Oogling Google Photos

Ok so this post is months (and I mean months) late, but that being said, if you do not already use Google Photos, stop reading, download it, then comeback and finish reading, you’ll be glad you did.  

I just want to know, do you take photos? Do you take a lot of photos (I know I love the burst photo feature on my phone)? Do you have a hard time finding space on your phone for all of them?  Then, when you want to show them to someone, do you spend 95% of the time scrolling for that specific one?

Google Photo’s will show you a better way.

Google Photos wants to automatically backup, organize and enable you to share your photos with who you want, when you want.  It also offers unlimited, FREE storage for life.

You can download Google Photos for your phone or tablet, or even access on a desktop browser to have every photo (and video) on every device synced and available everywhere. 

If you’re on the home screen of the mobile app, you get a reverse chronological view of your photos. The most amazing part of the app is “hidden” though, until you tap the magnifying glass in the bottom right corner. Here’s where the magic happens.

Up top, you’ll see faces of people you know; tap on one of those, and Google will show you all the pictures in your library of just that person. Choose someone who’s grown from a child to an adult, and Google picks them all out and you’ll see the transformation before your eyes.

If you go back to the main search screen and scroll past the Places section, you’ll begin to understand the real power of Google Photos as an organizer. The third section is (vaguely) named Things, but it automatically categorizes your images by everything in them besides people.

If you haven’t fully grasped the gravity of what I’ve explained so far, think about it. After a bit of processing time, Google will have combed through your thousands of photos—from the one you took of yourself in the gym yesterday to the one you took of your dog when he was a puppy 10 years ago—and neatly organized them all with tons of keywords and metadata.

Google above all else is a search company. They’ve made search so easy you don’t have to think about it anymore, and the same can be true with your own pictures. After playing with some of the categories of People and Things, you can do an actual search of your photos and the results are surprisingly accurate.  

Basically, there’s no reason not to love Google Photos.

Free Apps

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98231059@N00

      I have a 16GB IPad 3^rd Gen; I have filled this iPad up on three separate occasions and have had to delete apps to update existing apps.  Now while it is good practice to only keep the apps that you use, it just brings about the point of how many apps there are.  With the thousands of apps that are out there, I would say only about 30 percent are quality apps.  With so many apps it makes it harder and hard to find the apps that are great.  Many developers are finding that to make get there apps notices they have to reduce the price, maybe even making them free for a period of time.  I had followed some app tracking websites, but when I looked at the price drops to free, there were still hundreds of apps and many were not even worth the space on my iPad.  Until I found the Apps Gone Free app.  Now they take different app that have drop their price to free for the day, and then they take the best 8-20 apps and list them for you.  Now are all those apps worth downloading, no, there are several photography, exercise and games that are listing and sometimes the same app will be listed week after week, but I still feel that this is a way to get quality apps at the best price, FREE.  

     

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Going 3D and 4D in Education

One of the greatest sessions that I attended at the NCTIES conference this year had to do with using 3D and 4D technology.  Through the use of certain apps, students can make their pictures, elements, and studies of the brain and anatomy more engaging and fun.  Here are some of the apps that were shared:

colAR is an app that allows kids to color one of their coloring sheets and then use the app to make it come alive.  You get three color sheets with the free app and can purchase other page packets for $2.99.  This app can be a huge motivator for writing and covering such skills as details in writing and making predictions.  To view a demonstration of this app in action, go to http://colarapp.com .

Elements 4D by DAQRI is a science teacher's dream!  By going to their website and printing out the pages to make element cubes, you begin to make learning the Periodic Table much more interesting.  After making the paper cubes and downloading the free app, you simply point your device at the block face of the element that you want to view.  Magically, the block becomes transparent and you are looking at the element!  It gets really exciting when you combine two elements by pushing two blocks together.  That's when you will see the reaction of the two chemicals and the chemical make-up.  Science teachers or anyone who is interested can also purchase the wooden version of the blocks.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daqri/elements-4d-interactive-blocks

goREACT is another app that shows the reaction of different elements.  In this one, there is no need to print anything.  When you turn on the app you will see a periodic table.  You simply drag and drop the elements to make combinations and the app shows you what that reaction is.  It also has a featured reaction section that shows the chemical makeup of things in nature, around the house, and more.

The Brain AR Anatomy and Anatomy 4D offer an inside look to the human body.  You can remove layers, view multiple layers or just one, and move the animation around to take different views.  Students can get close up views of such things as the respiratory, circulatory, skeletal, muscular, nervous, as well as other systems in the human body.  These apps are free but do require a free printout for it to work.  To get a view of how The Brain app works click here:  http://www.harmony.co.uk/brainapp/

I hope you enjoy the 3D and 4D world of apps!

FOAP

CC Image courtesy of Simon Yeo on Flickr

Two questions for you, How many of you would like an extra $5. How many of you have pictures that you have taken on your phone or ipad?  Foap offers smartphone users a chance to earn money from the photos that they have taken.  The creates of Foap were disappointed at the quantity and quality of stock photos that are available so they created a marketplace that would incorporate the millions of photos that are taken everyday.  Best of all, the photographer can sell the same photo over and over again.  Which means you don’t lose your copyright when your photos are sold on Foap. Buyers get non-exclusive rights to your photos, which essentially means that after the sale you can keep using them in any way you want. 

Here’s how it works: Download Foap for free. After the signup you start uploading photos from your phone you would like to sell, tagging them (the better you tag them the more likey that they will be discovered in the marketplace), Foap will first have to approve your photos. Those that make it through are put on the market, which is viewable through your own Foap profile page on the Web or via the app. All photos are priced at $10; Foap gets $5, you get $5.

Right now Foap does not have the quickest upload process, so don't go thinking you are going to flood the market with your pictures.  Also your photos need to be reviewed by 5 Foap users and average at least a 2 star (out of 50 rating to be put into the market place.  There is a catch to get five people to rate your photos, you must rate five photos for each photo that you upload.  

Interesting concepts, I am not much a photographer (ask my wife), but it seems like a pretty easy way to earn a little extra cash, especially if you hit it big with a really money maker.  I have also heard of companies paying more for photos if they are using them in a variety of ways.  So check out Foap, you might just be very glad that you did.  

Croak.it

30 seconds, it's a short amount of time that can feel like forever.  Croak.it is a online application that allows you to record your voice or any other sound in thirty second clips.  It then posts them online.  You can create a free account or just use it as a guest.  You can have students read a story they wrote, read a story and check for fluency later on.  Now you may have to be careful with what you just pull up in your classroom, because the homepage has lots of random goodness.  Sometimes you get stuff like So you never know what might show up.  But its quick, easy and can be anonymous, so it would be fine for students to use.  It's avvailable for the computer, IOS, or android. Check it out.  http://croak.it/

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Leap Motion

Ok, so I was super excited because I was all set to order two the leap motions yesterday for students to use.  I went to the leapmotion.com and they changed the website.  I started poking around looking at the new content, and I found out that the leap motion is going to be app based.  Now I can't tell you if this will be a good thing or a bad thing, and I won't until I get my hands on one to try out.  However, this did stop me from pre-ordering them.  I thought that it would be like using a wireless mouse and would work with everything, but if it won't?  Will we need to pay for apps?  Questions I wish I had the answer too.  I think that I will go ahead and contact them to see if I can get answers before its release, because regardless of what happens, this will be an important technology step that will be undertaken and I foresee them selling out.  I was just disappoint that they may not fit my needs.

Don’t forget that besides from just following the blog you can like us on Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Thetechninjablog/111528315703424, follow us on Twitter @Tech_Ninja_Blog  and now subscribe to our YouTube channel  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYzFJ-VbCBBNKqu5sWH8KDg. 

Parrot AR Drone

Over the Easter break Matt invited me to fly the Parrot Drone to test it's capabilities. http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ardrone-2/specifications/  First I will talk about the things that impressed me.  I was very impressed with its self stabilization, it hovers in one spot with little to no movement.  While operating the drone all one has to do is remove fingers from the touch screen of the iPad or phone and the drone automatically comes to a stabilized hovering position. This reduces the possibility of an out of control crash.  The App that controls the drone allows you to adjust the sensitivity of the controls to some degree.  The video quality is surprisingly clear and stable (when flight moves are stable).  I really like the way the drone moves.  The flight paths are smooth and level. (This was my observation of the drone inside the gym. I did not fly it outside in the wind).

Now for my not impressed list.  First the materials that it was made of seemed very light and easily breakable. (NOTE: I realize that the drone needs to be as light as possible in order to operate as well as it does).  My thoughts were that it was going to be made of some kind of carbon fiber or high impact plastic.  This is not the case.  The drone is a finesse flyer in my opinion.  It does have two interchangeable bodies, one for indoor flight and one for outdoor flight.  The body for indoor flight has styrofoam rings to keep the prop blades from bumping into things.  The styrofoam was very light and not much more than the density of a styrofoam cup.  I could see someone breaking it if they did not handle it very carefully.  The battery life was not that impressive somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 minutes, less if you want to do some aerobatics. 

Over all this drone is just plain cool.  It looks cool and has a lot of cool features but for a purchase price of $300.00 I feel like it could have been build a little more durable.  Matt will post more about the drone I am sure.  If you want to see some clips of our test flight just check out the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p--nnit5yvg

AR Parrot Drone Update

      

 Some rights reserved by Mauricio Photography

     Ok so we started using the AR Parrot Drone.  We are using it to teach about the history of flight, specifically in North Carolina, as well as how the military is using the drone technology.  I must say, it is one of the coolest pieces of technology that I have had the pleasure of using.  I get the same reaction from passerby’s using it as I did when I got the iPad when it first came out. 

     However it’s far from perfect.  It is made from Styrofoam, which while light gives it a very flimsy quality.  The controls are hard to use, especially with any sort of wind.  The free flight app of OS that they mention in the user manual is no longer available, and the replacement app does not let you switch cameras or take still pictures.  Its for this reason that I would much rather use my android phone with the original app than the iPad, even with the screen size difference.  The battery only last about 15 minutes now, and I know that will decrease the more times I charge it, but I was expecting that.  However, I do not like the fact that I cannot take off if I have less than 20 percent battery left. 

     
     Jay posted a video of us using it in an old school gym on our YouTube channel.  Check it out.  Don’t forget that besides from just following the blog you can like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thetechninjablog/111528315703424, follow us on Twitter @Tech_Ninja_Blog and now subscribe to our YouTube channel  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYzFJ-VbCBBNKqu5sWH8KDg.  

Educreations App

Matt and I returned from the NCTIES conference with some cool new information. One of the coolest apps we learned about is Educreations ( http://www.educreations.com/ ). To quote the site verbatim, "Educreations is a recordable interactive whiteboard that captures your voice and handwriting to produce amazing video lessons that you can share online. Students and colleagues can replay your lessons in any web browser, or from within our app on their iPads. Check out the "Showcase" on our homepage or the "Featured" tab in our iPad app to view some great lessons that other teachers have created with Educreations." The teachers at my school are really excited about this app. One second grade teacher is using it to assess students by letting students create lessons on content they have learned and then submitting it to the teacher via email. I had a front row seat today watching a whole class recording the steps to solve an addition problem and how to use a number line right on their iPads. The teacher then watched the lessons on her computer to see if the students had mastered the content.  Student engagement was through the roof and the teacher was able to assess the students quickly. I thought this activity was much better than a quiz! Keep you eye on this app I think it's going to be a hot one.