Wanna See Android Take Over the World? (Cool Data Graph Visualization)
Posted by Andrew Cullison in News on February 24, 2011
Quick Cite: Bibliography Made Awesome
Posted by Andrew Cullison in Tips and Tricks on February 23, 2011
File this one under awesome. Some ingenious students have developed an app for Android (and iPhone) that lets you scan a book’s barcode, and it will email you a properly formatted reference (Chicago, MLA, APA, or IEEE).
I just tried it out. The concept is awesome, and the app is pretty good. I had one force close issue when I first tried it out, but it worked fine the next three tries.
This app has a lot of promise. It is limited as a full-blown research tool since it only does books, but I can easily see ways for them to add methods to grab DOIs. If they did this, you could scan full references to journals. Until then, I think the app is still worth having, and it could easily be turned into a must have.
Here are some features, I’d love to see (and I think at least two of them could be added pretty easily).
- A method for pulling in DOIs
- A way to store past scans so you could generate a bibliography for an entire paper
- Additional sharing options (e.g. give users the option to share the text via the built in Android share function).
Download it and try it out. You can check it out on their website here. Here’s the market link.
Words With Friends Comes to Android! Play a Game with Us!
Posted by Andrew Cullison in Uncategorized on February 20, 2011
A lot of my friends with iPhones have had Word With Friends on their iPhones for awhile. Every time I go home for a visit, I get jealous because I can’t play them. Now I can. Words with Friends was released on Android this week!
This is basically Scrabble that you can play with other people who have the app. You can even play people who have the app on their iPhones. It’s nice because it’s turn based, and you can play your turn whenever it’s convenient. You can also have multiple games going at once. This game is highly addictive.
This also seems like this opens up some cool applications in the classroom. I know of a few schools where everyone (teachers and students) has an Android device. Some very cool things could be done with your students and Words with Friends if you’re at one of those schools.
P.S. I’ll play you. Download the app and start a game with me. My username is andycullison
Books, Musics, and Movies Coming to Android Market
Posted by Andrew Cullison in News on February 20, 2011
This is exciting. Google is going to introduce tabs for books, movies, and music into the Android market. We’re particularly excited about the addition of a books tab.
Android is already driving down the prices of mobile devices, and we think this is great news for education. The cheaper these devices become the easier it will be to get these devices in the hands of students for mobile learning.
Incorporating books directly in the the market has enormous potential for turning Android devices into powerful learning devices. We’re excited to see how this evolves.
New Instructional Video of Grade Book for Professors
Posted by Andrew Cullison in Grade Book, News, Tips and Tricks on February 14, 2011
We just put together a cleaner, instructional video for our new version of Grade Book for Professors. This short video will walk you through setting up the app and quickly demo some of the core (awesome) features. Check it out, and when you realize it’s awesome click here for information about how to get the app. Did we mention it’s free?
Demo Video of Grade Book for Professors (at Digital Day Conference)
Posted by Andrew Cullison in Grade Book, News on February 13, 2011
We added some very cool features to our Grade Book for Professors app. We also released it for free. We unveiled everything at the Digital Day Conference at Canisius College.
Here we are demonstrating at that conference demonstrating the app! Check it out!
New Version of Gradebook Released – and Now It’s Free!
Posted by Andrew Cullison in News on February 12, 2011
We unveiled our major overhaul of Grade Book for Professors at the Digital Day Conference yesterday. We’re happy to announce that it’s way more awesome than it was, and that there is a free version! The free version does everything the paid version does; it’s just ad supported.
Highlight of New Features
- Much, much simpler setup
- Assignment View and Grade Session Feature – now you can open an assignment and quickly grade all students for that assignment
- Email ALL students a comprehensive/auto-generated grade report with one click
We have a video of us giving a demonstration at Digital Day – it will show you all of the above features.
How to Get It
- Android Web Store Page
- Direct Market Link (click this if you’re browsing from your Android phone)
- Search “Grade Book” in the Android Market (with a space between “Grade” and “Book”)
- Scan this QR Code with your Android Phone
We’ll post some video of us demonstrating the new features soon!
Digital Day Conference in Buffalo
Posted by Andrew Cullison in News on February 10, 2011
Canisius College is having their 6th annual Digital Day Conference in Buffalo tomorrow from 12-4PM. The program looks great. This is an excellent opportunity for educators to share ed tech ideas with other educators.
It’s also a good opportunity for you to meet up with us. Our two founders will be there along with three other members of our team doing product demos and getting feedback from users. We’ve also been working hard (and by we I mean Jon) on that overhaul of Gradebook we’ve been talking about. I’ve been playing around with the new version, and I can assure everyone that this is going to be awesome. If you want a sneak peek at how awesome this will be…stay tuned.
So, if you’re in the Western New York Area stop by and talk to us. We’d love to meet you and talk about all things Android and ed tech. We’ll be in the Grupp Fireside Lounge from 12-3PM.
Thanks for Filling out the Surveys!
Posted by Andrew Cullison in Uncategorized on February 8, 2011
You’ll notice that our apps run ads in the bottom, and that we occasionally advertise optional surveys. We’ve been trying to determine what disciplines our users teach, what grade levels you teach, whether you’re active researchers.
This really helps us determine what direction to take our app development. It helps us decide what features we should add to our current apps, and it also helps us prioritize future app development.
We’ve been getting a lot of survey data from you, and we just wanted to tell you that we appreciate it.
We hope you appreciate that we’ve made a conscientious effort to keep our surveys VERY short (usually only 3 questions) and VERY mobile-friendly. We’re committed to keeping it that way for any future surveys.
Official Blogger App Released
Posted by Andrew Cullison in News on February 7, 2011
It’s about time! If you use Blogger for any of your course blogs, you’ll be happy to know that Google has recently released an official Blogger App for the Android Market. Here’s the market page.
User reviews are mixed, but overall they seem to be positive.
It’s looking reasonably polished and feature rich. I’m going to download it and play around with it. I’ll let you all know what I think.
