I think we've all seen apps a little like this one. The user draws on the screen while narrating the drawing, and the result is saved as movie file to share. It is specialized as an app for very young kids, and it admirably fills that description. It has a simple, clean interface completely suited for pre K and K. The drawing tools palette has 3 width choices, 9 color choices, and an eraser. I don't see this fairly limited selection of tools as a weakness since the focus here is on the narration and discussion as the drawing is created. It also provides a selection of starter prompts to get creative juices flowing.
This is my five year old responding to the prompt "What lives in the forest?" on her first try with the app.
The promotional materials emphasize how wonderful the app is for parent/child creativity and interaction, and it is great for that, as anyone who has watched a child talk as they draw understands. However, I think there are some classroom possibilities as well for the young target audience as well as for older students.
1. Create your own prompt using another drawing app, Pages (below) or Keynote. While you can't directly import it into the app, you can certainly display it as a drawing prompt.
2. Use the app as a way for single students or small groups to discuss/sketch about something you're discussing in class. It could be a great way to capture a pair of students drawing and talking about, say, what kind of place a penguin (or Eskimo or mermaid or Superman) would live in. The app will allow more than one line to be drawn at the same time (though you will be using the same tool), so multiple kids can be drawing on the screen at once.
For older kids, this is a faster way of capturing sketches and brainstorming sessions than mind mapping or full scale presentation apps like Explain Everything because of the simplified interface. If you like the idea but are interested in a richer toolset, the developer offers their full scale Doodlecast Pro app. (Note: Explain Everything is already available for all of us, though, and it is awfully good.)
3. For Asian languages, this could be a way for students to illustrate drawing complicated characters and explain stroke order for either drill or presentation.
4. Quick math problem animations.
The strength of this app is how easy it is to use to capture simple drawings with audio. It has a handful of parent controls like file number and size limits that can be accessed from inside Settings on the iPad as well. Like some others have noted, I'd love to see the ability to import a photo as the background so we could create our own prompts, but it is a fun, flexible app for kids and adults. Maybe we'll see new features in a future update.
This is a paid app (though I got it for free when it was on sale last week) with some really interesting classroom possibilities, even for older kids. Normal app requisition procedures would apply.
P.S. From Carrie Miwa in the library, some folks are finding that doodling helps productivity. Article
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