Lifecards – Postcards

Lifecards – Postcards is a canvas app that allows users to create informational newspapers, postcards, and pictures from pre-made templates. Using the templates helps users to create professional-looking periodicals and documents. When engaging Lifecards – Postcards, users are able to add text and include images by importing them from their photo album, map tool, or Facebook page. Lifecards – Postcards also lets users add images by using the iPad’s camera or inserting a drawing. Once a document has been created, users can share it through email and social media websites or save it as a PDF or image file.

Instructional Ideas

1. After selecting a template, students can use it to create informational newspaper articles about any significant event, person, time period, concept, or theory from any subject area. Teachers can add a research component to this assignment by requiring students to include specific evidence (e.g., quotes, paraphrases, or examples) in their articles.
2. This app can be used as part of a modified jigsaw activity. To do so, the teacher would begin with a topic and divide it into parts (e.g., The Water Cycle could be the topic, and the different parts are Evaporation and Transpiration, Condensation, Precipitation, and Accumulation). Next, the teacher would create student groups and assign each group member a specific part of the topic. Then, students would create a document about their part of the topic using this app. Finally, with their created reports, each group member would report back to his or her group and present the work to the other group members.
3. Students can use the templates to write letters from the perspective of historical figures, fictional characters, or witnesses of historical events.
4. Teachers can use this app to celebrate or share student work. For example, students can share their work by saving it as a .jpeg file and then posting it to Edmodo or sending it as an email. Teachers can celebrate their students’ work by printing out exemplary documents and hanging them in their classroom or by posting them to a class website.
5. When creating documents about geographical places, students can visit the place of study using the Google Earth app and take a screen shot. Then, when creating a document, students can insert that image into their work.

Screenshots