Draw and Tell App By Duck Duck Moose

I have done many blog posts on collections of apps that my students and I use in our classroom. However, I am always open for suggestions on new apps to try. When my good friend Karen Lirernman urged me to try Draw and Tell, I didn't jump at it right away. I was completely content using the content creation apps I had like Showme and Explain Everything.  Karen kept on bringing up the fact that this particular app was perfect for primary students and she knew if we tried it we would love it. So, we bought the app ($1.99) and started playing with it in my grade 1/2 classroom. You can draw, colour, take pictures, add stickers and then explain your thinking.   Students also have choices with backgrounds, crayons, pencils and paint for their creations.  I have to admit that Karen was right..... we love this app! It is very easy for my students to use and there are so many ways to incorporate the app into any subject in your classroom. My students love how easy it is to record their voice with a picture they have drawn or taken and with the touch of a button they can save it to their camera roll. The reason they love this app so much is they can easily show and explain their work and upload it to their kidblogs effortlessly with this app. The following examples have been done independently by my students:

Incorporating it into our Math Stations

For this particular station, I asked the students to use the organizer provided to show how you can make the amount of $1.00 four different ways and to take a picture of their work, explain it, then upload it to their blog.  Here is a finished example:

Incorporating it into our Literacy Stations

In December, we were working on procedural writing.  I asked the students to create a procedural piece on how to decorate a christmas tree.  My students were using the BookCreator app to create their book and used the Draw and Tell app to first draw their pictures for the story.  They started out with a bare tree, saved it to the camera roll and then uploaded the picture to their book. With each step they added to their tree, saved it to their camera roll and used it in their story.   Here is a picture from one of my student's completed books:

Making our Blog Avatars 

Just this past week, the students made avatars for their blogs.  Guess what app they used to draw their avatars?  You guessed it! Students drew their avatar in Draw and Tell and saved it to the camera roll.  I have it set up so all my student's pictures and videos are automatically saved into my dropbox folder, so I can access their work from any computer or iPad.  Here are a few of my students' avatars:

If you have not tried this app out with your class, I highly suggest you try it!  If you would like to see more examples of how we use Draw and Tell in our classroom, check out my students blogs here.