their site before and have used a couple, but had never really spent any time with pixlr-o-matic until recently.

With the popularity of Instagram (and my new found love on my iPhone Snapseed), I think many of us are familiar with the style of pictures that can be produced with pixlr-o-matic on your computer. To get started just go to pixlr.com/o-matic/ or you can go to pixlr's main site and choose pixlr-o-matic.

You can either grab an image from your webcam or one already saved to your computer. I started with a quick pic from my webcam. Choose the effects you want to add, and a frame if you choose, then save your final product to your computer or to immio (photo sharing site). You can also use the randomizer button at the bottom to get randomly generated effects, overlays, and borders. It's right to left of the "gauge" (it looks very much like a shuffle button for music). I found I liked to use the random button and then just tweak the things that I want to. By using different effects a photo can be made to look old or futuristic, which could be a nice touch for pictures or photos that are used in a student project!

Image Help! Great resources for image editing

Have you found yourself in a situation where you needed or wanted to edit an image, or even create one, but didn't know where to start? Maybe you're looking for a great editor to use with your students. Lucky for you there are multiple free resources that are yours for the taking, and lots of tutorials on how to use them.  I think it's a great idea to use free resources when possible in the classroom because students can easily use them at home. I've featured a few of my favorite (FREE!) resources and tutorial videos.

GIMP - GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is free piece of software that is very capable of doing some major image creation and editing. It is often described as a free alternative to Photoshop. There are a ton of tutorials and help for Gimp online. Visit the GIMP site here to download the program.


Video: Let a photo flow into the camera - GIMP tutorial
More Resources: GIMP Tutorials

Pixlr -Pixlr is definitely one of my favorite web-based image editors. There are several versions depending on the type of editing you want to do. The Pixlr editor is the full photo editor that I have found to be quite good for many image edits. Pixlr express offers some quick edit tools in an easy format and Pixlr-o-matic offers some quick vintage effects for your photos. If you want to create your own image you will want to use the full Pixlr editor. One of my most favorite features of Pixlr is that you can create a free account and save your images in your Pixlr library. This means if you working on an image and have to leave that computer, you can save your image in your Pixlr library and easily pick up where you left off on any other computer.

Video: Pixlr Tutorial: How to Make a Banner (using layers, style options, and free transform)

FotoFlexer - FotoFlexer is great for quick and easy changes to photos. For more info check out the post I wrote about FotoFlexer here =)


Video: FotoFlexer Tutorial