My App Smashing Journey

Penny Kuckkahn introduced me to app smashing. The term "app smashing" was coined by Greg Kuloweic and Lisa Johnson. The phrase refers to the process of using more than one app to complete a project. Penny and I decided to create an app smashing recipe for using story as an instructional activity or strategy adaptable in a mobile learning environment.

My first step is to broaden my skills in using a variety of mobile apps. I started with Tellagami, an app used to created a quick animated message. Below is my first creation.


The next app I explored was Pic Collage. This app helps you combine photos, stickers, text and frames to create a collage that can be easily shared. My first collage.

Storify - to Form or Tell Stories Using Social Media

I experimented today with Storify. Storify is a social network service that lets the user create stories or timelines using social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  The website got its current name from the obsolete, former dictionary word: storify. Storify means "to form or tell stories". Users search through multiple social networks from one place, and then drag individual elements into stories. Users can re-order the elements and also add text to help give context to the readers.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storify)

I'm interested in story as an instructional strategy and this is a tool that could easily be used by students to create a story around the content they are learning. 

Below is a story I created around the 7 Futures of American Education schMOOC. 

Great resource http://cybraryman.com/digitalstory.html

Animations and Gadgets Oh My

Two new things I have been trying this week.  Powtoons and Twitter Gadget for Google sites.

POWTOON
I have been wanting to try out one of the animated applications so decided to create the 7 Futures schMOOC week 1 learning plan using one of the apps. First I tried GoAnimate. I just wanted to use the free version.  I got half way through the development and was prompted to purchase one moth for $39. I wish I would have known that what I was doing was beyond free BEFORE I spent time. The App Guys recommended Powtoons so off I went to learn Powtoons.  Below is my first attempt. The tutoirals were very good.  I decided to use one of the templates and modify from there.  That seemed to work pretty well and helped me further learn the app.I am excited to delve a little deeper.

EMBED A TWITTER GADGET IN A GOOGLE SITE

This was much trickier that just choosing the gadget. There was a Twitter Gadget but it didn't work. This link takes you to the article that saved the day. The YouTube video was great. Embedding the Twitter feed involved what is called adding the gadget by URL.  There were some tricky steps to the process that were made clear in these instructions.  You can see the final result by clicking here.

TWITTER ARCHIVING