App-swapping top tips

The first Falmer App Swap BreakCafé ran on Tuesday 13th of May in the Falmer Library and was an informal get-together to share apps and ideas.
The theme of the session was ‘5 things to know about your device’, so here’s the top five top tips that I picked up from the session:

1. The first thing I picked up was the use of Reflector for multiple devices. I’m used to using Air-Display to use my ipad as a second screen, but reflector allows multiple devices to present at once, enabling side-by-side app comparisons. It does cost $12.99 but it certainly was well used at the appswap.
2. Beth shared a simple feature on the iPhone, when taking a photo the volume button acts as the shutter release. I discovered this is true on Android phones too, as this morning I accidentally turned on the camera of my Nexus 4 then tried to turn down the volume on a song whilst walking the dog, and managed to take 5 or 6 photos of my feet.
3. Fiona shared an app that lets her pay for the station car park at Fareham once she’s safely got on the train, instead of fumbling for pocket fulls of change MyRingGo
4. Sally (from Sussex) shared the StudyBlue app which is linked to appswap favourite Evernote. StudyBlue makes it really simple to create FlashCards.
5. Finally a discussion started about how to make mobile devices “unlearn” mispelt words. Nobody knew how to do this, so if you have the answer please let us know. I did have a simple partial solution which I use on the iPad in the form of “shortcuts”. If you select Settings>General>Shortcuts you can add common mispellings and their replacements. A while back I kept on spelling business as buisness so I created a shortcut that fixed it for me.

The next AppSwap is back to Breakfast time 8.30-9.30am Thursday May 29th and is on the theme “Eye Candy Apps!”
Spurred on by Katie sharing the beautiful game “Monument Valley” at the last swap we are going to look at apps that fully utilise the high-quality visual displays of smartphones and tablets some of which could be used to quickly add images to your modules. Please bring along your ideas, practical or purely-aesthetic we would love to know.

Here’s one stunner to get you thinking Fractaleid

Fiona (Learning Technologies Adviser) Beth (Assistant Information Adviser for School of Nursing and Midwifery) and Rob (Learning Technologies Adviser) will be awaiting your company to Training Room 2 in Falmer Library; please come along if you can spare an hour – BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and BYI (Bring Your Ideas). There’ll be an iPad-iPhone focus but other devices are not discouraged or excluded.

Hope to see you there.