New Blog!

Im working on a new version of the blog skippblog.wordpress.com and am keen to know which you prefer comments or tweets to @nskipper .

Videolicious

Videolicious Turn raw video clips and photos into tightly edited masterpieces to share with your friends, in just three simple steps. Thanks to @lizziemcke for this recommendation

Choose Your Shots
Select the videos and photos you
would like to include in your movie

Tell Your Story
Film yourself and talk about the
videos and photos in your movie

Choose Your Music
Choose one song to
enhance your movie

Very easy to create a video story from video clips and photos you have on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad 2. Great for trips out of school providing students with a simple way to add a commentary to their work.

epub converter

Great resource for creating epub files from existing document 

The Free Online ePub Converter

2EPUB allows you to convert PDF, doc and other types of documents & books to ePub format, the standard format for ebooks, supported by almost every reading device including iPad, iPhone, iPod, Sony Reader, BeBook, Nook, Kobo (for Kindle use .mobi).

Input formats: doc, docx, epub, fb2, html, lit, lrf, mobi, odt, pdb, pdf, prc, rtf, txt.

Output formats: epub, fb2, lit, lrf, mobi

Teacher training should take place before iPad Deployment

This is a very useful article confirming what we all know but very rarely put into practice. Providing iPad CPD is more essential as many staff wont have experience of this technology either personally or a classroom technology. Follow Link to read more Another issue is the use of email which is an area that can expand rapidly Follow link to see more A case study worth reading is that of Essa Academy Bolton Empowering students with iPod touch.

In addition to allowing staff acesss to iPad/iPod devices early its wise to provide guidance on apps to start with, there are currently over 13,000 so know where to start and what is the primary focus is vital to a successful implementation. Below is a guide to some apps that i would think are a good start, remember not too many to begin with and remember to group them or place specific subjects on seperate pages. A further matter is that of content ebooks, videos, documents, podcasts etc whcih can be managed easily from an iTunes Playlist this can be much easier to manage that Syncing.


My Must have Apps:

Free	Paid
iBooks	Pages
Evernote	Numbers
Dropbox	Evernote
Shareplus Lite (if you are using Sharepoint with your LP)	Book Creator
Idea Sketch	I am Learning
iMathematics	Sketch
Sketchpad Explorer	GarageBand
SketchBookX	iMovie
Wikipanion
MotionPics
Historypin
Twitter
PhotoGene

Sketchpad Explorer for iPad (Free)

Great Maths App and its free, based on the award-winning software The Geometer’s Sketchpad®, the Sketchpad Explorer app allows you to interact with, and investigate, any document created in Sketchpad. With a simple, powerful multitouch interface, Sketchpad Explorer puts mathematical comprehension at your fingertips." Content can be downloaded from Sketchpad SketchExchange including teachers notes, Worksheets and Student Sketch activities. the activities can be saved in Evernot or Dropbox to use ofline.

 

Download it now its free!

Tinkerbox App

Tinkerbox HD from Autodesk

If you can imagine it, you can build it with TinkerBox this is a great app for DT and Physics students can create engineering projects with conveyer belts switches etc to solve problems.

TinkerBox is a fun, free-to-play physics puzzle game. While it is full of interesting science facts and teaches basic engineering concepts, TinkerBox is more than just educational.

 Also from the same provider is SketchBook Express its also Free and is an excellent drawing/painting app for the iPad.

10 essential ios 5 tips for your ipad

10 Essential iOS 5 Tips for Your iPad


After months of anticipation, iOS 5 has finally arrived. Boasting over 200 new features, the mobile operating system is faster, more intuitive and decidedly more social. In addition to adding new multi-touch gestures, iOS 5 introduces iMessage for IM chats with other iOS device owners, a new notifications menu, and a tabbed browser for the Safari web browser. Here is a compiled a list of practical tips to help you master the ins and outs of iOS 5.

1. Setting up iCloud
2. Set Up iMessage
3. How to Use Notification Center
4. Mirroring Via AirPlay
5. How to Navigate Safari
6. Set-up iTunes Wi-Fi Syncing
7. Take Advantage of Twitter Integration
8. How to Use New Multi-touch Gestures
9. Use the iPad 2′s Camera Like a Pro
10. Game with Your Friends in GameCenter