Into the Driver's Seat

review by Michael Karlin...rated Outstanding

And that's the app!  Yes, it's incredibly simple, but I think that's perfect for this application because it can be used at all ages without much difficulty.  It takes less than 30 seconds to figure out how the application works and it can be integrated in a huge variety of subjects.  

Students can narrate their understanding of virtually any topic and then share those narrations with the class or the teacher.  It's an excellent, easy way to get students talking and sharing what they understand about a particular idea.

My only suggestion would be for them to include a drawing tool (sort of like VoiceThread offers) so that students could add lines or shapes to the images as well.  

Other than that, I love the simplicity, I think it's an excellent app for the classroom, it could be used in all subjects and grade levels, and to top it all off, it's completely free!

With 150,000 or so old print maps to his name, David Rumsey has earned his reputed place among the world's "finest private collectors." He continues to expand his personal trove as well as the digitized sub-collection he makes open to the public online — some 38,000 strong, and growing.

He's created a series of interactive maps that layer old prints onto the Google Earth and Google Maps platforms, and this summer he plans to launch a geo-referencing tool (similar to one recently introduced by the British Library) that lets users get involved in the digital mapping process themselves.

While preparing for this next expansion of his online map empire, Rumsey remains fascinated by "the power of putting these images up and letting them go," he says.

"Maps have a way of speaking to people very straightforward," he says. "You don't have to have a lot of knowledge of map history or history in general. To me they're perfect tools for teaching history to the public."

How To : Visually Record Ideas Using an iPad

Visual recording is similar to audio recording: they both use the same concept that is : recording. One uses voice and the other uses visual cues like diagrams, charts, lines, arrows...etc. Think about visual recording as visual mind mapping.

This is Visual Recording and NOT (in this case) Visual Facilitation