I am like a kid in a candy store reading about all of the new features just released by Apple to iWork for iPad. I couldn’t wait to share them with you so that you could get busy playing with the newest features and creating awesome content for your students when they return back to school. I am happy to share with you my Top 4 iWork updates.
1. Insert recorded audio to slides, documents, and spreadsheets:
You can now add recorded audio to slides, documents, and spreadsheets. This is a game changer…Keynote slides can become books, portfolios, and enhanced presentations with the added feature of audio. Think about how this would impact students being able to create full movies right in Keynote (especially with the new exporting features…scroll down to read more). Pages documents and books now have the added feature of recorded audio. Spreadsheets come to life even more with the addition of audio. Teachers can send out assignments with a recorded narration button to explain in greater depth what requirements are for an assignment. The possibilities of how this will impact our students are going to be amazing!
2. New shapes, advanced fills to shapes and drawings, and image galleries:
You can now add custom gradient fills as well as image fills to any shape. SCORE! There are even more shapes to add to the already large library of shapes. This allows students and teachers alike to create professional looking presentations, movies, posters, spreadsheets, documents, and other graphics. The addition of image galleries is a great feature for presentations and templates for students.
Fill options
Variety of ways to fill a shape. In this example, I put my two ADE buddies, Kelly and Wes, as the image fill with a color overlay.
Add an image gallery!!
3. Charts get a new look!
You can now change the look of your charts by rounding the corners…just a fun and contemporary update for columns and bars.
Change the look of bars and columns
4. My new ALL TIME favorite update: Exporting presentations in Keynote as movies or images!!
Long gone are the days where the only way you could save a slide in Keynote for iOS was to take a screen shot. Now, we can export slides as images or movies. This is a HUGE WIN for students, teachers, and other creatives! Students can create an entire book in Keynote complete with recorded audio and export as a movie. The possibilities for creativity and showcasing and sharing learning excites me so much! They can later import their movies into iMovie for sound effects, music, and other movie editing features. Being able to export Keynote slides in a variety of ways is going to change the ways students publish work.
With every update to iPad, my strong feelings supporting iPad in education increase. There’s nothing the iPad can’t do. Our students deserve to be able to interact with tools that give them a variety of options to showcase learning. The greatest part about these iWork updates: they are free! And as my great friend Jim says, “Free is in the budget.”
Have fun exploring these new updates and drop me a line to tell me how they are impacting what students are doing in your classroom!
APPSOLUTELY APRIL BLOG 