School managers often say that Macs are expensive. Well of course that isn't true anymore when you measure like for like. Software tools can be expensive but here's 4 great apps, 3 of which are free.
I've been using Pixelmator since Christmas as a cost effective alternative to Photoshop. It has slick very modern, intuitive interface that could only be created by OSX fanatics.
The key features are that it has layers, and tools to enable meaningful digital compositing, a step up from iPhoto. It is integrated with iPhoto so finding and working on multiple files is easy. It has a tool box and keyboard short cuts that mirror the "daddy" of image editors.
I think a great tool to sit on the learning path between iPhoto and Photoshop. Now the Pixelmator guys need to sort out Edu licenses! It costs $59 and there's a downloadable demo.
Capturing student's creative journey's isn't always managed that effectively. I've always been an advocate of annotating screen shots as evidence. The company that created Comic life, PlasQ have a cool tool called Skitch.
The app allows the capturing of screen shots and then provides an alpha channel layer for adding text, annotations, drawings etc. It makes tracking of creative ideas, noting decisions onto screen shots of apps very slick and fun. If it's fun student's are more likely to do it!
This application makes it easier for creative students that can't cope with lengthy literary explanations to track their ideas, plans within digital creativity projects.
The app is currently free in beta format. I love it.
The next two apps of choice are really helpful for teachers trying to pull together resources. I like to use models and reference the real world whether it's web pages, sound/music or video and capturing web content has been a challenge.
For sound I've been using Soundflower made by Cycling 74. It is a free app that works like a virtual sound card. Once installed you can select it in your preferences> sound control panel.
Ths then enables you to stream any audio, from any app, DVD, CD, Game the web directly into Garageband! Obviously you have to record the incoming signal but it works beautifully.
In a similar fashion I've been using TubeTV for downloading flash video files from places such as Youtube.
This app works like web browser, has a google style search tool, you find the video you need and download it. The apps makes the Flash>M4v quicktime format for iTunes. So all clips play in your video iPod too! and it's free!
