App Review - Pento Notebook for iPad
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January 29, 2013 By: by Frank Pileiro
Jan
28
Written by:
1/28/2013 6:24 PM
This article is cross posted at the EdTech Innovations blog.
I recently downloaded a new app for my iPad, Pento Notebook
($2.99), that I believe can give some of the more popular notebook apps
some competition. Now, don't get me wrong, I think that there are some
great apps our there, but Pento takes a different approach and that is
what makes them standout in my opinion.
Just like any other
notebook app you can create and label as many notebooks as you like.
They have all of the common tools for writing, drawing, and text
insertion. Including settings to change colors and pen width. They even
include some cute emoticons. But, what set this app apart is its
ability to create rich multimedia notebooks.
What makes this
really app shine is the "Grabber." This tool allows you to "grab"
different types of media. If you want to embed a video from a web page
into your notebook page you simply touch the "Grabber" on the left side
of the page and select "Browser." Then browse to the URL you want and
find the video. Once the video loads, by the way the browser loads very
fast, touch and hold your finger on it and a menu appears with a choice
to "grab" the video. Once you do that it takes you back to your
notebook page and embeds the fully functioning video. You can then
further manipulate its size and position, even annotate over it. This
can also be done with text, pictures, etc. The "Grabber" tool bar also
has a selection for Twitter
that will pull up your Twitter stream and let you grab tweets and embed
them as well. You have the options of using pictures, videos and
music that are already on your device. You can take your own pictures
or video recordings from within the app and embed them as well. When
you are all finished with your notes you can save them within Pento or
share a page via email, Twitter or Facebook.
Imagine
the innovative uses of this in the classroom. Research can be saved,
and annotated over, all in one convenient place. Students can make
multimedia pages on a topic that can be shared with their teacher or
classmates. Overall, I think that this is an app with a lot of
potential that will spark your creativity the more you use it. I would
definitely recommend adding it to your app list of must haves.
Here is a video that shows Pento in action:
Frank Pileiro is a Technology
Coordinator in Southern New Jersey. He is passionate about educating
with creativity and innovation, as well as imparting these skills to our
students with instructional technologies. He is the author of the
EdTech Innovations blog, where he writes about educational technology
innovation and integration. He can be followed on Twitter @MrP_LPS
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