Sorting, Labeling & Matching iPad Games
Learning in Hand Show #27 is all about the Stick Around app for iPad. The idea behind Stick Around is simple: players move stickers onto the correct spots on a background. The thing is, you not only use Stick Around to play these sticker puzzles, but you use it to create them as well!
Watch to learn how to play Stick Around’s sorting, labeling, and matching puzzles. You’ll see that stickers can have notes, arrows, comments, web links, and audio. You’ll also see that stickers don’t have to be just text–your stickers can be images and drawings!
Then watch to see a puzzle created in five steps: design a background, add stickers, make an answer key, enter information, and test the puzzle.
Stick Around is $2.99 and available in the App Store and half price in Apple’s Volume Purchase Program.
View the 9 minute video on YouTube, on Vimeo, in iTunes as a podcast, through RSS, or download to explore the educational possibilities of Stick Around.
Links
- stickaround.info
- Stick Around in the App Store
- Stick Around Blog
- Tutorial Videos
- User Guide
- Stick Around on Twitter
- Stick Around on Facebook
- Stick Around on Pinterest
- Stick Around on Google Plus
- Stick Around Puzzles Wiki
Transcript
This is Learning in Hand! I'm Tony Vincent and this is the show where I share tips, how-tos, and ideas for using today's digital tools for teaching and learning. Episode 27: Sorting, Labeling & Matching Games, recorded April 2014, happens now!
I’m excited to tell you about the iPad app, Stick Around. I’ve been using apps for teaching and learning for a long time, and I think Stick Around is fantastic. And I should, because I co-created it!
I worked with MorrisCooke, the design studio behind the awesome Explain Everything whiteboarding and screencasting app. If you’re familiar with Explain Everything, you’ll feel right at home in Stick Around.
The idea behind Stick Around is simple: players move stickers onto the correct spots on a background. The thing is, you not only use Stick Around to play these sticker puzzles, but you use it to create them as well.
Let me show you sample puzzles. Afterwards, I’ll tell you about creating your very own puzzles.
When you begin a puzzle, you are presented with the information screen. This might have directions, audio, an image, and/or an Explain Everything tutorial. There can even be a web link that will open a webpage right inside of Stick Around’s browser.
Begin the puzzle by clicking Start. You can see the Sticker Tray on the right. Pull out the tray to see the stickers. You can always slide it back to move it out of the way.
Your goal is to drag each sticker from the tray onto the background where it belongs. Some puzzles might have blanks, boxes, or question marks to indicate where to place stickers. This puzzle requires you to just place the sticker somewhere on or very near the meaning of the word.
When you think you have the stickers in the right spots, click the Check button. If not all stickers are correctly placed, you’ll see a message and have the chance to continue working on the puzzle.
If you check and everything is correct, you see the award screen where you have the chance to View the Completed Puzzle. If you enter your name and choose Save to Camera Roll, a screenshot of your completed puzzle will be saved. The screenshot will have stamped at the bottom your name, number of attempts (that is how many times you click the Check button), date, and how long it took (if the puzzle has the timer turned on).
Hey, check this out! Stickers can have arrows. These are handy for labeling puzzles, like placing measurements on a ruler or labeling the parts of a cell.
In addition to arrows, stickers can have notes. Clicking the info button reveals any comments. This sticker has a comment and has a web link. Clicking the link button opens Stick Around’s web browser. Clicking Done returns you to the puzzle.
Stickers don’t have to be text! They can be images or drawings! This puzzle’s stickers are all images. And do you see the little triangle on each sticker? Those are Play buttons! Stickers can have recorded audio! In this puzzle if you click the Play button, you hear what the sticker is a picture of.
This puzzle is about matching homophones. You can click to watch a cute YouTube video before starting the puzzle. The stickers are all clip art and each one has a Play button so you can hear the word used in a sentence.
There are limitless possibilities for puzzles! Here are some puzzle ideas!
- label people in a photo
- annotate the water cycle
- fill in a venn diagram
- place locations on a map
- alphabetize words
- put fractions in order
- match animals and habitats
- complete a timeline
- label continents
- match faces with feelings
- sequence events on a timeline
- match clocks with times
- sort foods into groups
- label notes on a piano
- match words and definitions
- labels parts of the brain
Playing puzzles is great, but making them is even better! I like to say, when you make their own study aids, it only aids in your own studying!
There are 5 steps to creating a Stick Around project:
- Design a background.
- Add stickers.
- Make an answer key.
- Enter information.
- Test your puzzle.
Watch me create a puzzle before your very eyes! You can download the Fractions, Decimals, and Percents editable project file or the playable puzzle file made in the video.
If you want more detailed directions, I have recorded a series of video tutorials that you can access within the app or at stickaround.info. There’s also a User Guide that is helpful.
In the videos and user guide you can also learn to use lots of other Stick Around features, including how to link it with Dropbox, Google Drive, and WebDAV accounts.
The process of making your puzzle is powerful. In fact, by the time a student makes a puzzle, he or she probably doesn’t need to play it to study–they’ve most likely already mastered the content. They have the added bonus of having an end product they can share with others!
Puzzles can be shared to other iPads that also have Stick Around installed. Sharing can be done by email, Dropbox and Google Drive links, or other apps that can copy and share files through the Open In.. feature.
Brent Catlett in Bellevue Public Schools in Nebraska has set up a Google Drive folder that teachers across the district use to share the best puzzles from their classrooms. Josh Allen, also in Nebraska, has set up a wiki for sharing puzzles. And I encourage anyone sharing puzzles on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus to use the hashtag #stickaroundapp so that others can find them. Find links to all of this at learninginhand.com/27.
It took our team over a year to develop Stick Around and we continue to make improvements. I’m really proud of the app and I am thrilled that students all over the world are learning by creating sticker puzzles.
That's it for Episode 27. Until next time, check out my website at learninginahand.com and like Learning in Hand on Facebook. Thanks for watching!
Credits
Thank you to Monica Evon and Jennifer Manning for permission to use photos from their classrooms. Thank you to Dan-O at DanoSongs.com for providing background music. Thank you to dippy_duck on Flickr for the pizza photo.
