App of the Week: Paper

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Title: Paper
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free with in-app purchases available

paper app logoIt’s been at least a couple of years since FiftyThree’s Paper app originally launched. The latest update brings the app to the iPhone and adds some new features, functionality, and updates. As a result the app is now, even more than it was before, a tool that teens and library staff will want to consider for their arsenal of creative thinking, note-taking, and designing tools.

Watch the 14.5 minute screencast below to see a brief overview of how the app works and read the rest of this post after that screencast to find out a bit more.

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App of the Week: ReBoard

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Title: ReBoard
Platform: iOS
Cost: $1.99 plus in app purchases

reboard logo Over the past few months I’ve tried out a lot of keyboards for my iOS devices. There are keyboards that allow me to type by using the touch screen instead of the keyboard and keyboards that allow me to add videos and gifs to documents quickly. There is even a dog image keyboard. Most recently I tried ReBoard and it’s the one I think I will probably stick with.

Watch the 13.5 minute screencast below to learn how ReBoard works and you can read more about it  below the video.

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App of the Week: Status Board

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Title: Status Board
Platform: iOS 8.4 or later
Cost: Free with in-app purchases available

status board logoStatus Board is an app that’s been around for a few years but I just learned about it recently. I think it has some interesting possible uses for teens putting together infographic like presentations and for library staff and educators who work with adolescents.

The idea behind Status Board is to create Boards that aggregate information with a particular focus. It’s possible to create Boards that show personal information such as email, weather, calendar, RSS feeds, etc. However, that’s not really so unique as it’s possible to create similar kinds of screens of aggregated information with other tools.

What does make Status Board potentially useful for those working for and with teens, is the ability to create Boards that show data on a particular topic. The data can be integrated with text and web-based content to provide opportunities to display from where information was gathered, as well as the data/information itself. The images below show the two-types of boards that I created as examples.
status board with life info - email, calendar, feeds, weather.
college and career readiness status board example


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App of the Week: Fax Burner

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Name: Fax Burner
Cost: Free, for receiving 25 pages and sending 5
Platform: This app is iOS only, though Android equivalents do exist in the Marketplace

Last week, a conversation on the twitter #libchat stopped me in my tracks:

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While faxing is a technology that might seem behind the times, whether it’s a W9 or some other documentation related to employment or enrollment status, we’ve all had patrons who needed something scanned rather desperately to get requisite documentation to agencies or organizations that required that format. On those occasions, I’ve used Fax Burner, with excellent results.
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