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Students can use their tablets to take photographs outside for a unit on plants or weather. They can use  the Weather Channel app or apps like LeafSnap to identify what they find.

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Leafsnap is a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution. The free mobile apps use visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves. They contain beautiful high-resolution images of leaves, flowers, fruits, petioles, seeds and bark.

The original Leafsnap currently includes trees found in the Northeastern United States and Canada, and will soon grow to include the trees of the entire continental United States. The high-resolution images in the original app were created by the conservation organization. Finding Species.

This website shows the tree species included in Leafsnap, the collections of its users, and the team of research volunteers working to produce it.

The Leafsnap UK app includes trees from the United Kingdom with species information and imagery provided by the Natural History Museum in London. More information can be found on the Natural History Museum website.

The City College of New York developed and tested curricular materials that use the Leafsnap app to help middle school students notice, group, and contextualize street trees in the patterns of evolution. Curricular guide and other educational materials are available from here.

Leafsnap

Free for iPhone:

and iPad:

Leafsnap UK

Free for iPhone

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Leafsnap is a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution. The free mobile apps use visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves. They contain beautiful high-resolution images of leaves, flowers, fruits, petioles, seeds and bark.

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Students can tour famous museums and historical sites all over the world using their hand-held device.

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The Hour of Code site is a great place to start to get kids talking about coding. Even without these tutorials, though, there are many games that teach students basic coding. Box Island is one that even a Pre-K student can use with a little help, and Hopscotch is great for older students. .

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1,718,111,282

Hours of Code Served

A global movement in 180+ countries.

16,524 events registered so far in 2023.

Your class or group can join millions around the world doing the Hour of Code! Registration for the annual Computer Science Education Week celebration begins in October. Though, Hour of Code is available year-round.

Register your Hour of Code

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Use computer science to explore and learn about AI!

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Pre-readers can still write stories using the video recording function on their tablet.  You can even require multiple drafts! Similarly, students can complete a drama unit by acting out a scene on camera or a poetry unit by reciting a poem. Older students can even write a blog using KidBlog.

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Using free apps like Doodle Buddy, students can take a photo or screenshot and illustrate/annotate it to show their understanding.

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Instructional Technology at High Point University.

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Students can use apps like PicCollage to synthesize images on a topic. This would be great for a geography or humanities project!

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As smartphone cameras are getting better and better, more people are looking for ways to present their photos in style. Photo collages are a hugely popular way to show off a selection of images or collate ideas together into a kind of mood board.

But collage-making can be a laborious (if rewarding) task if you use Adobe's Creative Cloud suite - you may need the assistance of some Photoshop tutorials to get you started. However you could take some of the effort out with a dedicated collage maker.

Free online collage makers

Here is our definitive guide to the best around. Scroll down for the best free collage makers online, or jump to page two for the best collage maker apps you can download.

Free online collage maker Ribbet has just got a lovely new interface, which is a delight to use. Pick a template, upload images, adjust sizing, round corners, edit lighting, exposure and so on. If you change your mind, you can easily adjust your template by adding extra rows or columns. This our pick for the best online collage maker around. There's also a free iOS app and one in the pipeline for Android users (see page 2 for all the best collage maker apps).

Spark is a free photo collage maker from Adobe. Its simple interface means it doesn't require the same learning curve demanded by most Adobe applications. Simply name your project and use the various design options available to arrange your photos into an eye-catching collage.

Canva is an all-round design package that you can use in the browser or as an app - originally just for iOS devices, but now available on Android mobile too. The basic package is completely free, but there are paid plans available if you want something more advanced.

Amongst Canva's tools is a big selection of collage templates, which look great and are easy to use. You can also spice up your collages with Canva's enormous selection of effects, filters, fonts, shapes and more.

BeFunky is one of the best free online collage makers around. It offers tons of templates, a simple interface and seamless integration with the BeFunky Photo Editor. The free version works well, but if you're after more photo effects, higher-resolution downloads and the ability to use your collages commercially, you'll need the BeFunky Plus account. As well as an online tool, BeFunky is available as an app for iOS or Android.

At time of writing, online collage maker piZap has a new interface in beta, and we're impressed with what we've seen so far. It's simple to use, there are plenty of templates, stock images and fonts to choose from, and you can add text and stickers to liven things up. A nice feature is the inclusion of Facebook banner templates, to help you upgrade your social media branding with ease.

The Pro version offers add-free designing, a much bigger selection of fonts, stock images and templates, the ability to download your collage in super hi-res, and more. There are also app versions for iOS and Android so you can piZap on the move too.

PhotoCollage has a nice, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin name, and the web-based collage maker is no less simple to use. It works on Mac, Windows, Android and iOS platforms including touchscreens, and you can choose from collage templates or use your skills to create freeform collages.

You work with lo-res images, then once you're happy with the arrangement you can choose to 'order' a hi-res version of your design. One frustrating feature is that the editing tools aren't sticky, so most people will need to scroll up and down to find the ones you want.

Fotor is a professional-level online collage maker. Unlike some of the collage making tools on this list, with Fotor you can import a load of images, which are displayed on the right-hand bar, then choose when and where to place them in your collage (rather than selecting where they'll go when you import them). This is a simple feature that makes it much easier to put together attractive collages.

You can only get part of the way with the free version - you can design collages, but they'll feature the Fotor watermark, which isn't ideal. For advanced features, an ad-free interface, watermark-free collages and cloud-based storage, you'll need to go for the Pro version.

Photovisi is a stand-alone collage maker with no fripperies and no photo editing tools to distract and confuse. You simply select a collage design, add your photos and drag them around till you're satisfied, then download it. What could be easier? If you want to download a watermark-free collage, you'll need to pay up on the Premium plan.

Google Photos, once known as Picasa, is an image organiser and photo editor - but did you know it comes with a built-in collage maker? You can experiment with six different collage types in the hands-on collage creation screen, and they will be saved in your 'Collages' folder. It's pretty basic, but as you'd expect from Google, the interface is nice and clear and it works very well at what it does.

The web-based Kizoa Collage Maker is one of the most difficult to navigate, but it does offer dozens of ready-made templates (both static and animated) for all kinds of occasions. You can customise the templates or create your own from scratch, then add photos, GIFs, videos and even stickers to your designs, and finish the whole thing off with some text.

Kinoa membership also includes access to a movie maker and photo editor, so you can accomplish any number of creative tasks from inside the browser.

FotoJet is a free online collage maker that enables you to create collages, photo cards, posters, Facebook covers, Twitter headers, YouTube banners, fun photos and more. There are hundreds of templates for you to work with, including some of the most creative designs we've seen so far - such as this one, where you can add images into coconuts. The paid Plus option offers a much wider range of resources to work with.

Part of the PicMonkey suite - a web app that also offers image editing, touch-up and design tools - PicMonkey collage is a fast and powerful way to organise your images into attractive shapes. Import images from your computer or connect to online services such as Facebook, OneDrive, Dropbox and Flickr. You can fine-tune your collage by adjusting the zoom and placement of your images, and add filters. 'Supremium' users also have access to advanced touch-up tools.

Once a free online collage maker, you now need to subscribe to PicMonkey to download your design. There are three different plans available, depending on your needs. However, you can design your collage for free, and there is a week-long free trial available, which is worth exploring before you shell out.
Next page: The best collage maker apps

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Best collage maker tools for creating photo collages quickly

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As smartphone cameras are getting better and better, more people are looking for ways to present their photos in style. Photo collages are a hugely popular way to show off a selection of images or collate ideas together into a kind of mood board.

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Practice expository, persuasive, and process writing through digital book reports, research projects, video tutorials, or recorded speeches. Making presentations digital allows teachers to share with parents, review with students, and revisit whilst grading. Below is a link to SIX ways students can create videos online.

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YouTube claims that twenty hours of video is uploaded to its site every minute. Much of this video is created by amateur video producers. In years past if you wanted to create video, you had to have (often expensive) recording and editing equipment. Today, the web has made it possible for anyone to create and edit professional-looking content without having to purchase any special equipment or software. Creating video content is a great way to get students engaged in projects through which they can demonstrate their learning. The following are six free, web-based, resources students can use to create their own videos.

1. Masher is a great, free, tool for creating video mash-ups. Masher offers a large collection of video clips from the BBC's Motion Gallery and Rip Curl video. There is a large music library, an effects library, and a good selection of video player skins. If you don't find content that you like in Masher's library, you can add your own images, video clips, and music clips through the Masher uploader. Masher also gives you the option to insert text throughout your videos. Creating with Masher is a simple matter of dragging elements from the media gallery into the timeline editor. From there you can arrange the sequence of elements using the drag and drop interface. When you're happy with the sequence, publish and share your production.

2. Animoto makes it possible to quickly create a video using still images, music, and text. If you can make a slideshow presentation, you can make a video using Animoto. Animoto's free service limits you to 30 second videos. You can create longer videos if you apply for an education account. In the video below I explain how to create your first Animoto video.
If you're viewing this in RSS you may need to click through to view the video.

3. Stupeflix is a service that allows user to quickly and easily create video montages using their favorite images and audio clips. In many ways Stupeflix reminds me of Animoto, but there are a couple of differences that are worth noting. Stupeflix allows users to drag and drop their images into the sequence that they would like the images to appear. Adding text to the images is easier in Stupeflix than it is on Animoto. Stupeflix offers only one default soundtrack so you have to upload your own audio clips. That said the advantage of Stupeflix is that you can use more than one audio clip within the same video.
4. Photo Peach is a new service that allows you to quickly and easily create an audio slideshow, with captions, from images in your Flickr, Picassa, or Facebook account. You can also use images saved on your local hard drive to create your slideshow. Photo Peach is similar to Animoto and Stupeflix services although they do have some differences worth noting. Adding captions to each image is a little more intuitive on Photo Peach than it is on Animoto. To add captions to your Photo Peach slideshow simply type your desired text into the caption box that appears as each image is automatically displayed by Photo Peach. Changing the order of appearance for each image is also easier on Photo Peach than it is on Animoto. Changing the sequence of images in Photo Peach is a simple drag and drop procedure.

5. Xtra Normal is a unique service that enables students to create animated, narrated movies just by typing the dialogue then dragging and dropping characters and set elements into the movies. There are free and paid plans for using Xtra Normal. The primary difference between the plans being that the paid plan offers more options for the setting of your story. The standard plan should be more than adequate for most academic applications.

6. Memoov is a free service for creating animated videos. Without downloading any software or having any special skills, Memoov allows users to create animated videos up to five minutes in length. Creating an animated video with Memoov can be as simple as selecting a setting image(s), selecting a character or characters, and adding dialogue. Memoov offers users a wide variety options that make it stand out amongst similar services. Memoov allows users to customize the appearance of the characters in their animated videos. On the dialogue front, Memoov gives users the option to record their own voices for use in their videos. Users can also upload pre-recorded dialogue in MP3 format. Memoov users have the option to add background music to their animated videos.

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Six Easy Ways for Students to Create Videos Online

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YouTube claims that twenty hours of video is uploaded to its site every minute. Much of this video is created by amateur video producers. In years past if you wanted to create video, you had to have (often expensive) recording and editing equipment.

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Students can use an online whiteboard app, such as Show Me, to create reviews and show their understanding of math concepts.

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ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard on the App Store

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Read reviews, compare customer ratings, see screenshots and learn more about ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard. Download ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard and enjoy it on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

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Tablets are just another screen if students are passively consuming content from them. Unlock the tablet's potential, as well as your students, by focusing on creation!

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The iPad is unbeatable when it comes to consuming content, but just how good is it for creativity? With an unrivaled app store, iBooks and iLibrary, iTunes, and now Retina display on the fourth-generation iPad for high-def video, kids can (and do!) spend hours drinking in all the iPad has offer. But kids are also known for their imaginations and ingenuity, and kids with iPads are no exception! Check out some of the awesome and impressive creations kids are making with their iPads.

Art: The iPad comes with a wide variety of both free and paid apps for drawing, painting and more. Kids love to fingerpaint, and the iPad provides the perfect mess-free way for little fingers to create stunning visual creations. This young boy has learned how to expertly transfer his drawing skills onto the tablet:

Here's another great example of what kids can learn to create using the iPad:

Drawn by 13-year-old Kaeli, this image's selective focus on the foreground, use of highlighting on the larger bird's beak and feathers and humor are eye-catching and unforgettable.

Music: The iPad is a great interface for creating music, and with fantastic apps like GarageBand nearly anything is possible. Popular band The Gorillaz even used the iPad to record their album "The Fall"! Kids have caught on to how easy it can be to make music on the iPad and are pursuing all kinds of creative endeavors in this field. Take a look at this group of students performing Train's hit song "Drive By":

Some of the students in the video above had never even played an instrument before this, and were able to learn and perform the song in a span of only three hours. Imagine what a kid with an iPad could create during countless hours of experimentation and fun, alone or with a group of friends! Recognizing this potential, more and more school bands are starting to pull iPads into the rotation, including the Frisco School of Music. Take a look at these talented young people recreating the Beatles hit "Hey Jude" using iPads:

Games: Using apps like My Doodle Game, kids can also create their own iPad games. My Doodle Game is free to download, and lets kids doodle anything their imagination can come up with using a wide variety of drawing tools. Once the drawing is complete, they can go back to the beginning of the drawing and let a game character travel through the world they've created. Not only is this a great creative outlet, but it can also be an excellent learning tool to help kids visualize and reenact historic or popular events using the iPad! For example, this girl used the iPad to create a game depicting several key events from the decade 2000-2010:

Apps: For even more advanced kids, or for pre-teens and teenagers, some are even learning to build their own iPad apps! Using Apple's Software Development Kit, teenage Carson built a mathematics app for younger students to use:

Not only was this young man able to build his own app in only 12 weeks, he also made the math app both an educational and interactive way for young kids to learn fractions. We're predicting a long and lucrative programming career in Carson's future!

School Projects: The iPad is a great resource for school as well as play. In the past, when kids needed to do a research project or create a video for school, the process was often tedious and time-consuming, and required many different tools for completion. First students would need to research their project at the library and take down notes. These notes would then be typed into a script and printed out to be read from. The kids would need to find and learn how to operate a camcorder, record their video, and then transfer it to a computer to piece it all together. After all that work, the sound and video quality usually wasn't even very good!

In today's world, the iPad has completely changed the game. With simple yet powerful apps like iLibrary, Notepad, GarageBand and iMovie, kids have all the tools they need in one place to take a project from the research to final product stages. See for yourself how this elementary school student made a professional-looking news report about the Pygmy Marmoset:

Student Animal Project - Avery from Jabari Cain on Vimeo.

As the examples above show, iPads have opened the doors of creativity and kids are pushing the boundaries of what the iPad can do every day. These days, there are apps to help children realize nearly anything they can dream up to build, design, or record. To encourage your child's creativity, listen to their interests, search the app store for simple tools that will give them the building blocks of creation, and let their imaginations run free! What will your kid create next?

Comments

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iPad Is A Means Of Creation, Not Just Consumption - iPad Kids

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The iPad is unbeatable when it comes to consuming content, but just how good is it for creativity? With an unrivaled app store, iBooks and iLibrary, iTunes, and now Retina display on the fourth-generation iPad for high-def video, kids can (and do!) spend hours drinking in all the iPad has offer.

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E-books can be the key to literacy for some children who struggle with reading. There are a number of features that any student can use to be a better reader, from looking up unfamiliar vocabulary to high-lighting key passages and accessing audio components. If the school library does not have e-books, connect families with the public library, which uses Overdrive to allow e-book checkouts.

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Search and borrow from OverDrive's huge catalogue of eBooks, audiobooks and videos

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Borrow eBooks, audiobooks and videos from thousands of public libraries worldwide.

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Teachers can create online portfolios by taking pictures of students' work, and use programs such as Evernote to take anecdotal records.

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Best Note Taking App - Organize Your Notes with Evernote

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Our note taking app helps you capture and prioritize ideas, projects and to-do lists, so nothing falls through the cracks. Start your free trial today!

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You may need to "open in a new window"and zoom in to read.

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See the world from above! Learn about ancient civilizations, visit museums and natural wonders, learn map reading and navigation, annotate and share locations, create 3D models, and more!

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Aw snap! Google Earth isn't supported on your browser. You may need to update your browser or use a different browser. Please see our system requirements for more information. Chrome is a great choice and you can download it here. Or if you're feeling adventurous, you can try Earth anyway by choosing an option below.

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There are many apps that allow students to engage with music, and many of them are free! Pre-K students may enjoy Wheels on the Bus. Introduce students to keeping a beat with Monkey Drum--if each student has a tablet, you could get a real drum circle going! Older students can have a full music studio at their fingertips with Garage Band.

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GarageBand for Mac has everything you need to learn, play, record, mix, and share incredible music, even if you’ve never played a note.

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Teach students about master artists with Art Authority. Let them sketch and doodle with free apps like Doodle.ly and Penultimate (which can also be used to teach handwriting!)