Friday, March 1, 2013

Week 4: Take it on in to Tablet Town!


Thing #9 One device to rule them all!

Since the explosion of the iPad, there has been a rush for developers to produce tablets – devices that are ultra-portable, easy to use, and basically contain the entire world and anything in it that might be useful to a person at the drop of a hat. This thing is easy – just read about different tablets and how they work: http://www.howstuffworks.com/tablets/tablet.htm.

 Thing #10 Explore one of our mixed media book apps on our iPad 

Lately, Cheryl and I have been dazzled – I mean, stopped in our tracks and watched a whole book app for about 20 minutes dazzled – by these book apps! Specifically anything from Moonbot Studios, who developed The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, as well as The Numberlys. These are books that were developed as apps, although Morris Lessmore is also an Academy Award-winning short film and was made into a print book. The future of reading is in “mixed media,” or books that can contain links to websites, 3-D components, and ways to interact with the stories. The Moonbot Studios apps have activities on each page – with “The Numberlys” the reader has to help the characters hammer out and create the different letters of the alphabet. And an additional app called “Imag-No-Tron” is meant to be used along with the book – when you press “Play” and hold the iPad over a page in the print book, it turns the book 3-D.

For this thing, take a look at one of the apps in the “Books” folder on the iPad – any one you want – and let me know what you think.

Thing #11 Download an app to one of our iPads

Go to the App Store in the “Utilities” folder and download a free app to one of our iPads. You can choose any app you want as long as it’s free. Try searching for something you like to do, or take a look at one of the apps in the “featured” category and see if anything strikes your fancy. You can also do an Internet search for iPad apps you might like, then search those specific apps on the iPad and download them. Keep in mind that there are millions of apps out there, and not all of them are good. Let me know which one you downloaded, and what you thought of it.

No comments:

Post a Comment