Adobe Voice to Tell Your Story

I found this app through one of my finance students who loves it for her school work, Nicole Y.  It is billed as an app to tell stories, and it excels at easily producing videos with voice over using your own photos or a large, available library of pictures and icons.

This is what Nicole has to say:

"Recently I've discovered a new app called Adobe Voice and it's made video making so awesome and easy. For my chemcom class, my group and I decided to make a PSA and I was assigned the role of creating the video, so I took off collecting video clips and working in iMovie. But after presenting it to my teacher, it became apparent that iMovie wasn't working well with our project and that's when I found Adobe Voice. It was so helpful, easy to use and really fit our project well.

This app allows you to choose a layout that best fits your project. Then you choose pictures to show for each slide and then that's when you come in. You speak over and narrate the video the whole time! You can then choose to put music in the background which really makes the video seem professional and brings the whole thing together great. The app also does a lot of behind the scenes work so that the video comes out looking really nice.

This app can be great for so many different projects. Because it allows you to choose the best format for your video, you can really target it for your specific purpose. The app was originally designed to make how to videos but I think it has the ability to do so much more. It's super easy to use and you could actually make a video in a fast and easy half hour."

Here's a sample that I made in literally 2 minutes. I clearly need to hold down the record button longer. :)



The one down side I found was that you don't actually get your video file. It is up in Adobe's cloud, though you can grab an embed code (though in Blogger, you need to paste the code in using HTML view) or share a link with someone.

So as not to reinvent the wheel, here's what another educator has already written up with more detail on how the app works. Follow the link.

Currently, this app is a great deal for free!

ChatterPix to Make Your Photos Speak

This app comes to us courtesy of K Mauka, Boni Gravelle, and Jewel Lee. It takes a photo of your choosing and allows you to draw a line on the photo to become a mouth. Then, you record a sound clip that gets attached to the photo with the 'mouth' moving in time to the sound. There is some embellishment you can do to the final result, but you are probably better off doctoring your photo before import.

Mrs. Gravelle suggested using the app to give students a way to immerse themselves in another person or animal from a first person perspective. For instance, they did a cricket project where they learned about crickets, got to care for them, and made cricket artwork. Then, the students used ChatterPix to tell the viewer 3 things about the cricket.

Also, they've been learning about Father Damien, and some animations were done using pictures of Father Damien with the children's voices speaking for him.

Here's the mp4 my daughter made with Mrs. Gravelle to animate a piece of her artwork.

It might seem at first glance that this app is useful only in the elementary grades. However, earlier this year, I had biology students assuming the roles of different specific molecules and structures in cellular respiration and photosynthesis and telling 'day in the life of' stories about themselves. This app would have allowed them to quickly and easily create animations of their stories.

The app itself is easy to use and has a good tutorial to walk you through the process - great fun for a free app! Just make sure you practice putting the mouth in. Sometimes bigger is better. :)

       

Footprint to See Where You've Been

This one is a bit out of my usual focus, but I bumped into it, and I can see definite potential - especially for groups who are traveling. Footprint is a lovely map app which allows you to track where you've been, check in, and take notes. The pro version allows you to add in photos, access a timeline, and various other features.

Your current location is automatically accessed if you allow the app in to your location information. You can then pin your location and choose various kinds of maps. Here's school as viewed through two types of Google Maps. (Yes, the photo appears a bit out of date. Sullivan is finished, now.)The red pin shows the location.

Here's how you change map view types.

Then you can touch the pin to add information and check in.

One nice feature is that you can check in even when off line, and it will sync up later when you do have connection. It looks like you need to have already set up the pin, though. The pro version allows one to add photos which would be really nice for a travel log.

Basic version is free. Pro version is $2.99. Normal app requisition procedures would apply.

LastPass Saves My Brain Cells from Heartbleed

I started writing this post a while ago, but it came to the forefront of my mind again recently when I heard about the risks of Heartbleed (What it is, What to do). For a lay person, the whole thing was kind of confusing, because I don't really understand the language used to describe it. What I was able to figure out was that a lot of my data from accounts might have gotten out to a malicious user, and that I should really change passwords on my accounts. Whew! I'm not sure we realize just how many online accounts we have until we are asked to look at them all.

What LastPass did for its users was two fold. First, they alerted all of us and provided an online tool so that we could input our sites to see if they had been at risk for Heartbleed. Second, LastPass makes it really easy to change passwords in your password vault to something long, complicated, and random, so going in and fixing my accounts (while it did take some time) wasn't all that horrendous.

Yes, it seems that every time I turn around, I'm being asked to make a new account, username, and password. The array of services and apps that use the cloud grows all the time, and I want to use so many of them. However, I used to get caught in a difficult choice. Do I choose a logon that I can remember easily (eg. one of my old stand-by passwords), or do I choose a password that is actually secure (eg. number of digits, special characters, etc.) and risk never being able to recall it? I admit that I used to use a limited number of passwords that were easy for me to remember, compromising my own Internet security.

However, my husband introduced me to a wonderful service called LastPass (Link). A well thought out password vault application among many possibilities, I have quickly come to depend on it to help keep my brain less full. The basic idea is that you memorize ONE  horrifically complex "master password" which gets you in to your password vault. So, that password becomes the 'last' one you need to know. Then, once in your vault, you can launch a site, or copy things to your clipboard to use in other apps like Safari. See below. LastPass will even generate secure, random passwords to your specifications.

If you are using it on a desktop, you can download an extension for your browser that will automatically detect when you go to a website from your vault and autofill your logon information if you wish. You just need to be logged onto LastPass. It works quite seamlessly.

Because of the limitations of iOS, using LastPass on the iPad is a little clunkier and is easiest to work with from within the specialized LastPass app. It does work fine, though, and it is worth it to me to be able to access all my accounts using truly secure passwords WITHOUT having to memorize a large number of accounts or having to compromise my security by putting my passwords on Post-It notes or in a spreadsheet on my phone.

There are other choices for password vault services, but my husband and I like having the same service because it is very easy to share your LastPass passwords with your spouse (or any other LastPass user). LastPass also has provisions for creating secure notes, online profiles, and all kinds of other things to store your critical, personal information. You can also export if you choose, so you can always get your data back out.

The LastPass app is free, but using it on the iPad (or other mobile device) requires the premium account with LastPass at ~$13 per year. In my opinion, it is totally worth it for a buck a month. If you just want to check out the service, you can make a free account that you can use from Macs and PCs to see if you like it before shelling out the cash. It does require setting it up for all your current accounts, but the time spent was well spent to me. There are far more features than I can mention here, and I'd be happy to work with anyone who wants to check it out.