Tiny Pdf App for Annotating Text

My lovely coworker found this amazing app for annotating, and I have to share!

Tiny pdf is a FREE app that allows students to annotate pdfs. 

My students are all logged into one Dropbox account at the same time on their Ipads.  This way, they can all see what I share with them, such as a pdf!  Tiny pdf allows you to connect a Dropbox so that any pdf in a Dropbox folder will appear in the app.

This week, we started reading a Science A-Z book in tiny pdf so that we could use our think marks to annotate.  First, we opened tiny pdf.  Then we connected our Dropbox account by following the prompts and logging in using our classroom email and password. Each student had to type in the email and password, but it did not take too long!  Once students are logged in, just like in Dropbox, they stay logged in.  No need to ever log in again!  As you can see, it is also possible to upload a Google Drive account as well.

After our folders appeared, we opened the Science A-Z book in the app and wrote on it!  The app saves documents that are being annotated, so my students can go back and add more notes and think marks while they read.  They absolutely LOVED it, and their comprehension sky-rocketed after reading just one section.  We had a great discussion, and they cannot wait to keep reading and annotating more in all subjects!

Annotating in Skitch

This week we read a fable and annotated it in one of our favorite apps, Skitch!  We have been working on close reading and using think marks to annotate.  This of course is possible with paper, but using Skitch has made annotating a really fun process!

In Skitch, you can write and type over pictures!  It is perfect for annotating on the ipad, as well as other activities.  To annotate pdf files it costs extra, but to write on a jpg or png picture file, it is free!

To do this, I first scanned the pages I wanted and downloaded them to my own ipad.  Then I took a screen shot of each page.  This created a picture file that I could write on in Skitch!

I downloaded these pictures to the classroom Dropbox account so that all of my students could see the pictures.  Each page is separate, but since my students are working on close reading, they only really need one page at a time!  To open a page in Skitch from Dropbox to annotate, click the blue box on the right at the top of the picture.  Then click "Open in."

Next click on the Skitch icon for "Open in Skitch."

Then the document is open in Skitch so that your students can write on it!

The pen on the right allows students to choose whether they want to write or type.  The color on the left allows students to choose color as well as thickness of line.  While there is not as much room to write answers to questions, there is plenty of room for annotating!