iPevo Whiteboard App #edtech #ipevo

One of my favorite things to do is try out new EdTech tools, whether it's an app or a website. I recently saw on Twitter about the iPevo Whiteboard app and thought it looked like a great teacher tool.

It seems very similar to Stage Pro but it's free.

Sometimes, instead of paraphrasing what it says on a product's website, it's easiest just to paste it. Their website describes it this way:

The Intuitive Whiteboard App for iPad

The free IPEVO Whiteboard app turns your iPad into a portable, wireless whiteboard. Draw and annotate directly onto real-time video from your document camera or iPad's camera, onto a blank white canvas, or onto any image from your Photo Library.

Put the focus where it belongs

Whiteboard offers a simple and intuitive set of drawing and text tools. Add text boxes, shapes, and lines to emphasize key points of interest and highlight important parts of your image. Different colors and line thicknesses, undo and redo functions, a pointer tool, and a clear all function are right at your fingertips.

Choose the image you want to annotate

Multiple whiteboards ("boards") can be created and easily switched between, each using a different image as its background. Import photos from your Photo Library or take a picture with iPad's camera and use that snapshot directly. You can even draw on the real-time image feed from iPad's camera. Or, you can use the app as a true "whiteboard" and stick with the default white background.

Harness the power of your IPEVO document cam

When combined with the WS-01 Wireless Station and your IPEVO document camera (Point 2 View, Ziggi-HDor VZ-1 HD) , Whiteboard delivers a portable, wireless teaching tool using razor-sharp real-time images from your doc cam. Project and annotate text, artwork, diagrams, math equations, 3D objects and more. Teaching and presenting have never been this smart, effective, or fun.

Textingstory.com - Create your text story in video #edtech

I did random search for #edtech in Twitter today looking for cool tools and came across this great app from TextingStory.com. What it does is give students a place to fake text someone else and record their conversation in video.

Some obvious applications to this are students in an ELA class who are learning about character development or analysis and having to pretend to be that character to prove they know how they would think, act and text. The possibilities here are endless and students will really have to know a character's ins and outs in order to convey their personality.

Another situation might be in Social Studies or History class where students need to become a historical figure and text as if they were Einstein or George Washington or MLK. It's a fantastic way to prove what they've learned in a format that students will like.

The free app is customizable in the sense that students can change the names and colors of the text.

It's free for iOS and Android with the option to unlock other features.

Game Changer for Math Teachers!

When it comes to helping math teachers and showing them the value of Google Applications we always bump into... how do I type equations?  How do I easily make tests and worksheets?  I would love to go digital but how can I with the limited tools of Google Docs?

Well the answer has been around for almost a year, but I have re-discovered and love the simple ability of this Chrome extension to really make it easy!

EquateIO Chrome extension will insert math equations from common language, Latex language, spoken language, camera, or handwriting.  It doesn't get much better than that!

I tried from a worksheet with my phone camera, from voice, and from my tablet and they all worked seemlessly.  Getting the graph on assignments was a pain until now too!

They are offering this product and ReadWrite(an ELA product) free to teachers... Teachers can apply at: https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/free-for-teachers/

NewseumED - Media Literacy

Ray Birks, our Instructional Technology Facilitator extraordinaire, found this fabulous site for teachers on media literacy.  What a great free toolkit of resources provided for teachers.  I spent a bunch of time in the Media Literacy Booster pack and found the lessons relevant and engaging when thinking of middle school to high school learners.

The site has the full lesson with activities, videos, handouts, discussion topics, sources, and extensions.  There are a ton of resources here for teachers.

Current relevancy is obvious when I found "Filtering Out Fake News"  This lesson had videos activities and artifacts ready to go for the teacher.

Thank you to this museum for providing these detailed lessons and resources to help us teach students media literacy.

Check it out and get your free account today at https://newseumed.org

Awesome CheckMark by @EdTechTeam Update #gafe #edtechteam #checkmark

I wrote a few weeks back about a great Chrome extension called CheckMark that allows teachers to add quick, efficient feedback to students' work in Google Docs with a few clicks. The only issue I saw with the extension is that you couldn't customize the comments so you were stuck with the defaults. But as a few days ago you can now customize the comments and add new ones too.

Although this feedback isn't as good as one-to-one and it's not in-depth, it does give a quick way for teachers to address student needs and errors and for students to see exactly what they need to fix in their work. It's worth checking out! Download it here.