Lifecards

Lets give our students or child(ren) opportunities to be creative.  A child’s day to day life in the classroom is so structured and provides little opportunities to showcase their creative side and to have fun.  However, with the integration of technology and mobile learning, fun is back in business!  Applicable2U randomly stumbled upon this educational app and couldn’t be happier.  Lifecards is a multi-purpose app for teachers, parents and students.  As Applicable2U begins to explore any app, our first thought is how can this fit into my curriculum or daily life?

Lifecards is just as the name says, they are cards that anyone can make that deal with your daily life.  With the help of various templates, users can now create newspapers, scrapbook like pages, holiday cards, birthday or party invitations, stationery, and announcements are just some of the amazing things this app has to offer.  My teacher brain is now screaming CURRICULUM, CURRICULUM!!!  Our fourth grade studies national landmarks and monuments which is incorporated with letter writing. Students are expected to use a graphic organizer to collect research via books and online resources.  Their research is then shared through a friendly letter to their teacher via a template that is designed by the instructional technology specialist in iWorks: Pages.   Technology, yes!  But lacks creativity.  Today’s exploration of Lifecards has changed our typical end product!

Lifecards is accessible on both the iPad and the iTouch. Once in the app, select a category and an appropriate template,  user will have a variety of options.  Text boxes can be manipulated by adding additional boxes for content, changing font style, color and size.  Photos can be added once imported into your Photo Library.  In addition, photos can be altered with various affects such as: grayscale, sepia, and comic.  Speech bubbles, stickers and additional text boxes can also be incorporated and manipulated to fit the page based on its size and rotation.  Cards can be trashed or saved by a distinct name and added to your “My Cards” folder.  Yes, the iTouch experience was a bit tedious due to the small screen, but still positive. We are excited for the arrival of our new iPad2 and how Lifecards can be incorporated further in the classroom and its larger screen.  If a classroom has a 1:1 situation, connect student iPads to a projector and have students present their Lifecard to the whole class.  The possibilities are endless!  So how can a classroom then share out their end product?  This is where I was afraid that Applicable2U was going to be disappointed, DEFINITELY NOT!!  We were pleasantly surprised! Sharing of your final product like a postcard or class newsletter can be done via email as a PDF, added to Facebook, Flickr and  Twitter if  incorporating as a classroom tool.  Well done, Vivid Apps!

If you are a classroom teacher that has Apple devices, or a parent that likes to design various types of cards, then Applicable2U thinks Lifecards applies to you!  If you would like to learn more about Vivid Apps, be sure to visit their website.  The $1.99 that you will spend to download Lifecards from your iTunes library is well worth the money and you can start creating your own real “life” cards today.