Powerpoint Alternative for iPad

Hey guys in case you didn't know, I am an avid iPad user. I mostly use it for surfing the web or simply wasting time, however there are some really helpful apps out there. One that I have recently started using is Haiku Deck.

Haiku Deck is an app that helps you create simple, yet beautiful presentations. Haiku Deck is to PowerPoint, as the iPad is to the desktop computer. Haiku Deck is just the easier, more convenient way to make your presentation. Although you can tweak your presentation more with traditional powerpoint, Haiku Deck has a simple design that makes presentations impossible to clutter. Often people will make a presentation in powerpoint with long winded text and bulletpoints. Haiku Deck makes that impossible by restricting the amount of text in a slide to a minimal amount. Personally, this is what I love most about the app. Nothing bores me more than a presentation with a short story written on each slide.

I also learned about another cool feature in Haiku Deck from this article from chronicle.com. If you are unhappy with the simplicity of the presentation of Haiku Deck, you can upload your presentation to Powerpoint or Keynote. Whether you are presenting with Haiku Deck, or just using it as a rough draft before you upload it to Powerpoint, Haiku Deck can be an incredibly useful app

Nearpod 2

Hey guys here's a little extended information on my last blog about Nearpod. I read an article ( you can check it out here ) about a teacher who had discovered the app for his classroom. The teacher's name is Bryan Miller and in the article, he writes about how truly groundbreaking the app is. He first found out about the app after one of the founders of Nearpod, Felipe Sommer, visited the school and explained what it was. His school became the guinea pig and pilot school for the app, and now more then 40,000 educators are connected and using Nearpod. That's impressive growth, and truly an inspiring step towards better educating students!

Nearpod - The new powerpoint

Hey guys if you are a student, chances are you are familiar with Powerpoint presentations. Powerpoint presentations can be boring at times, (Am I supposed to be excited when someone puts a different animation for every bullet point?) and if you are sitting in a lecture hall its near impossible to keep your focus with every slide. This is why I'm pumped to show you a new app called Nearpod. Nearpod is basically an interactive powerpoint presentation. It is controlled by one person, let's say a teacher, who goes through slides while the students follow along on their Ipad. I know what your thinking, who cares? Well the slides can be interactive, which keeps the students engaged in each side thus enhancing the learning process. The students can draw, answer questions, type answers etc. Looks like no more napping in my art history lecture...oops!

Evernote the 3 prong approach to developing your connected learning community

Hey guys, a couple interesting things this week. First I want to talk to you guys about the latest chapter I read from "The Connected Educator." This chapter mainly talked about a three pronged approach  to professional development when dealing with the connected learning community.

The first "prong," is your "Professional Learning Community" (PLC). This is your personal connections among peers of teachers and administrators at your school.

The second "prong" is your "Personal Learning Network" (PLN) or the online connections you have made on your own to people in your field to help grow your knowledge personally.

The third "prong" is a community of practice or inquiry (CoP). This a collective of people whose interests overlap and form together to dig deeper and understand more as a group.

All three of these things together can really help you develop your connected learning community way beyond the typical teaching network.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is about a useful app called "Evernote" I read about in an article from Thenerdyteacher.com. If your a student like me, you should download this app no questions asked. As explained in the article I shared the link to, Evernote is basically a giant collection of your personal notebooks all linked together in an organized group

Whether your taking notes for class, jotting down cooking recipes, organizing work for your job, etc. Evernote is useful because you can share these notes with other people. For example say you're a teacher and want to remind all your students about homework you have due for next class. If all your students have the app, you can send our reminders that notify everyone connected to your notebook.

This app definitely keeps me organized (and I'm the least organized person I know). For anyone who really wants to see what it's about,  this video should help you get set up.