DocuSign Ink

DocuSign Ink

By Docusign Inc

Free

Available on iOS and Android

An app you can configure;

• your signature;
• signatures from others;
• your identity associated with signature. 

The aim of the app is to make your signature more secure and verifiable for the end user, as embeds your identity information in association with your signature, i.e. photo, company and title, email, address and phone number.  As often these days’ forms ask for your signature and your employers official stamp in order to provide valid evidence of of the signature to the recipient.

The app can open most word processed documents and PDFs requiring to be completed and signed.   Forms questions can be completed, by using the text box functionality provided,  as well as being able to enter your configured validated signature in the designated section of the form. 

My primary use of this app is to provide sign temp’ employee timesheets, and references, the latter I complete at least two references a week for my students, as I am very rarely at my desk, this app enables me the opportunity to provide references on the go, particularly as I can access student records remotely as well.   The advantage of this app over Notability is that the app can provide a verifiable signature, as employers increasingly asking for references to be company stamped

Simple app, but one can that can make life much easier both for academic and your student through supplying references in timely fashion to employers.   As it should be noted they employers increasingly expect references to be returned ASAP, if we delay this may be a factor that might affect a job offer being made to our students, in the  long term this will affect our establishment employment statistics.

Videoscribe

Videoscribe

By Sparkol

Free (but watermarked Videoscribe), £1.49 (video not watermarked) in iPad App Store

£1.69 Android market

Available for Android Tablets and iPad platforms

I discovered this app a few months ago before Christmas; I readily showed the app to my students as an alternative solution for designing alternative presentations to PowerPoint. This is as I am particularly keen on setting standalone presentations assessments as an alternative to the dry PowerPoint presentations.   I have used to app recently to create a promotional You Tube video, (Nortcliffe, 2013) for our Chapter, (Nortcliffe et al, 2013) in the newly launched Digital Voices book.

The app provides;

• a library of pictures, shapes from speech bubbles to thought patterns;
• functionality to upload your own images from Dropbox;
• functionality to create  hand scribed animation by images and text from the library by placing in the workspace, (tip you need think about your storyboard in a procedural fashion);
• choice of paper backgrounds, and whether the hand is left or right handed;
• linear storyboard of your animation sequence below the workspace, in which you can change the sequence of your text and  images using drag and drop;
• functionality in the linear storyboard to change the speed at which each of your images and text are drawn in the video;
• functionality to  add audio overlay, however the animation is not played whilst you are audio recording so you are unable to sync your voice overlay with the animation.    

My solution to this problem is  to play the animation and use my iPhone to record my audio using Recorder Pro app.   Once I have my audio, I press record on Videoscribe and play on iPhone Recorder Pro (ensuring the volume is on max’) and stop when the audio has completed.   This is not the perfect solution, but a work around.   It should be noted the audio aspect of the app is its weakness as it doesn’t always audio record, you have to be persistent and patient, and hence it can make the production more time consuming than first perceived.

Another improvement would be to provide a choice of the hand in different nationalities, currently the provision is Caucasian, which might not go down well with diverse student populations.

Reference

Nortclife, A. (2013) iGather, [online]. Presented by Anne Nortcliffe:  From YouTube last accessed  27^th March 2013 at: http://youtu.be/sv1lMUoXebk

Nortcliffe, A. Middleton, A. and Rossiter, a. (2013) “Learners take control – audio notes for promoting learner autonomy”, in Digital Voices in Section 1: Understanding the opportunity of an audio-enhanced learning environment (Ed) Andrew Middleton, MELSIG and Sheffield Hallam University, UK, 2013

How to Get a Job Interview

How to Get a Job Interview by Docstoc Inc Free Available for iOS mobile platform

Provides  a library of videos and resources ;

·         to prepare your CV/application to gain an interview;

·         how to prepare for an interview; 

·         how to make positive impact in the interview;

·         post interview the follow up;

·         negotiation of salary.

Though note the latter will become an issue as for users who have progressed their career, but for users  at the start of their career salaries are often pre-fixed particularly for placements, i.e. it is what the employer can afford.  

In addition the app provides HR tools resources which will gives the user an insight into HR tools used by interviewers in interviews typically used today; the interview and evaluation matrix form.

To be noted that the providers of the resources are American, so American phraseology is used in some of the resources will need interpreting, however many learning principles are very applicable as are western recruitment processes that are adopted by UK, and European companies as well as American.  Resource I strongly recommend as tool to my students, one they should download and use in readiness for an interview.

Final Countdown

Final Countdown

By Thangbom

Free

Available for Android

An app recommended by my students that assists them to manage their assessment deadlines, (Nortcliffe and Middleton, 2013) for the following reasons;

“Makes countdown [to assessment easier], I always turn to Student D for hand in time I rely on him to tell me down to the last second” student D

“Shows you in the app and home screen [of the phone], shows you how long you have got left” student E

As the app sids the students no to lose track when assessments are due in, provides the user with information of important deadlines on the phone homepage.  Also users can configure the app to supply a regular notification to user as reminder when assessment submission deadlines are approaching.   This functionality is not provided by most calendar app, useful where you do need regular reminders in advance of encroaching deadlines, particularly those set months in advance, typically occurring with semester and year-long assessments, though students are continually working on the assessment the actual date and time of submission gets lost in the mist of time.   Countdowns can be shared on Facebook and Twitter.

App that I would encourage students to use and program in my first lectures, as this is when I release my assessments and  all the deadline dates for my assessment submission.   Students need to be aware three submission dates as few that occur throughout the year.

Reference

Nortcliffe, A.  and Middlleton, A. (2013) The innovative use of personal smart devices by students to support their learning, In Increasing Student Engagement and Retention using Mobile Applications: Smartphones, Skype and Texting Technologies, (Eds) Wankel, L. and Blessinger, P. (eds), (Cutting Edge Technologies in Higher Education). 175-210, 2013, Emerald, Bingley, UK

Evernote

Evernote

Free

Available for Blackberry, Android, Kindle Fire HD, Windows 8 mobile OS and iOS mobile platforms

My students report using the tool for capturing notes whether typed, image or recording, as shown below:

“[Evernote] create notes, take snapshots so like of lecture materials, like the slides and anything that is written down on the blackboard [Whiteboard], also you can tag in your notes and tag them together and share your notes”

Application enables learners to igather information, collate and organise their learning notes to the benefit of their learning and experience.    Our previous research of providing students with audio devices and encouraging them to use the devices to support their learning, the students were found to readily ubiquitously captured their ephemeral learning experiences to the benefit of their learning experience, (Middleton et al, 2009).   Therefore in principle any app that supports students to igather their learning will aid learners to deepen their learning.  

Personally I use Evernote to back up my Penultimate notebooks as Evernote owns Penultimate.  However the app is very popular with my students.   The mobile app enables the user to type, capture audio recordings, location of note and images from camera or upload image from photo library.  Also add tags enabling the users to collate notes with the same tag together.   Notes can be made on of course on other mobile apps and uploaded to Evernote, for example Explain Everything and Penultimate both have the functionality to upload to Evernote cloud, enabling the notes to be backuped, stored and managed.   Like Google Docs the files can be shared with other Evernote account holders.  

Reference

Middleton, A., Nortcliffe, A., & Owens, R. (2009). iGather: Learners as responsible audio collectors of tutor, peer and self reflection, A Word in Your Ear - Audio Feedback Conference, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK, available on-line: http://research.shu.ac.uk/lti/awordinyourear2009/docs/Middleton-Nortcliffe-Owens-iGather_final.pdf, last viewed 24^th March 2013

Google Drive

Google Drive

Free

Available for Blackberry, Android, Kindle Fire HD, Windows 8 mobile OS and iOS mobile platforms

I have been a Google doc user since the beta release in 2006.  I have used it avidly to write collaboratively with co-authors and students, a great initiation tool for many penned chapters.   The tool has become one of my much used IT applications, so the Google Drive on my iPad and iPhone has become a much welcomed addition, particularly when I am collaboratively working as you can share the files with other Google account holders.    The app provides access to my Google account and cloud storage of my documents from PDFs, Google Docs, Presentations and Google spreadsheets.   Recently Notability provided the functionality that enabled users to export to Notability documents and audio recordings to Google Drive.  This has enabled me to collate assessment grid and audio feedback prepared on Notability onto Google Drive, in readiness to be shared with the external examiner.  

At our institution we provide each student with Gmail and Google account thus providing them full access to all Google apps on-line, therefore Google Drive on mobiles in theory would be a much welcome technological addition on student mobiles, our research supports this hypothesis (Nortcliffe and Middleton, 2013) and shown by the student’s comments below:

“Crack it open on a tablet, mobile, where ever… Can't edit PowerPoint’s, but can edit Word documents, saves all changes, set it up on desktop it sync with desktop, Google cloud, University Google account” Student A

Google Drive mobile app enables students to access their documents whilst on the move, share documents for group-work activities and continually participate in group documentation with the group or independently.   As Google Drive provides version control students are able to see who is and who is not contributing to the group documentation at any time and place, as highlighted by the following student’s reflection:

"[Google Drive] you can see what they have been editing (can see if group members are working)…last night [used Google Drive] whilst I was cooking.. Project management stuff...its handy, portable, you pick up your phone and you see you have got work to do" Student B

The only limitations are the fact you cannot edit Google presentation slides, or edit Google survey, though you can access the Google spreadsheet of the survey results.   Additional functionality of the mobile version is the ability to upload videos to Google drive, useful resource for transferring videos off the iPad and iPhone, into a private cloud space.   There is a facility for off-line documents on the  iPad, but if you select a mail document attachment to be opened in Google Drive the file is uploaded to the Google cloud, so currently I am not sure how the off-line feature operates.  

Reference

Nortcliffe, A.  and Middlleton, A. (2013) The innovative use of personal smart devices by students to support their learning, In Increasing Student Engagement and Retention using Mobile Applications: Smartphones, Skype and Texting Technologies, (Eds) Wankel, L. and Blessinger, P. (eds), (Cutting Edge Technologies in Higher Education). 175-210, 2013, Emerald, Bingley, UK

OverSkreen

OverSkreen

$2.49

Available for Android

This is app was demonstrated to me by a student on their android tablet as part of our research, Nortcliffe and Middleton (2012), students comments and reflections as computing students, that developers need to reflect more on how users use technology more:

“Makes your web browser float over things [home screens and other apps], over anything [enabling multi-tasking]” student E

“It is really interesting, the way people expect people to use technology is to be focusing on one or two things at once, the way people really use technology it is more chaotic than that” student D

To be frank this is an app I would like on the iOS.  The app enables the web-browser application to float over other applications or the home page.  Therefore provide the user with the functionality to breakout from a single app full-screen display.  It opens up the opportunity to enable the user to multi-task, for example make notes in Google Drive whilst reading article in a web based journal in OverSkreen web browser.  

I can see the practical advantage of this app, particularly when you could be viewing data of a survey in Survey Monkey in the browser, and you could be writing up the reflections of the results in Google Drive.   In my case I often or not have students work in email attachment, I want to be writing feedback in an email.   I could open up student attachment in the email web browser viewing mode; write the student feedback email in the mail app.   This would just make the process so much more practical and time efficient instead switching between apps, which I seem to be doing all the time.   My students inevitably find  me in my office using my phone, my iPad and my PC, as this is my current work around solution.   This app would make life easier, the functionality is possible on iOS, as it is a functionality provided in the Blackboard Mobile app, no wonder I like Bb mobile so much.

Reference

Nortcliffe, A.  and Middlleton, A. (2013) The innovative use of personal smart devices by students to support their learning, In Increasing Student Engagement and Retention using Mobile Applications: Smartphones, Skype and Texting Technologies, (Eds) Wankel, L. and Blessinger, P. (eds), (Cutting Edge Technologies in Higher Education). 175-210, 2013, Emerald, Bingley, UK