The Niagara Falls teacher has been coming up with app ideas for a number of years but discovered that developing and marketing an app can be a costly endeavour.
“I have these ideas since tablets came out but I found out that some apps are $30,000 to develop,” he said.
In December, however, the tides turned when he discovered Applits, a U.S.-based company that does all the legwork for budding app creators.
“The concept was great,” he said. “They want to make to make peoples’ dreams come true.”
Applits recently held a contest asking for app ideas and Stranges submitted an idea of an app that makes it easy for users to donate to a charity of their choice.
The app identifies charities based on a user’s preferences whether it’s from a recently-watched YouTube video or a news story.
“The goal is for it to be intuitive,” Stranges explained.
Users can donate to a charity and also win points towards additional monetary funds to use towards a future donation.
His iDonate app impressed the judges who felt the app fit perfectly with the company’s AppForCharity campaign.
Gibault Catholic High School in Waterloo, Illinois, is overcoming mother nature with technology. When snow closed the school for four days last week, Gibault’s electronic learning system enabled students to continue their work at home. See this report from KSDK.com for the full story:
Al.com reports on a Catholic school video journalism class:
Students in McGill-Toolen Catholic High School’s video journalism class are getting hands-on experience with real-time news: they produce segments which are aired daily on the school’s closed circuit television system.
The school channel has daily announcements as well as anti-drug commercials which the students produce. On Thursdays, students tape interviews with the school’s president, the Rev. Bry Shields, who said the segments foster better communication.
“Corporately, every organization thrives on frequent communication,” said Shields. “It is particularly helpful in a school community for both faculty and students to hear from the head of the school on a regular basis. For the students, it provides them the opportunity to become more confident in their ability to speak in public and to gain technical skills in producing a broadcast.”
He said the questions from students concern “the life of the school, political and social questions, and questions about the Church and about the understanding of our faith.”
On today’s #CatholicEdChat, I shared a few YouTube videos that I sometimes use with my students. Here they are in one convenient place for you to use, along with a special word puzzle, Translate that Christmas Carol.
(This post will update as I find more Advent/Christmas videos)
Advent Conspiracy
Advent in 2 Minutes
Bethlehemian Rhapsody
Christmas Food Court Flash Mob of Hallelujah Chorus
Fr. Jim Martin on Good King Wenceslas by The Roches
John Lewis Christmas Advert 2011
Sean Quigley – The Little Drummer Boy
Darth Vader Conducts Christmas Carol Flash Mob
Rudolph (You Don’t Have to Put on the Red Light)
Bonus Word Puzzle: Translate that Christmas Tune
For a fun Christmas/vocabulary activity try having your students translate these verbose Christmas carol titles back into their original form:
Move Hitherward the Entire Assembly of Those Who Are Loyal in Their Belief
Ornament the Enclosure with Large Sprigs of a Berry-Bearing Evergreen
Vertically-Challenged Adolescent Percussionist
First Person (Singular) Experiencing an Hallucinatory Phenomenon of a Natal Celebration Devoid of Color
Soundless Nocturnal Timespan
Majestic Triplet (First Person Plural)
The Yuletide Occurrence Preceding All Others
Precious Metal Musical Devices
Omnipotent Supreme Being Elicits Respite to Ecstatic Distinguished Males
Caribou Afflicted with Vermillion Olfactory Appendage
Allow Crystalline Formation to Descend
Jovial Yuletide Desired for the Second Person (Singular or Plural)
Commence Auditory Reception, the Celestial Messengers Produce Harmonious Sounds
Village Expectations of a Yuletide Emmisary
Bipedal Travel through a Geographic State of Fantasy During the Season of Mother Nature’s Dormancy
Arrival Occurred at Twelve O’clock During Clement Nocturnal Period
Exclamatory Remark Concerning a Diminutive Municipality of Judea
Ecstatic Experience Directed Toward Global Inhabitants
First Person (Plural) Acoustic Awareness of Extra-Terrestrial Messengers at Great Altitude
Obese Male Personification Consisting of Aggregate Compaction of Individual Water Crystals, with Appellation of Surface Crystalline Deposition of Water Vapor
Tintinnabulation of Vacillating Pendulums in Metallic Resonant Spheres
Improvised Infant Furniture in Remote Location
Imperative Expedition for the Purpose of Proclaiming Upon a Specific Alpine Formation
First Person’s Perplexed Contemplations Upon a Period of Aimless Meandering
Wintertime Festivity Consisting of a Dozen Planetary Sidereal Rotations
My Sole Desire for the Yuletide Season Is Receipt of a Pair of Central Incisors
Are You Detecting the Same Aural Sensations as I Am?
Who’s the Mystery Offspring?
Testimony of Witness to Maternal Parent’s Infidelity with Kris Kringle
Imagine a place where Catholic teachers from all over the world can gather and share ideas, web resources, videos, assignments, and discuss current issues.
Imagine a place where you can connect with other teachers to plan collaborative projects where your students can communicate daily with students the world over.
Edmodo is just such a place. It’s simple, safe, powerful — and free.
In their own words,
Edmodo is a secure, social learning platform for teachers, students, schools and districts. We provide a safe and easy way for your class to connect and collaborate, share content and access homework, grades and school notices. Our goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner.
Social learning is a fantastic idea in theory, but there are problems with using services like Facebook, Ning or Twitter in the classroom. Whether it’s cost, advertisements, safety, usability, or management, most social platforms just don’t work well for education. Edmodo does.
I started using Edmodo with my 8th grade class this year, and they absolutely love it. Some of the things they like so far include:
Its resemblance to Facebook.
The fun and interesting badges I award them for accomplishing tasks.
The ability to turn in their homework digitally.
The chance to stay connected after school hours.
And here are some of the things I like about Edmodo so far:
It’s safe: only my students and I are connected.
Students don’t need email addresses to join.
It’s free, with no advertisements.
Students can communicate directly with me or the whole group, but not directly with each other.
I can create polls, quizzes, and electronic assignments.
I can create custom badges for anything and everything, and award them to students at any time.
There’s a very handy mobile app for accessing and using Edmodo from anywhere. Edmodo is a fantastic tool for classrooms in which every student has an iPad or other tablet.
There are many teacher groups on Edmodo for collaborating and connecting with other teachers.
It’s that last bullet that brings me to the main purpose of this post. Edmodo makes connecting with other teachers incredibly easy. I belong to the 8th Grade Teachers Network and the Back to School Best Practices Group, and those groups have already given me some terrific teaching ideas this year.
As far as I can tell, there is no Edmodo group specifically for Catholic school teachers. At least there wasn’t until now. I’ve created the Catholic Teachers Network, and I’d like to invite you to join.
Here’s how to join:
Visit Edmodo.com and click on the “I’m a Teacher” button. You’ll be asked to provide typical login information: username, email, etc.
You’ll be taken to a new page where if you look on the left hand side you’ll see a place for groups. Click the “Join” button and enter this code: c6u263
That’s it!
By the way, if you’re one of the first teachers to join, you’ll get the coveted St. Elizabeth Ann Seton badge — so check it out soon!
Here’s a video that shows you exactly how to join a group on Edmodo:
Give Edmodo a try and help build a strong community of Catholic school teachers who can support each other, share ideas, and collaborate on classroom projects.
Imagine a place where Catholic teachers from all over the world can gather and share ideas, web resources, videos, assignments, and discuss current issues.