Pearltrees - Visual Content Curating

There is a lot of discussion on blogs and twitter about the benefits of Content Curation. This is one very good way of dealing with the overload of information that the internet has become. To some extent we started this process with sites like Delicious, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. There has been a shift occurring lately with developments in the Semantic Web and fuzzy search algorithms.


The end result is a number of Apps that allow you to collect, curate, make connections and then share sites, blogs, articles or websites around similar ideas or concepts. One of these is Pearltrees. I like this concept because it such a visual interface that it allows the viewer to see the physical links between ideas. In a way it is similar to the way that an App like Wikinodes deals with searches in Wikipedia.


Both teachers and students are able to decide, collect and share only that information that they deem to be relevant to their particular area of study or inquiry. Pearltrees is a place to organize, discover and share what you like on the web. Their unique visual interface lets you keep everything you like at hand so you can organize it your way. Collect web pages and turn them into pearls. Organize your pearls into pearltrees based on your interests. Enrich your account with pearltrees from other community members. Share all of this and start to cultivate your interests with Pearltrees.

        

If you would like to see one in action check out the one curated by Judy O'Connell @heyjudeonline - find it here - http://pear.ly/1ntz . While you are at it check out her blog Learning in an Online World at http://heyjude.wordpress.com/.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/pearltrees-for-ipad/id463462134?mt=8

App Building Tools for Teachers and Students

There are one or two tools that allow teachers or students to create apps for Mobile Devices - the first that I was aware of was probably Wix Mobile. Wix Mobile is based on HTML 5 and is designed to simplify the creation of mobile websites, Wix Mobile provides a set of templates specifically designed for optimal display and performance on smartphones and tablet devices. 

There is also iBuildApp. iBuildApp provides a simple and inexpensive way to build, test, track and update a native iPhone/Android, web app or even iPad apps that supports text, RSS feeds, images, audio, and video, and much more. You can create a free app for your school, department, college or friends within a very short timeframe.

Appsbar is a robust yet easy-to-use app builder. They have made it simple enough to make it possible for anyone to create an app, yet so powerful that you can create an amazing and functional app that can be published to the world quickly and easily. It would have been a lot easier for them to develop software that builds apps, but that doesn't offer any instruction, improvements, or options to create an app that meets publishing standards in the industry, instead this is a fully supported app builder.

iGenapps is another one specifically for iDevices. Not yet released on iTunes (but available and FREE as an Android app) this app promises to be a simple drag and drop method of producing content based apps. iGenApps will let you make hundreds of different kinds of applications. You can create applications such as cooking recipes, instruction guides, video tutorials, blogging apps, bands and fans apps, photographic or artwork portfolio, personal or business profiles, website conversion, restaurant menus, flash cards and teaching apps, conventions and events, product listing, contact directory, among many more. 

It will be interesting the see the cost - if any, on iTunes but this is a great way to introduce students to writing apps without the need for up-skilling in Xcode.

http://igenapps.com/site/Home.htm

SlideShark: PowerPoint on the iPad

Friends of mine were looking for a way of presenting their Powerpoint presentations on their new iPads. All the existing options want to create Pdfs or movies of the presentation. The problem with this is that you lose all of the animations, video and other features that you can produce on Powerpoint. SlideShark seems to have rectified this.

Released a couple of days ago it seems to have filled a need in the business community. The beauty of this is that loads of teachers also have existing PowerPoint slides - they now have access to these on their iPads. Get a copy while it is still free. This will be one app that hits the top 100 list very quickly and when it does it will cost you.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/slideshark-powerpoint-presentations/id471369684?mt=8