Toontastic - App Review

This is the first a 5-part series of of iPad app reviews I'll be composing.  In each case, I'll discuss a little background about the app, its strengths and weaknesses from my perspective, ideas for its implementation, and any success/horror stories from my attempts.  If you have an educational app you recommend or one you'd like reviewed, please submit your suggestions.  The first app is:

Toontastic!

Price:  FREE with option for in-app purchasing
Availability:  iPad iOS5 or later

Summary:  Use scenes and characters to create stories.  You can create your own drawings of backgrounds or character/objects or use some of the items made available to easily design a story.  While the app is free on the iTunes App Store, there is the option to purchase sets of characters and scenary to add to your story-telling collection (jungle set, U.S. Presidents, etc).  In addition, Toontastic records your characters' actions, records child's narration, and provides music selections to apply a mood to the scene.  The program is very intuitive.  I briefly demonstrated to a four-year-old child (3-4 minutes) how to use the program.  For the next 40 minutes, he was completely engaged in creating story after story.  This was a great application that allows you to easily create digital stories and engage students in learning. 

ToonTube:  It's essentially a private YouTube within this app that lets you publish your story to be viewed by other users around the globe.  All videos are geographically sorted and can be rated by others.  ToonTube has an easy-to-navigate "global view" that allows you to search the world for exciting tales. 

How to Use in Classroom:  While children as young as 4 will enjoy, this app is probably best suited for 1st grade (late in year) to 3rd grade.  Introduce the application first, let students play around with it, goof off, and experiment with creating backgrounds, characters, and props.  (15-20 minutes).  Teach a series of lessons of parts of a story (problem, climax, resolution, etc), and have students develop a short story with 2-3 characters.  Go through writing process to develop story (brainstorm, draft ideas).  Work this application in as the final part of a creative writing (publishing).  Allow students to publish work (with school/parent permission first) to ToonTube (or external site if this is an option) to share work and let students view others' stories. 

Strengths:  This is a great app to practice creating story arcs.  It promotes creativity and discovery.  Creates a published product that can be used as a culminating activity that assesses learning.  It's fun, engaging, and very easy to use. 

Weaknesses:  Does not "teach" or scaffold the process of creating a story; however, the Toontube site may have good examples of story development for students to view.  Publishing methods are limited.  I want a way to save my work and view it through other mediums, such as save off the device or upload to a website.  I believe the iOS5 update improves upon these capabilities. 

My Score: 4.5/5

A Tablet Shoppers' Guide

If you're looking to purchase mobile devices for your school, like buying a pair of shoes, you need to base your decision off which one has the right fit.  Here are three areas you should consider before making purchase decisions for tablets:

1.  How will it be used?  If you haven't thought about this one, put down the catalogue now.  Too often technology is purchased because its shiny or trendy or someone else has it, but there was never a plan about how to implement it within your own school/district.  A course of action is a necessity when seeking the approval of budget and spending decision makers.  To create that course of action, you need to first bring this down to the classroom teachers, who ultimately determine the success or failure of a project.  Is this to scaffold concepts for delayed students?  Is it an incentive tool?  Will it be used independently or with adult supervision?  Have you talked this over with teachers in your district?  You should!  Teachers need to be on-board BEFORE the technology shows up at the door.  If they can't see your vision of how mobile technology will improve learning, the device will never make it out of the box. 

Not only do teachers need to be excited to use it, there needs to be discussion of how it can be used.  There are two paths this could take:  Free Exploration or Rigid Implementation.  Free exploration is based on that constructivist point of view - drop it in the classroom and see how it can be used, letting creative solutions come out from it.  In this scenario, student feedback is just as valuable as teacher input on the tablet usage.  In a rigid implementation, the device is put into the classroom for a specific purpose and the success/failure is based on its effectiveness.  Personally, I subscribe to the idea that you should have a little bit of both to see the best test results. 

2.  What can you afford?  An iPad 2, priced around $450-500 can quickly deplete a budget after multiple devices are being purchased.  With no doubt, the iPad has a lot of great features, but going back to the first question "What are you using it for?"  The context of your answer may inspire you to look at other options like the Google Nexus 7, which is half the price and offers competative features.  If you're not playing basketball, don't buy a pair of Air Jordans.  When it comes to spending, I'm practical and I'd rather have the right tool at reasonable price than a flashier tool with superfluous features for what I want to do.  I'm not coming down on iPad at all.  I own one and love it, but if you're going to buy one, it needs to do what you want it for at that price.

3.  How will I make the most of this new tool to improve learning?  This goes back to question #1 again.  Having a plan is a big part of the successful introduction to a new tool.  First is creating a plan for how to roll out the product.  Training is an essential element to any new introduction to the classroom.  In the case of tablets, this could easily be overlooked, as assumptions may be made that most people are familiar with and comfortable with tablets.  Probably true.  Since most tablets are so intuitive the learning curve is minimal for new users; however, your goal needs to be to re-shape teachers' mindsets from "how to use it" to "how to use it in a classroom."  When new technology is introduced in the classroom, two things need to happen.  First, teachers need to feel comfortable in using it.  Second, they need direction and ideas.  If you can wow them with it, they will want to wow their students with it (I bet you didn't know wows were contagious...).  Get your teachers on-board, get them excited, and demonstrate the unlimited possibilities of using a tablet with your students. 

Wrap-up:  If you noticed in this entry, I never really said "Buy this one."  That's because I'm not sponsored by Apple or Google, and that decision should be unique to your own situation and needs.  No matter which manufacturer(s) you go with, you'll find a long-lasting potential for classroom usage.  I plan to focus my efforts sharing ideas in how to use these devices in class.  In future entries, I may do a product review for each of the popular tablet devices, but truthfully there are so many of those out there already that I would just end up rehashing what's already been stated.  I suggest you check out some of those reviews before making your own purchase decisions as well. 

Introduction

I'm a former classroom teacher in kindergarten and first grade who loved using technology to improve my teaching abilities and student engagement in learning.  I have degrees in Elementary Education and Educational Technology.  What I enjoyed most about technology is the creativity in how it can be used to enhance an average lesson plan.  After leaving classroom teaching, I found myself wanting to hold on to elements of the life I left, and as such, this blog was developed. 

I plan to use this blog to review and continue to produce creative options for teachers that use shiny toys in the classroom as well as other cost-friendly and widely available solutions that are available to teachers with ideas in how to use them for your own teaching.  My hope is that my readers (elementary teachers being my target audience) will find this blog informative and helpful, providing you with both ideas and resources that will enhance your classroom efforts.  If you like this, please share it along.  I'm also open to feedback, so if you would like to leave a comment, please feel free to email me at kennedy.patrickkeith@gmail.com.  I look forward to your thoughts on how to continue to improve this blog to meet your needs.