Waffle Bytes

Aurasma App  - "See and Interact with the World in a New Way!" (Currently free in the iTunes Store) Basics : From their site: "Thanks to Aurasma, every image, object and even place can have its own Aura. Auras can be as simple as a video and a link to a web page or as complex as a lifelike 3D animation. Use the Aurasma app to unlock Auras and share the experience with friends. Or get experimenting and use the simple tools within the app to create and share your own Auras." Educational Uses : Aurasma is a great introduction to using augmented reality as you can make simple "auras" for any object - whether a student piece of work or everyday object.  Some examples: student work can connect to an audio file that has them reading the piece or explaining their work in their own words (Thank you to  @bcteacher  for introducing this type of project to me!) teacher instruction can connect to a website, audio file or other resource that may be used

MapAList is a FREE "wizard for creating and managing customized Google maps of address lists."  What use is this to you?  Here are some ideas - ELA - your class is reading a book and have students input locations mentioned in the book, now they can see a map of these locations; or create a map of everywhere your students' Flat Stanleys have traveled. Social Studies - your class is studying a long term event (say, a war) and you can build a map of the locations you are studying; OR for younger students, you can display a map of where the students in your class live Because the data is stored in a Google spreadsheet, the map updates automatically as you add or change items within the spreadsheet. You do need an account to use MapAList, but that is because it asks for permission to connect to your Google Account.  Once setup, it keeps an list of any maps you have created so you can update or change them.  Maps can be either private or public, and you can email

I often get asked about the differences between a "secondary" glossary and "main" glossary.  There are a couple key items to know about them: You can only have one (1) main glossary per course Items do not "auto-populate" - you have to import them in Here's a quick video showing how to import from a secondary glossary to a main glossary: http://youtu.be/73HIaesQR5M

Explain Everything (Currently $2.99; available in the VPP store for $1.49) Many thanks to David Malone (@dwmalone on Twitter) of CUE for introducing me to this app at MACUL! Basics:  From their site: "Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere. Create slides, draw in any color, add shapes, add text, and use a laser pointer. Rotate, move, scale, copy, paste, clone, and lock any object added to the stage....Add new or existing photos and videos.... No account is necessary to use Explain Everything and share creations." Educational Uses :  So many possibilities!  Demos, tutorials, animations, annotated videos, screencast - created by teachers or students - to just name a few.  There is a showcase page you can read about & check out some examples:  http://www.explaineverything.com/ee-showcase.html Website:  h

Recently I had the need to email people that had filled out a form for me. Definitely a time intensive job if you are creating the emails individually by hand! Fortunately, you CAN do a mail merge from data on in a spreadsheet!  Here's how: Create or open the spreadsheet that contains the data you want to merge into emails, giving each column a heading - make sure the recipients' email address is one of the fields! Go to the Tools Menu; select Script Gallery In the pop-up box, type Mail Merge and search - there are MANY mail merge scripts - the one I used the worked very well was called "Yet Another Mail Merge" Grant permission for it to access your Google Account After a bit, a new menu item will appear at the top next to Help called Mail Merge Ok - your spreadsheet is prepared, now you need to prepare your template email.  Type the email up exactly as you want it, leaving the recipient blank . The key here - any place you want the email to pull informat

Today I had the need to share just part of my 6 minute video about adding paid apps to Apple Configurator.  The user needed to know only one of the steps that appeared later in the video... why should they watch the first 4 minutes if they don't need it? I've remembered over the last several years about reading about sites or hacks that allows you to do this, so I (of course) Googled it.  I have to say using the built in feature is pretty slick, easy and painless!  I don't know when that was added, but kudos that it was. If you are like me and didn't know about this feature, here is how to use it: 1. Go to your video and move to the start location you want 2. Underneath the video, select Share 3. Uncheck the box for "Share with playlist..." if it is selected; check the box next to "Start at" 4. Copy and paste the amended URL to share with others Thanks to this Google help file for sending me down this path: http://support.goog