2DIY on an Ipad – first look

I have been busy playing with one of my favourite pieces of software, except with a difference. 2DIY, but not on my PC.

Before joining 2Simple Software I was a bit of a fan boy of their stuff and was proud to be the first Teacher/advisor to blog about 2DIY.

2DIY is essentially a creative tool-set that allows learners to create their own two dimensional games. In today’s changing ICT curriculum, where it is more about making and creating, 2DIY has never been more important. In the past I have been involved with working alongside Tim Rylands to showcase the power of this software both in schools and at Learning without Frontiers.  2DIY always had (and still has) that wow factor. I have had children cheer when I have announced that today’s lesson would be on 2DIY.

So, I was thrilled this week to be given a beta version of the new iPad version .  I am not sure whether it will be with us tomorrow at Bett, but I will be on the 2Simple Stand on Saturday and you are welcome to nag me and have a play with my iPad.

So what is it like?

All the games making templates from the PC version are here and the graphics have been given a facelift. You can use this app to create quizzes, labelling activities and playable games.  These can be saved to the app or linked into a pupil’s Purple Mash account. The app works well and there are now sticky issues, which is really good for a Beta. One difference between this and the CD version is the inclusion of a joy stick rather than the arrow keys, a clever solution and one that works well.

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It is worth pointing out that there are probably only two other primary focussed game making apps in the App store. And only one of these is any good!  Now that 2DIY is going to be added to our school suite of apps, we are getting closer to a complete package of  the apps we need.  The creators not consumers message which 2Simple evangelised us with during the original release of the software is even more true of iPads than computers. We need apps like this which allow children to build something for themselves.  Rather than the glut of drill and skill and photo altering apps.

So far the response from my Year 6 Class has been along the lines of “sick” and even “cool”.  One of my girls spent most of wet lunchtime building maze games. To the point where I had to wrestle the device from here as it was time for the next lesson. I am looking forward to using this app with more classes and building it into a programme of  Games Based Learning and Games Design. It is the missing link between Scratch and Kodu!

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App of the Week : Clicker Sentences

A few years ago I discovered Clicker 4 for PC. After using it just once with individuals who struggled with or were otherwise disengaged by reading, I soon realised that this was a very powerful tool. Clicker is essentially a word-processing program with a customisable grid of words which act like a mix of a word bank and a giant concept keyboard. The beauty of these grids is that you can personalise them and customise them to the child you are working alongside. What’s more the software can read the text back to you and you can even add your own voice.

Since my initial first experiments with the software, the product has moved and we are now up to Clicker 6 and some apps too.

Dylan's target was to vocalise I see sentences. Clicker made this possible in a meaningful fashion.

Dylan’s target was to vocalise “I see sentences”. Clicker made this possible in a meaningful fashion.

I have trained a number of Teachers and Teaching assistants in both mainstream and special school on Clicker 5 and I both myself and my wife have made wide use of it with our autistic children. I still maintain it is one of the best pieces of assistive technology ever produced.

Here is a video of one of my other sons, Leo, he has autism and  learning difficulties and struggles with pencil control and concentration. Here he is  a few years ago on our SMART BOARD using some colourful semantics Clicker grids to write one of his own sentences. I have to say it is only in the last few months that he has managed to replicate something like this with a pencil.

So, with all this in mind I was thrilled to be asked to try out the new Clicker apps on our iPads. I am going to mention just one of these here, which is Clicker Sentences. An app which feels closest to the spirit of the original Clicker 4,5 and 6.

Jack and the Beanstalk Clicker

Once again you are able to customise the grids with words of your own or make use of some of the pre made learning grids.  I used this last week with Leo as a supported Word Processor we wrote a fairy tale from the template and then I created some history focussed grids for him to help complete his History assignment.

I was really impressed with the preloaded Fairy Tale writing template which we used. Using a series of word bank/ grids

Leo was able to quickly compile his story and listen both to every word and every complete sentence. Not only did this sustain his attention it also helped greatly with his reading. Really this app should be an essential installation for all schools that are putting iPads into their Key Stage 1 and SEN settings. If you want to talk about progression then this would be the idea precursor to Pages with all its intricacies of formatting and features.

Aside from the pre-made templates the app also allows you to create your own templates. I have to say this was far easier than in the original PC application, though the features of the app are less than on the PC.  Nevertheless in just a few seconds I had created at least three model sentences with a picture prompt for Leo to follow. Following each sentence he simply swiped onto the next.

On this occasion I let Leo construct the sentences  himself from the words randomly arranged in the grid set. However the app does allow you to present the word bank in either alphabetical or sentence order, you can even have it guide you through the grammar by having it highlight one word at a time.

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A screenshot from a Victorians Clicker Sentence grid we created “in a matter of seconds”

To augment your own grid creations and the pre-installed templates, there is also a growing number of  resources and ready to run grids over on Learning Grids.com too. This feature of having a large searchable gallery of pre made templates was another very useful feature of the PC based programme. Busy teachers do not always have the time to create themed resources and so an on-line repository of these is really useful, if only to provide inspiration for your own grid making.

I would recommend you add this app to your list of literacy apps straight away. Then look at whether it is appropriate for some of your less able pupils too.

10 Maths Apps for 2013

Here is a collection of the ten most popular and used Maths apps by myself , my boys and teachers at my school. Therefore this is not just a copy and paste of details from the app store, these apps have been road tested in the home and/or the classroom.

Little Digits – Cowley Owl – £1.49

An innovative way to aid children as they learn to count with their fingers. Quite simply, however little digitsmany of your ten fingers you place on your iPad that is the number shown and spoken back to you. Charlie, who is 4 , used this with me and we found that we could collaborate with numbers over 5 by using some of his fingers and some of mine. It was a lovely way to help him learn to count.

Download it from here.

What Time is it Mr Wolf? – Teacher’s Pet – £0.69

I have found children in Key Stage 1, Foundation Stage and older children enjoy this app. Use it as a fun way to help 4D2isbtLUBmK2aJsgdjodM-temp-upload.dhsjqeir.175x175-75children to read the time by matching words with clocks. A step on from all those pages of ink stamped clocks i was used to in Junior School. My boys at home love the Wolf character who feeds back to you with his very wolfie voice. Whereas, for me as a teacher the ability to customise the app to work on specific times and alter the difficulty level makes this a very versatile and well designed learning tool.

Download it from here

Number Bonds Pro – Frogmeleon – £0.69

Just like quick recall of multiplication tables, a sound working knowledge of number bonds gives children the building numberbondsproblocks for tackling more complex computations. Number Bonds Pro provides a structured, fun and customisable means of securing knowledge of these facts. Up to four different users per device can learn through a combination of tests and flash cards. The range of numbers looked at , the position of the missing number/answer and the difficulty level can all be changed to suit the learner. I use this and the other 3 Frogmeleon apps with my son, Leo, a year 3 child with learning difficulties. I like the way we could hone in on the number range that provided just the right level of challenge. We were also able to make the tests more accessible by disabling the timer function and allowing him multiple choice rather than keyboard entry. Following the tests we worked on the review section looking at the questions he’d got wrong.

Download it from here

MultiFlow – Dactyl Applications – £1.49

This is one of the first apps I installed on our school iPads. It is popular with our pupils and used at school and home. mzl.zbinpjxa.175x175-75Essentially it allows children to choose the multiplication tables they need to consolidate and work through a series of questions. Learners can also choose the difficulty level and for the more able learners the list of tables to work on extends to 20. My class enjoys using this to refine and sharpen their tables knowledge, while some pupils go further and try to improve their recall of the 17 or 19 times table. This app forms a component of my oral mental starter programme and is also an app we recommend to parents.

Download it from here

Early Birds: Times Table Training – Key Stage Fun – £0.69

This is another take on learning multiplication tables. As with other similar apps children can select which table they mza_6198739864306237608need to work on. Then rather than presenting children with a series of questions they get a set of answers instead. Well, a set of bird eggs showing products for the times table they are working on along with irrelevant numbers too. The task is
to identify the products as quickly as possible. Successfully complete a level and you are rewarded with a rather special egg, each of these has their own fact card. A nice touch and one of the reasons why my year six class regularly ask to “go
on Early Birds, sir”.enjoy this app. Use it as a fun way to help children to read the time by matching words with clocks.

Download it from here

Achieve Level 4 – Rising Stars – £3.99

This is a must for Year 5 or 6 classrooms as part of a structured programme of Maths revision. The app contains over mzl.ukebhoyz.175x175-75200 new questions on each area of the Maths curriculum for Key Stage 2. Year 6 pupils have been successfully using text books with the same title for home learning for a number of years. The app offers a more engaging and interactive means of revision. This is partly because the content is presented on-screen, which I have found often makes things more attractive. But there is also a gamification element in both the visual progress tracking and upon successful completion Level 5 questions are unlocked.

Download it from here

Go Count – Derek Huby – £0.69

Children need to experience different visual representations of numbers before they fully grasp their value. Go Count gocountdoes this well with sets of aeroplanes landing, tractors parking and fireworks ready to fire. Count the amount shown correctly and fireworks explode, planes fly away and tractors drive off. This is a must for the Foundation Stage or, as I use it, at home with your under 5s.

Download it from here

Banana Hunt- Interactive Resources – £0.69

Interactive Resources have been making whiteboard Maths teaching tools since whiteboards began to replace 455190617x178blackboards. I have been reliant on tools such Maths Pack and Teaching Time as a way of bringing concepts to life for my class for some time. It is really exciting to see their trusted whiteboard tools transforming into apps. This way more children can get access to them, rather than just the child that he teacher has chosen to demonstrate. In Banana Hunt the object if the game is to locate the bananas, these are hidden at a given angle on a circle. The closer you get to the angle, the more bananas you or rather your monkey will get. I use this with my Year 6 pupil in order for them to get a better mental image of angles other than 90 degrees.

Download it from here

Solids Elementary- Synergy IT £1.49

This app allows learners to select a 3D shape, spin it around and explore it from every angle. Counting faces, sides and solidsvertices is easily done as each of these can be displayed and coloured. What’s more, the solids can be gradually opened up to show the nets of each shape. These features are proving to make this a very helpful tool in assisting my class grasp the properties of 3D shapes, along with all the associated vocabulary.

Download it from here

Dirt Bike Comparing Fractions – Arcademic £0.69

Bringing both gamification and collaboration to a challenging topic, this app make comparing fractions fun. Learners can app168play against the computer, begin their own game, which others can join or play against who ever happens to be online at the time. Two fractions are shown with a missing sign between them, players need to decide whether to complete the number sentence with either a <, – > or an =. There are sixteen similar apps from Arcademic Skills builders all with the online collaboration aspect, which my class really love.

Download it from here

 

App of the Day: Banana Hunt

Today’s app is a welcome conversion of a game that I used over and over since I first got my Promethean board a few years ago.  Banana Hunt featured as a game on the Maths Pack series of Interactive Maths tools from Interactive Resources. At the time they really helped my classes to visualise difficult concepts and made the Primary Strategy’s ITPs look very BBC 4. Upon returning to the classroom back in March I was pleased to find them preloaded on my class laptop.

Banana Hunt Screenshot

Anyway, Banana Hunt is simply a great game that works on a very strong visual of angles on a circle. You have to guide your monkey around the circle to find some bananas. If you get to the exact angle then you will get 10 bananas, whereas if you get within 10 degrees you will at least get some. As this is now an iPad app you can now put the game into more hands than just  the teacher and the occasional child you call out to use the IWB with you.

Here is a brief video of me talking about the app and illustrating it with some Year 6 SATS questions, which this app really supports.

 

App of the Day: Name Dice

name dice

I had been looking for a random name generator in order to help with my questioning and pupil section  Though I did find a reasonably good app to do the job I found something else along the way. Name Dice is a handy utility for composition in Literacy. Basically it generates names, which your pupils could use in their story writing. As the app generates so many possibilities it will go some way to helping with original and unique writing in my class, as at least all of the characters will be different.

 

Try it – it is free and I think a handy utility for either full on story writing or as a starter activity.

Future Apps – 3 to try in 2013

There are so many apps being released each week and though some of these fail to excite or are nothing but tired remixes of other apps, once in a while an app stops you in your tracks and you just say wow! Or at least you may think I wonder what that would look like in a classroom with decent wifi and  possibly a printer!

Here are my big 3 for 2013!

Foldify

Currently (£1.49)

I have to say this does make me think of 2Design and Make from 2Simple, but  this app does more and it is on an iPad!. You can create figures, vehicles and boxes and add some stunning intricate detail. I really can’t wait to create a wall display of Foldify Cars or Superhero figures.

As you are painting and designing all of these on a net and then assembling the model this app serves as a good mash-up of ICT, Maths and Design and Technology.

You can download the app by clicking here and read a behind the scenes look at the design over on Wired.Com here.

Strum

(Free)

From the people that brought us Songify and the Ocarina app comes their newest offering. Their aim is to help us all create our own music videos by adding a filter to any 15 seconds of speech. The results look good in their promo videos; so  I am keen to put this in the creative hands and minds of a Year 5 or 6 class. It could be an interesting way to present a  poem or a hard to grasp science concept or how about as a way of memorizing the names of King Henry’s wives.

My Little Rocket

(69p)

Like Foldify this app is all about crafty things and actually getting you away from the device and creating something in the old school way. The app encourages you to create your own cardboard rocket, both with its visuals, the instructions for building and the launchpad.  Here you can place your homemade rocket onto the iPad screen and launch it into space together with smoke and a countdown.

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If you are running low on toilet rolls and paper cups you can send the in-app rocket and pilot into space. He will visit planets with unusual names and you can also customise his / her rockets before setting off.

I love quirky apps like this and Urbn Pockets have delivered again with an app that shows they understand children and teachers. I would definitely be using this app within the theme of space with Year 2 or 3 and i think it would inspire a lot of writing and junk modelling.

Download it from here 

More in 2013 please Urbn Pockets.