Post it Plus

pipI came across the app ‘Post it Plus’ by accident. I often use post its as a teaching tool with groups of students, asking them to write ideas on post its and then move them around into themes or rank order. Since I had my ipad I have sometimes photographed these – but the Post It Plus app is a more flexible and versatile way of doing this.

When you open the app it allows you to take a photograph of a group of post its. To do this you hold down  the capture icon. Green lines appear around the post its that have been captured and if there are any that do not have a green line, you can touch these and the green line will appear around them so that all the post its are present. You then touch ‘create board’ and the image is saved. I usually take groups of post its and end up with maybe four or five boards to record an activity.

IMG_0333

After this you can move the boards on top of each other to make them all into one, you can name each group and the bigger group, add additional post its and write onto them and the board.

You can also share and export the boards in a number of ways eg by email as a PDF, as a photo, via social media etc. I was able to send the PDF record of our discussions to a group of students after the session so that they could use the discussion ideas after the session. I could have annotated questions and  comments onto it to challenge them further – maybe next time! I’ve added one to see what it looks like, above)

You can read more about the app here.

Bitly

Cost – free

Bitly allows you to create a short link and assign a name to it. You can use it online here. It is also available as an app on the iphone and ipad.

bitly

 

 

Account – sign up wiht your email address or sign in using your Facebook or twitter accounts

Using bitly.

When you come across a very long link copy it and open bitly. Paste the long link into the ‘shorten’ box at the top of the bitly page.

shorten

 

A short link is created that is much easier to use and share.

An example is that this long link https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2014 can be shortened to this short link http://bit.ly/1uc46RY

In addition a long link can be both shortened and renamed when you are logged into to your bitly account.

An example is this long link https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-behaviour-and-attendance-in-schools can be shortened and renamed to this http://bit.ly/behandatt

Using a bitly account

sign in

You can sign into bitly using existing accounts such as Facebook or Twitter or you can create a separate bitly account. When you are signed in you can customise the names of your shortlinks as above.

You can also collect and group your shortlinks into bitly bundles – these are some of mine:

bundles

Here is a link to one of my bundles – Education blogs

This tool makes the collection, organisation and sharing of groups of links easy. it is especially useful in the module PDT 3003 Debates to prevent long links widening the discussion board screen.

If you have made an interesting bitly bundle please share it as a comment below.