Thing 3 - Utilities

I happen to be a HUGE fan of QR Codes!!!!!!  In my role as a school library media specialist, I worked with a colleague in creating a QR code book talk project where students hand wrote a book talk for a favorite book, took a photo of him/herself and the book cover, then recorded their voice in an app called Vocaroo and created a QR code with them reading their book talk. Vocaroo is especially useful because it combines the recording of your voice and it gives you the option to download this audio file directly into a QR Code.

These were then placed in the hallway outside the media center.  The students were then able to use the ipod touches that we had in the Media Center to scan the QR code to listen to the book talk and get students interested in those books.  The Scanning App I have used is called Scan - from QR Code City. 

If you have trouble using Vocaroo, there are several options for QR Code Generators.  It does get a bit tricky to record your own voice as some will change text to voice only.  Here is a link I found describing some options  
http://educationqrcodes.wikispaces.com/Qr+to+Voice.

For the past two Easters, we have created QR Code Easter Basket Hunts for our three boys.  

Scan the QR Codes to reveal a clue to where the next QR Code is hidden, and so on until they find their Easter basket.  

I absolutely love integrating these technology tools and am always looking for new ways to implement them.  (And kids love them!)

Thing 2 - Mobile Device Tips

I was overwhelmed with the number of tips I learned after viewing the several links on Mobile Device Tips. Some tips were useful to me and some were not.  Typically when an update occurs, to be honest, I usually don't pay much attention and learn as I go after update has been done.  But WOW, I'm going to be sure to learn all changes made in any given update.  This would also be especially beneficial to schools in one-to-one settings.  

Some of the more useful tips for me personally were very simple ones like multi-tasking of apps where you can swipe up to close apps and re-enter the app where you left off.  If anyone knows of a way to close all apps at once, please let me know.  Sometimes when my 5 year old is on my ipad, he tends to use several apps but doesn't close them completely so when I go on my ipad to do that, there are sometimes 15 apps or more to close. 

The pull down Notification Center was something I didn't use prior to reading this Thing 2 but I think it will be useful for me in the future.  Same with the Swipe up from the bottom Control Center.