Presentation at TIES, Minneapolis, 2012

1. Using iOS Apps to
Foster Literacy
Learning
Richard Beach, University of Minnesota rbeach@umn.edu
Google Docs Version of apps
handout:
http://tinyurl.com/b6xl2yk

2. 2

3. Affordances of iPads/iPhones
Touch:
◦ Intuitive navigation of texts and
virtual worlds
Portability/storage/ownership
◦ Personal learning device
Social reading/writing
Multimodality
Collaboration/communication

4. Affordances
Affordances not “in” app
App Activity
Affordances created by teachers
Activity App

5. App affordances: Literacies to learn
across the curriculum (app iTunes links
on handout)
Accessing/Analyzing Information to Learn
Reading Digitally to Learn
Writing to Learn
Discussing to Learn
Images to Learn
Audio/Video to Learn
Games, Simulations, and Drama to Learn
Reflection to Learn

6. Affordances (Hutchinson & Beschorner,
2013, Journal of of Education Computing Research
Contained nature of the apps
◦ focus and efficiency: instructional planning.
Intuitive features
◦ the camera roll,
◦ the audio recording
◦ graphic organizers
◦ adding and revising images and drawings
Mobility: Collaboration
6

7. Accessing/Analyzing Information

8. Accessing/Analyzing Information to
Learn: Wikipedia
Qwiki
◦ includes videos, images, graphs, and entries for
millions of topics
Articlesfor iPad
Wikipedia Mobile
Wikipanion Plus
Simplepedia
iWiki

12. Accessing/Analyzing Information to
Learn: QR reader apps
Create QR code images
◦ Entering in a URL in a QR create site
such as Qrafter, QRstuff.com, Kaywa, Tec-
IT, QR-app
Insert QR codes into texts
◦ provide other related texts or pose
questions

13. Reading/writing to learn

14. Using Diigo social bookmarking
for sharing annotations
1. Add Diigo to your iPad or computer
toolbar
2. Find an online text
3. Highlight sections of the text
4. Click on the icon to add a Sticky Note
response
5. Have other students add their responses

15. Diigo annotations: Pro-con readings:
benefits of energy from wind power
7thgrade students iMelanie Swandby’s
◦ Lighthouse School Community Charter
School, Oakland, California
Students posed questions for each other
◦ “What does that mean, virtually free?”
◦ What are some things that use energy
or power?”

16. Adding sticky-note annotations

17. One student’s annotation: Pro wind
turbine essay

18. One student’s annotation: con essay

19. Students responding to each other’s
annotations

20. Dialogic interactions through
annotations
“There is a bad and good thing about this.
Bad is it kills birds passing by. Good it
makes energy cleaner.”
 “Tarnished with wind turbines? Aren't
wind turbines supposed to be a good
thing? Why are they complaining about
the turbines? it doesn't even look bad.”

21. Use of annotations for summary
writing
I am perplexed in choosing if wind energy is a
good courses or bad source. While, wind
energy is a good source because it’s
renewable and needs nothing more but
construction, it can also cause irritation and
attention of some people. Wind turbines are
loud, noisy, and risky. Even though, it doesn’t
cause any greenhouse gases in the air, wind
turbines are harmful to wildlife and space.
More birds die by getting hit by wind turbines
which is very dangerous to our wildlife.

22. Writing to learn

23. Digital concept mapping
iPad apps: iBrainstorm, MindMeister for
Ipad,, Sundry Notes, Idea Sketch, Total
Recall, inShare, iMindMap MindNode,
iThoughtsHD, Popplet Lite
http://tinyurl.com/3o6a3wy
Hierarchical/logical relationships between
key concepts

24. 5th Grade Students: Popplet Lite for
Concept Mapping
5thgrade students in
Laura Kretschmar’s
class at Lighthouse
Community Charter
School, Oakland,
California
Lesson on rare earth
metals to address the
question, “What is
gold?”

25. Mateo’s initial map: What is gold?

26. Mateo’s revised map

27. Twitter apps
Twitter Apps such as Twitter, TweetCaster
Tweetbot, Tweetdeck, Twitteriffic,
HootSuite
Create class account
Use Twitter hashtag for your class
#JonesHistory10AikenHS

28. Twitteriffic

29. HootSuite

30. Collaborative writing/data collection:
Google Docs forms
5th
graders: Weaver Lake School,
Osseo, MN
Data on parasite presence in Monar
49% had parasites

31. Writing multmodal story books
StoryKit, Storyrobe, Book Creator,
Bookemon Mobile, Picture Books,
Writer's Studio, StoryPatch, Demibooks®
Composer, StoryBuddy, My Story,
MoglueBooks, myebook, StoryJumper (for
younger students), Tikatok

33. Comics/graphic novels
Comic Life, Strip Designer, ComicStrip CS
Shttp://tinyurl.com/6or7bvz, Comics
Creator, PhotoComic, Comic Touch Lite

35. Strip Designer: Retell stories
35

36. Apps for Sharing/Publishing Writing
ePub: Mac Pages (soon to be on
iPad Pages)
Apple iBooks Author (requires
OS Lion): iBooks
Dotepub or Inkling books

37. Discussing to learn

38. Subtext: book discussions

48. Discussing to learn: Collaborize
Classroom http://tinyurl.com/7xdcejl
Free platform for classroom
discussions
App/Web-based
Extensive curriculum resources
Focus on fostering students
collaboration
Professional development

51. Discussing to learn: Google+ Hangout:
Up to 10 people

52. Images/audio/video to learn

53. Sundry Notes: Draw pictures and add audio
notes: Story cause/effect
53

54. Doodly Buddy: Story illustrations
54

55. Value of drawing apps
Interviewer: How is it [using the iPad] different, or was it
different, than just drawing on paper?
Student 1: Um, you get to type.
Student 2: And it is different, because there is glitter and an
eraser and paint and chalk.
Student 3: Yeah, and you don’t have to pick up things. All you
have to do is tap it and it will do it.
Student 1: Yeah, and if you do it, the chalk at the bottom of the
line will show up and then colors will come on and you can pick
different colors.
Student 3: I like where we could just tap it or we could just
move that thing around.
55

56. VoiceThread: Multiple audiences share
responses to the same images

57. 5th Graders: VoiceThread for Studying
Dinosaurs
Extinction of the dinosaurs:
◦ supernova, volcanoes, or an asteroid.
◦ Volcanoes http
://voicethread.com/share/2454743/
◦ Supernova http
://voicethread.com/share/2544219/
◦ Asteriod
http://voicethread.com/share/2545658/

58. VoiceThread affordances: Literacy
practices
Collaborative shared reading
◦ Mediated by focus on same images
◦ Learn from each other’s focus/practices
Scientific thinking: claims/counter-claims
◦ Exposure to competing arguments
 “The asteroid couldn’t have caused the dinosaur
extinction because the asteroid only landed on one
spot and there were dinosaurs everywhere.”

59. Screencasting app: Doodles and
audio voice-over for collaborative
reading/writing/video
ShowMe, Explain Everything,VoiceThread,
Screenchomp, Educreations
7th grade students at Lighthouse
Community Charter School
◦ Mendelian genetics
◦ Created ShowMe presentations

60. Students ShowMe’s: Genetics: dominant
vs. recessive traits
“Ifa brown eyed and a blue eyed parent had a
baby, what color eyes would the baby have?”
 http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=ibbycYS
Mother and father birds and baby bird
 http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=RNKspgu
Pea plant genetics
 http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=GC6q3nM

61. ShowMe affordances: Social
reading/writing/video synergy
Unfoldingdoodling voice-over talk
Use of ShowMe for prewriting/revision
◦ Testing our/erasing doodles
Collaborative focus on same images
Video: Rhetorical sense of audience
Use science disciplinary literacy
◦ Images, charts, figures as data evidence

62. Screencasting: Students or you create
how-to tutorials for peers
VoiceThread, ExplainEverything,
Screenchomp, ShowMe, Educreastions
Snapguide http://tinyurl.com/ctkslx8
◦ Students:

63. Discussing to learn: Teen texting: Pew
Research
63% text daily
◦ Median number sent daily was 60 in 2011.
39% cell phones
35% face-to-face socializing,
29% social-networking messages,
22% IMing
6% emailing.

64. Texting/message apps
iMessage (iPad or iPhone),
Messages (Mac), AK Messenger!,
textPlus Free Texting + Group
Text, Textie™ Messaging
Classroom-based texting systems:
Class Parrot, Kikutext, WeTxt,
Remind101, Sendhub, Class Pager

65. Tom’s Messenger
http://tinyurl.com/7v7klxw

69. My message on Tom’s Messenger
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

70. Another message
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

71. Gaming/simulation to learn

72. Games/simulations/drama to learn:
Game/simulation/roleplay apps
Tiny Tower, C ityVille Ho metow n, My
Tow n 2, Trade Natio n, Farm Sto r y, Epic
C itadel (medieval fantasy town with a
cathedral).
Students creating characters and stories
based on the Epic Citadel medieval setting
http://www.porchester.notts.sch.uk/citadel

74. Reflection to learn

75. Screencasting: feedback
VoiceThread, ExplainEverything,
Screenchomp, ShowMe, Educreastions
Video response to writing: Jing
◦ http://tinyurl.com/3kkw4am
Speeches/drama: Formative Feedback for
Learning http
://formativefeedbackapp.blogspot.com

76. Professional development to learn

77. Apps for planning/organizing instruction
Nearpod http://tinyurl.com/6ts55kp
◦ http://new.nearpod.com
◦ videos, polls, sketching tools, or featured
presentations
GoClass http://tinyurl.com/chbmeke
◦ http://tinyurl.com/blgogqs
◦ SHOW (online resources), EXPLAIN (add
notes), ASK (questions for students)

78. App uses/recommendations
EdReadch channel (MobileReach,
MacReach)
Appy Hours 4 U
◦ The TechChef4u app
The iPad Show
The Daily App Show
 TWIT channel
 Tech Chick Tips

80. Online resources: Apps for literacy
learning
Google Docs: apps handout:
http://tinyurl.com/b6xl2yk
Ebook: Using iPad and iPho ne A pps fo r
Learning w ith Literacy A cro ss the
C urriculum
http://www.appsforlearningliteracies.com
Wiki resource site for this book
http://usingipads.pbworks.com