Drawing Pad

I have been working with K1 students at school on a unit about feelings. One of the projects that we have attempted was for the students to create a self portrait of themselves using an iPad. The K1 team decided to use an app called Drawing Pad as there are a few functions that allowed the students to create a wonderful representation of themselves. The app is $1.99 (depending on the currency of the store you are purchasing it from). Before we opened the Drawing Pad app, I had to capture an individual image of each student, I was working with (in small groups of 3-6). I used the regular camera app to do this and found that selecting a square picture worked better than a regular picture. Once in a while I had difficulty when capturing regular sized pictures as they sometimes imported into drawing pad all stretched out. Depending on the class, I either had the students (with teacher support) capture the photo or just have the teacher capture the image. I captured a picture of each student with the iPad that they would be using. As I was always working in small groups, this was the first thing I did with each student when they joined my group. Then the students opened Drawing Pad and I allowed them a few minutes to explore the app to see how it works. I modelled how the students could add their picture into a new page. I started by helping the students locate the different paper types and then opening them.







Then the students choose the film strip option to access the images on the iPad's camera roll. They chose the portrait that has already been captured of themselves and imported it into the page.

 Once the image has been inserted, the students touched the home icon to go back to all their tools. I found that the marker pens did the best job for this project. I modelled the process for them and they were very excited to try it themselves. The students chose different coloured pens to trace over their picture. Some chose to stick to the colours from their image while others didn't. I didn't mind as long as they tried to represent themselves in a portrait. Once the students were done, I saved the image to the camera roll. Then came the best part - I went back to the paper types where we originally added the student's picture and chose a white paper instead of their picture. So the image behind their pen drawings disappeared. I always loved seeing the results and so did the students.


 This was an easy project that yielded some fantastic results. It was accessible to all students and they enjoyed learning some iPad skills as well as

Getting started with photography and iPods

Some simple tips for getting started with photography using iPods with young students.

Exporting from Explain Everything to Google Drive

Explain Everything is a great app on the iPads for students to record their thinking about a particular subject.

We have had some problems exporting the movie to the camera roll when the movie gets too long.

A solution to this is to export the completed movie to your Google Drive account. You can even export the Explain Everything file to your Google Drive so you can access it later on a different iPad.

Once you have created a movie in Explain Everything, click on the movie export icon in the bottom right of the screen.

Click on the Google Drive tab on the bottom and then you will be prompted to sign in to Google Drive.

You will be prompted to sign in to Google Drive. **Very important - don't forget to include the gapps part of your email address. Ex. dac@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg

You will then get a screen which asks if the Explain Everything app is allowed to access some of your information. Click accept. **Note: sometimes the keyboard may be in the way of the accept button. To get the keyboard out of the way, simply touch the keyboard button in the bottom right of the screen.

You can choose to either save the video file or the project. If you are done and don't need to edit the project anymore, then save the video file. If you would like to continue to edit the project later, touch the project tab.

You will be prompted to give it a name. You can also choose the folder that you would like to put the file into. Choose a name that will help you find your movie later.

The video will then be saved to your Google Drive and you will get a progress box.

Now the file has been uploaded to your Google Drive. 

Remember that you are still logged into your Google drive account. You will need to log out so other people can't access your account. To do that, go to the home page of Explain Everything (click on the house in the bottom right corner of the screen) and click on the gear in the top right of the screen. Then click on the Accounts tab and slide the Google Drive switch from "On" to "Log In". 

**Note - If you save a project to your drive, and you want to open it back in Explain Everything, you will need to open it from the Google Drive app on the iPad (Not from Explain Everything)

Creating QR code with a picture

What is a QR code?

You have probably seen them in magazines and posters and even on some of the products you buy. They look like this:

They are all individualized and can be created easily (more on that later).

What do they do? 

You can use a QR code scanner app on a mobile device like your Smartphone or an iPad to scan the code. There are lots of different scanners available like Qrafter that will scan QR codes. A quick look in the app store will show you the many different options available.

When you scan a QR code with your phone or iPad, you can link to something. What exactly? Most often they link to a website but can also link to a phone number or a few other things.

They can be used in a wide variety of ways in the classroom. Teachers can create a gallery of QR codes that the students scan which takes them to different websites for information that they have to explore. You could put a QR code on a piece of portfolio work that is linked to a student's performance that has been uploaded to Vimeo or YouTube. 

How do I create a QR code?

There are many websites that will create the QR codes for you. One of my favourites is QR Code Monkey because you can put a picture inside of the QR code.

Start by going to the website that you want to link your QR code to and copy the URL (website address). Then go to QR Code Monkey and click on the URL tab and paste the address there.

If you want to add a custom image or logo in your QR code then check the box entitled "Include Logo/Image in QR-Code". Then click on the tab "Own Logo-Image" and select "Upload Image". 

If you are creating QR codes for student work that are linked to different websites, you can put a picture of the student into the QR code to help you remember which QR code belongs to which student. 

Find the image on your computer and upload it. 

Then click on the green "Create QR-Code" button and your customized QR code with picture will be created.

Then click on the "Download PNG" button and you have your QR code to print.