NOT BASEBALL

My colleague told me about Notability, a note taking application for iPad.  I am always looking for more ways to use the iPad at work and while teaching because other than its portability and how quickly it is ready to use I have not found it as useful as a laptop computer.

Notability lets you write on a variety of backgrounds.  I’ve set mine to default to its finest ruled grid paper.  You can write by touching the screen.  You can also type by placing a cursor.  You can easily import photos or clip art and then layer text or other images over them.  You can create drawings of simple shapes.  These drawings do not match with my underlying grid so it would not work for use in making and recording notes for algebra class.  I also could not draw a triangle with a vertex not over the base.

Notability lets you then upload to Dropbox, upload to iCloud or email your file.  It supports its own format, or it can export files in TIF or PDF format.

Here is a sample file I created and uploaded to Dropbox.  It includes spelling errors that I did not clean up since I was just playing with features.

I could see using this to work simple example in response to student questions in class.  Then I could upload them to Dropbox for later entry into the blog so students can see them later.  There is an option to add audio that I have not tried that might enhance this.  I could use it to take notes at meetings as well, however it almost seems easier to write on a piece of paper and then scan the piece of paper using one of many scanner apps for the iPhone.