Thing 17: Notability

Ah, the infamous Notability.  While I've never used it before myself, I've heard a great deal about this app.  And now I can see why the hype was so high!  This app was pretty awesome.  It seems very powerful for a "note taking" app.  The features that I messed around with were very engaging.  I liked how I was able to use the standard keyboard to type, but I also could use my finger/stylus to jot down notes as well!  I've had issues using my fingers to write on an iPad in the past, but this app seemed to have great response.

Something that took some getting used to was scrolling up and down.  I'm used to using my phone, and to scroll I could just simply use one finger to move the screen up and down.  However, with Notability, it left all of these single vertical lines on my notes!  I'm sure I'd get used to using two fingers to scroll if I used this app frequently, but it definitely had a learning curve!

I really liked the ability to take a picture and include it in the notes.  I could see this being very useful in a science class.  When students need to memorize parts of a microscope, they could take a picture of one, and Notability has a function where you can edit a photo right in the app!  You could have them circle or point to various things, then label them in the app.

I like all of the features this app has to offer, and I want to continue to think about ways I could use this one in my class.  As usual, I think this would be best served for students who are unable to participate physically in class.  I think it could be something different to try- have those kids take notes on a class period (major topics we covered or observations from class), then share the notes with me or the class.  Very cool possibilities with this app!