Children's iPad App, Strip Designer

Children's iPad App Review by Susan Stephenson, www.thebookchook.com

Strip Designer

$2.99 via iTunes

Website

Screen shot from website

I'm genuinely excited about the potential for self-expression and creativity in the iPad app, Strip Designer. While it's a comic editor, and a good one, it's also a wonderful visual way for kids to create and to demonstrate learning. Adults will enjoy the filters and editing possibilities. They'll also appreciate the fact that children using Strip Designer have the opportunity to describe, compare, explain, organise thoughts, problem solve, test, design and implement ideas. Strip Designer is useful to a wide range of ages and abilities, including adults and ESL learners.

As I navigate my way through the many apps I test out, I'm gaining a real appreciation for those that are well-designed, have very little delay or lag, and still manage to offer a range of alternatives. Strip Designer has clear-cut explanations built into the app, and on the website, but most functions are intuitive. While the app comes with stickers and word art that kids will love, I was particularly impressed with the fact that Strip Designer also offers users the function of creating stickers by drawing our own. You can see a small fish and bird I added to my random collection of photos in the strip below.

Strip created by The Book Chook

Strip Designer is an excellent choice for home or classroom. I can see children taking photos and adding captions to develop their own stories, or creating a collection of their favourite hobbies and interests with Strip Designer and CC pictures from the internet. Parents could help beginning readers use it to develop simple sight word collections for purpose-snapped photos. Take a look at some students in 3/4C at The Junction who used Strip Designer to show their understanding of onomatopoeia.

At less than the price of a cup of coffee, I believe Strip Designer is excellent value for money.

In case you missed it, here's my earlier review of Children's iPad App, Night Zookeeeper Drawing Torch.

(I've been researching iPad apps for kids that encourage creative thinking and learning, and will review them here over the coming months. Some will be free; some will be reasonably-priced. I'll particularly be looking for apps that are fun, educational and family-friendly. Wait, lets be honest, they need to be BookChook friendly! I love apps that have great support, encourage learning, creativity or self-expression, are value-for-money and simple to use. I don't like apps that have aggressive ads and in-app purchases. It's the aggression I object to - an app developer needs to make money, but some are completely over-the-top. If you're a parent or a teacher searching for such apps, why not subscribe to the blog by RSS, or try the Facebook and Twitter buttons in the left sidebar. In my reviews, I'll put the Australian iTunes link. If you live in the US, you just need to replace the "au" in my link with a "us". Well, that's what works for me!)