Thing 6 - Creating & Editing Docs

For Thing 6, I chose to try SignNow, which we could have used on a recent vacation of ours when my husband had a contract deadline and needed his signature on it but no way to sign on his PC and submit signed contract.  Though I personally don't have a huge need for this type of app, I found it to be extremely easy to use and has a great potential for those who frequently need to print, sign, and scan documents.  I easily pulled a document from Dropbox into SignNow, inserted the signature I created, and saved it!  Very slick!

Thing 5 - Notetaking

Prior to 23 Mobile Things, I have been a fan of Evernote and have used Dragon Dictation for one of my son's school projects.

Evernote allows me to sync to all devices.  I have used it mostly for taking notes at workshops or during webinars and also for keeping track of my passwords.

Dragon Dictation has saved us a lot of pulled out hair with school projects.  One specific project was one of my children having a research report that he had completed a rough draft by hand in class and was to keyboard it at home.  We saved a lot of time by having him transcribe it into Dragon Dictation and editing it afterwards.  This would be especially useful modification idea for students with special needs.

Remember the Milk was the app I chose to "try out."
I'm always making lists of things to do on paper so this has been a nice fit for my needs.  I like how the app is organized and that you can mark tasks complete or not.  I'm hoping for successful syncing between mobile devices!

Thing 4 - Keeping Up

Zite has been on my iPad for some time now and I have enjoyed it's features and ease of use.  I created a Flipboard account and added several news topics.  I'll be spending more time exploring Flipboard and determining if it meets my needs more than Zite.  Adding more specific content is something I would like to be able to do but appears to be limited.

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.

Thing 1

Thing 1:  What do I hope to get out of the 23 Mobile Things?

My hope is to learn the new and great mobile tools available and ideas on how to use them in my personal and professional learning environment.  

I love learning new techy Things!