Step Up Your Game: Tutorial of Easy Ways to Enhance Your TinyTap App
When it comes to making an app with TinyTap, there are a few quick tricks that can take your creation to the next level. We’ve demonstrated some easy ways to step up your game, if you will, in a series of mini video tutorials. Take a look at these tips and go add that professional touch to your TinyTap masterpiece.
- Set any picture as your background
- Change the background of your text
- Remove white background from an image
- Flip an image
- Undo and redo illustrations
- Tap anywhere to continue
- Perfect hotspot tracing
- Record an intro for your soundboard
- Add flashcards to soundboard
- Jump to a specific page
- Record answer and mistake feedback for questions
- Shuffle pages
- Name your game
- Change the cover color
- Select or delete background music
- Edit your profile
- Share your app
Arranging Your Slides:
Set any picture as your background
Double tap on your image and set it as the background – it’s much
easier than stretching an image and making sure it covers all four corners.
Change the background of your text
Make sure your font color, background color, and slide design
work together to make your text as legible as possible.
Remove white background from an image
Most of the time, it just looks better this way.
Flip an image
This quick tip allows you to arrange images exactly the way
you want them.
Undo and redo illustrations
Undo or redo illustrations with one simple tap to spare yourselves
the headache of re-creating from scratch.
Adding Activities:
Tap anywhere to continue
A nice clean way to start your game: read the cover page, and then
use this setting to have your player tap anywhere on the screen to proceed.
Perfect hotspot tracing
Give your lessons a professional finish with auto-correct tracing for perfect rectangles and circles.
Record an intro for your soundboard
Don’t forget to give your players some context. Record an intro
to explain what they should tap on and what they can expect to hear.
Add flashcards to soundboard
Enhance language apps and diagrams with text bubbles – pair audio with visual for enriched learning.
Jump to a specific page
This feature adds a layer of personalization that allows you to give
each and every player a game flow and experience tailored to their specific interests.
Record answer and mistake feedback for questions
Give your players the help and encouragement they need and deserve.
If they answered a question correctly, cheer them on.
If they answered a question incorrectly, give them an extra hint.
Shuffle pages
Create now, arrange later. You can decide to reorganize the flow
of your app at any point during the creation process.
Finishing Touches:
Name your game
What’s in a name? A lot, it turns out! “Game 326” won’t entice
players the same way “Louie’s Language Labyrinth” will … Just sayin’ …
Change the cover color
Let’s be honest, people judge books by their covers all the time.
Be sure to pick a color that goes well with the design of your cover page.
Select or delete background music
Choose the music that best suits your app … or choose no music
at all if you prefer to focus on your audio segments.
TinyTap Market & Beyond:
Edit your profile
Whether you’re a veteran special needs teacher, a homeschooling
parent, or a student yourself – tell us a bit about yourself and why
you use TinyTap. If you write a blog on the same topic as your
games – add the link!
Share your app
If you’re proud of your creation – share it! Take advantage of our
one-tap options to share via Email, Facebook, Twitter.
Weekly Prizes for Best TinyTap Apps – All August Long!
With the 2014-2015 school year around the corner, teachers everywhere are searching for dynamic new ways to present their lessons and engage their students. While the material might not change dramatically from year to year (2 plus 2 still equals 4), students’ attention spans and standards surely do.
Fortunately, you don’t need to be a techie in order to digitize your lessons. And you don’t need a big budget in order to afford the program to do so. In fact, for the month of August, you could even earn a prize by digitizing your lesson!
TinyTap is excited to introduce the #AugustApps competition: each week of August, TinyTap will award an iPad mini to the best educational app created.
Teachers, now is the time to refresh your lessons and enter the chance to win a prize!
Requirements
Apps eligible for consideration must teach language, math, science, art, music, or geography lessons (preference given to Common Core aligned lessons) intended for a K-6 audience and be shared publicly on TinyTap’s market. Participating apps must write #AugustApps in the app description
Judges’ Tips
1. Create a cover page with an image and recording to introduce your app (e.g. “Welcome to Ms. Molly’s Math Class – let’s learn about fractions!”)
2. Use original images or graphics from TinyTap’s many creation packs
3. Make sure your audio recording is clear, with no background noise
4. Complete your TinyTap user profile with your name, a picture, and links to your blog or school, etc. … so that if you win, you can channel your new-found publicity accordingly
5. Follow TinyTap for updates and inspiration (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram … you name it!)
Inspirational Examples
Terms and Conditions
- The conditions for participation in the competition are set out below.
- TinyTap is holding a competition for the best educational TinyTap apps – to be awarded on a weekly basis in August 2014.
- Every TinyTap user who creates a TinyTap app during August 2014 and makes it “public” (i.e. shared publicly in the TinyTap market) is automatically entered into the competition.
- A new winner will be selected once a week.
- Each winner will be awarded an iPad mini.
- The competition organizers reserve the right not to award prizes if no suitable entries are created.
- TinyTap users and their TinyTap apps participating in the competition may be publicized on the competition website and social media channels, and will be open to criticism from visitors to the website and social media channels.
- Only TinyTap apps that are created between August 1st-31st, 2014, will participate in the competition. The organizers may change the above dates, at their own discretion, and no claims by any participant shall be allowed in connection with such a decision.
- All decisions relating to administration of the competition, including, but not limited to, nomination, selection of winners, publication or any other decision, shall be made by the organizers at their sole discretion.
- The organizers shall not be required to justify their decision as to a winner of the competition or regarding any other decision under these terms and conditions, and no appeal may be made against their decision.
- The organizers shall be entitled, at their sole discretion, to publish advertisements and/or reports and/or other publications with details regarding the competition.
- In any case of discrepancy and/or inconsistency whatsoever between the provisions of these terms and conditions and any other publication, these terms and conditions shall be binding.
- The organizers shall be entitled, at any stage, to suspend and/or cancel the competition. No claims by any participant shall be allowed in connection with such a decision.
- The organizers shall be entitled to modify the terms and conditions for the competition, as set out herein, at their sole discretion, provided that notice of the change is published on the organizers’ website.
- The organizers shall not be liable for any damages, injury to reputation, monetary or non-monetary loss, or any damage of whatever kind, caused to any participant as a result of and/or in connection with their participation or non-participation in the competition.
- Selection of the best TinyTap app shall be at the sole discretion of a judging panel of TinyTap employees, and the panel shall not be required to justify or provide reasons for the decision. Participants shall not have any right of appeal against the decision of the judging panel.
- The organizers of the competition shall be entitled, at their discretion, to make use of the competition entries. Such use may include, but will not be limited to, commercial use, modification and editing, copying and distribution.
- The prizes for the competition shall be as stated above. The prizes are personal awards, and not transferable. Notice of winning a prize will be sent by e-mail to the winners.
Lights, Camera, ACTION! Add video to your TinyTap learning app!
A learning app is only as valuable as it’s ability to engage students. So we are proud to announce that TinyTap’s newest version allows authors to reel players in with a feature more dynamic than ever: video. Now app creators can use content from YouTube to teach their lesson and then reinforce the material with intermittent activities, like questions and puzzles. Easier for educators, more stimulating for students … What are you waiting for? Create a learning app with video today!
5 simple steps to add video to your TinyTap app:
1. Design: arrange your page
2. Add Activity: select “Play a video” from the pop-up menu
3. Search: enter keywords to search for a video with certain content or a YouTube link of the specific video you wish to play
4. Edit: set the exact run-time of the video by pressing on the start and end time and scrolling through the minutes and seconds tickers
5. Create new page: if you want to pause the video to prompt another activity (like a question, puzzle, or soundboard), you can pick up exactly where you left off by tapping “Split a new page from.” This will automatically create a duplicate page, starting at the minute and second where your first video ended. Your new page will show up as the very last page in your album; give a long tap to move it around and rearrange the order.
5 things you can do with video in your TinyTap app:
1. Interactive lesson: Turn any YouTube video into an interactive lesson by pausing at any point to add TinyTap activities.
2. Teach & Test: Demonstrate a concept with video and test your audience’s understanding with follow-up questions.
3. Viral trends: Engage your audience by basing lessons on popular YouTube videos.
4. Presentations: Enhance your video presentation by overlaying TinyTap’s creative images, like stickers, backgrounds, and text.
5. Family fun: Relive classic moments by creating a game with your own home videos.
Pro tips for adding video to your next TinyTap app:
1. Seamless transitions: Keep in mind that when your game loads a video page, the background screen will load a split second before your video does. For clean look and seamless transition, give your video pages a black background.
2. High definition: For the highest quality videos, tack “HD” onto the end of your YouTube search. This will help return high definition videos that will give your game the sharpest resolution and best user experience.
