It all started this morning. I’m lying in bed flipping through Zite looking for good stories to send to my Twitter account for later reading. I saw this and sent it immediately.
The link takes you directly to iTunes and the opportunity to read about the application, buy it, and download it. It’s priced at $2.99. If you know me, you’ll know that I’m big on reflecting and I’ve been looking for the best tool for the younger set. Kid’s Journal for iPad looks interesting. I’ll have to take a look at it later on.
Before I had a chance to get to it, @TechieAng was all over it.
I really value her opinion. I’ve talked with her and read her classroom stories in the past and she does amazing things with her students. Her nod of approval of the format is good. Spell check or pop up, though? Hmmmm.
When you tread into the realm of spelling and phonemic awareness, the conversation can go on for a while. My response…
Above and beyond the opinion of spell checkers, I know that I have difficulties getting the right letters in the right place at times when typing on an iPad. If this is a personal journal, could constant error prompting or pop-ups get in the way? This could be an oversight on the part of the authors or it could be something very carefully planned.
She must like it. If it was a show stopper, she’d have moved on by now.
In the meantime, our back and forth has caught the attention of others. In particular, @DarthMacGoogle weighed in with his experiences.
Response from the developer within an hour? Now, that’s impressive.
The data stays local is interesting. No cloud stuff here so there’s no concern about young students oversharing. And, cloud storage probably isn’t appropriate anyway. It’s not like you’re going to start work on one iPad in one location and then to another iPad in another location.
Angela agrees.
Now, we start to talk about improvements. She’s got a couple of great ideas.
Those would definitely be nice features to have for the younger journalists.
Darth agrees.
It looks like audio is one feature that would be truly appreciated by this journalling application for young students.
And, in the course of three hours, this conversation and evaluation had taken place. It looks like the application is a keeper with a recommendation for an audio component for the future.
What an interesting way to go from nothing to evaluated – all with the help of people who tweet and take an interest. If anyone questions the value of having online discussions, tell them about this. No discussion about what people had for breakfast – just a serious and professional discussion of a new product.
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doug -- off the record 
Please share your thoughts here. I’d enjoy reading them.