Karen+Kyger

My new favorite app: iBooks Great for adding highlights and notes to the novels we read in our English classes. || ||
 * Karen Kyger's iPad Page

Apps to use in English Classes
In the first phase of this project, I am looking for basic apps that will let me access files that I already use in the classroom such as PDF's, Word, PowerPoint. Since we spend a lot of time analyzing text features, I would like to have the ability to annotate the text, save the annotations and share them with students. The apps that I am currently using for this phase are listed below.

For the next phase, I would like to look into apps that will help make the reading class more interactive. Some possibilities are: Diigo, Prezi, Socrative, Turning Points (Clickers) apps for iPads, Quizlet....
 * ===__**APPS**__===

|| ===__**What is it?**__=== || ===__**Who would use it?**__=== || ===Ways to use it?=== || **Recommended?** || ===Other?=== || (free) || Social Bookmarking site. || Teacher - to share links with students or Students - to find and share links with group or class || Ask students to find links for more information about a topic. || No - I found this app to not be very inviting. Switching to Pinterest to bookmark sites ||  ||
 * ===Diigo===
 * **Pinterest**

(free) || Social Visual bookmarking || Teacher - to share links with students || Create a visual bookmarking site on a particular topic for students to view and/or update. || Yes. I like the visual bookmarking aspect of this site ||  || (free) || Gather and organize your notes. Share with others || Instructor - One place to keep notes related to topic and share with students Students - Start notebook for class || Best way to organize notes || Yes ||  || (free) || Works with Evernote to annotate images and websites || Instructor and Students || Easily annotates images, websites, PDFs || Yes ||  || (free) || Scan text or images using iPad || Instructor || Scan in paragraphs from textbook for students to annotate || No - Found I couldn't add more than one image/page to a pdf. ||  || (free) || Scan text or image using ipad || Instructor || Same as above but can scan multipages and save to one pdf file || Yes- Can import scanned pdf into GoodNotes or Dropbox ||   || (free) || File Storage that can be accessed on PC and iPad || Instructor || Way to access PDFs on iPad || Yes! ||  || (free) || Open MS Office Files on iPad || Instructor || Way to access, modify and annotate Word and PPT files || Yes ||   || (free) || PowerPoint presentation and annotation || Instructor || Way to present PPT from iPad as well as annotate. || Yes ||  || (free but must purchase ebooks) || e-reader for books. Can do highlighting and notes too || Instructor can demo how take notes while reading novels ||  || Yes ||   ||
 * ===Evernote===
 * ===Skitch===
 * ===JotNot===
 * **CamScanner HD**
 * ===Dropbox===
 * ===Cloud on===
 * ===Slideshark===
 * **IBooks**
 * **AnnotDoc Lite**

(free) || Annotate PDF's ||  || Too Confusing || No ||   || Cons - No sticky notes. Lots of clicks to save to Evernote || Yes || [| itunes link]
 * **SmartNote Free** || Annotate PDF's ||  || Too Confusing || No ||   ||
 * **Good Notes**
 * $6** || Annotate PDF's || Instructor can model annotations and students can use it in class also. || Pros -Does a great job with free-hand writing.

[|Video demo] [|Nice article about GoodNotes] ||
 * **Notability**
 * $2** || Annotate PDF's || Might be a better annotation tool for students to use. Easiest annotation tool to learn and less expensive than Good Notes. || Students would need to have iPads to use this app. || Yes - but still piloting it. ||  ||
 * **SubText**
 * Free** || Social Reading || Instructor can insert questions, prompts, quizzes into text for students to answer ||  ||   ||   ||
 * **Screen Chomp**

(free) || Make a video recording of the ipad screen. Can import a PDF file or image and make simple annotations. || Instructor creates videos that students view, but students could also create and share videos. || Teachers can create video lessons and share link on Canvas page. Students can also use. || Yes || Link to video I created using Screen Chomp: [] ||

__The Search for the Perfect Annotation Tool (Hint: No such thing)__
Since I teach developmental reading classes,my students and I spend a lot of time analyzing text features to look for patterns, signal words, topics, and the main idea. I am looking forward to using the iPad in the classroom to be able to highlight, annotate with comments in the margins, circle key words, and add sticky notes to the articles and books that we read, and then display these annotations on the overhead projector as we work through a text. Since there are so many annotation tools available, I thought this would be an easy choice to find one tool to do it all. But things are never as simple as they seem, so this quest has taken me on quite a journey to:
 * 1) Get all my Word docs, PPT, PDF's onto a place where my iPad can access them.
 * 2) Annotate with highlighting, and free-hand sticky notes
 * 3) Easily save/post so students can have access to the annotated document

__1. **Access to articles, novels and files on the iPad**__ To get documents into a place where the iPad can access them, I found **Dropbox** to be the easiest to use. It can be easily accessed from my work PC, home laptop and the iPad. I can't make changes to MS Office files on the iPad from Dropbox, so I downloaded **Cloud On** to be able to edit Word and PowerPoint files. The annotation feature in Cloud On seem to be very limited, so I have come to the conclusion that for any Word document that I would like to use in class, I will need to save to a PDF first. Most of the annotation apps work with PDF's. I had more luck with PowerPoints. **Slideshark** seems to be a great way to display and annotate PowerPoints. The advantage of using Slideshark is that it will allow me to move more freely around the room, and I can also annotate slides and save these annotations on the go.

Many of the paragraphs that we discuss are in the text book, so I plan to use **JotNot** to take a picture of the text on the iPad and then it can be displayed and annotated using **Skitch**. (Update: The free version of JotNot does not allow more than one image/page per document so I have switched to using **CamScanner** **HD** which is free. I can take a picture of a page in our textbook, save it as a pdf file, and then bring it into GoodNotes to annotate. This will allow me to be a bit more spontaneous in class. If the students are having trouble with a passage, I can take a picture of it and display it on the overhead projector.

Our ENGL-093 and 096 classes require our students to read a novel or memoir. It would be helpful to be able to display and add annotations to different sections of the novel as we discuss them. **iBooks** is a free app that allows users to add highlights, sticky notes and bookmarks to pages of a book that you are reading (no free-hand option). The iBooks app is free, but the e-books would need to be purchased. I found the annotations very easy to use, but unfortunately, iBooks does not currently allow users to annotate PDF files.

__**2. Annotate with highlighting, free-hand annotations in margins, and sticky notes**__

I tried to look at a few of the free apps for annotating PDF's to see which one would include all the functions listed above, but would not be too confusing for me and the students to use. I looked at **Skitch, AnnotDocLite, SmartNotesFree,** and **GoodNotes** My favorite at this point is **GoodNotes** because it is so easy to use free-hand to write in the margins of PDF files. Many of the good annotation apps cost $2 - $10, and so far I have tried to stick with the free ones.(Update: I had to break down and purchase the full version of **GoodNotes** for $6 because I could not save more than two notes.) It might make sense to spend a little bit of money here. **Good Reader** which costs $5 may also be a good choice, but I have not downloaded it yet to try it out.


 * GoodNotes** allows the user to write in the larger bigger box at the bottom and then reduces the size to fit into the small box on the document.

G[|oodnotes vs Notability]

__**3. Share with students**__
After we have finished our annotations, I would like to have a place that students can go to from Canvas to view/review these documents. Public notebooks with a link can be created in **Evernote**. The link will take the students to our shared Notebooks with all our annotated documents from class. The students do not need to have an Evernote login to view the documents. I did find that GoodNotes requires quite a few clicks to get the document into an Evernote notebooks so I am also going to look into saving it to a public folder in **Dropbox**. Link to a public Evernote Notebook for the iPad Test. (To be continued...)

__**Summary**__
Since reading is such an internal process, it's difficult to show students how to interact with the text as they read. I hope that the iPad will help turn the internal process of reading into a more visual model for students to follow. Here's the summary and process of how I hope to do that with the iPad.

1. Save assigned text to PDF's on my PC and then save to **Dropbox.** Use **CamScanner HD** to capture an image of the text from the textbook if needed. 2. During class, use **GoodNotes** to annotate and highlight text. **iBooks** will be used for annotating/highlighting sections of our class novel. 3. Save annotated text to **Evernote**. Students can access annotated text through link to Evernote from our Canvas site.

Other Apps that can be used as needed.
 * Bookmarking App: Pinterest
 * Presentation apps: Slideshark for PowerPoints, Prezi and Haiku Deck
 * Whiteboard apps: Screenchomp to do a short video of a lesson on a whiteboard
 * Video Apps: YouTube, TED