With the auto-scan option, it is not as critical that the student hold the iPad level with the document, and they do not have to have a finger free to touch the shutter button. In the scanning function the app has both auto-scan and manual scan options. The text-to-speech option is working beautifully with some online articles that I recently downloaded as PDF files. As with all PDF files, however, the speech-to-text feature can only be used with a text PDF file, not a scanned file or a “picture” file. The text-to-speech voice is fairly natural-sounding, and the rate can be adjusted. This can be very helpful, because when using VoiceOver with either PDF Expert or Noteshelf, VoiceOver will not read the text of the PDF it will only speak the buttons for the app itself. One of the best features of PDF Expert is that it offers a text-to-speech option for downloaded PDF text files. Here are some other pros and cons of each app: In any case, it requires one less step for students to scan and work with documents in Noteshelf 2, which is an advantage, but it is also a very fast process to use the Notes app or a scanning app to scan a document and then open it in PDF Expert, as shown in the blog post mentioned above. At the time of this writing the price of Noteshelf 2 and PDF Expert by itself was the same each cost $10.00. The ScannerPro app is a very powerful scanning app on its own, but it is slightly more expensive to purchase the bundle than to purchase PDF Expert alone (although the App Store often offers a discounted price for the bundle). The document is then opened in PDF Expert. PDF Expert requires that the document be scanned in a separate scanning app, such as the Notes app (as shown in the blog post, Notes and PDF Expert Scanning, Editing, and Graphing) or ScannerPro, which is an app which can be purchased in a bundle with PDF Expert by Readdle. One of the biggest differences between the two apps is that the Noteshelf 2 app has a built-in scanning feature, so there is no need to use two separate apps to complete a scan and open the document directly in Noteshelf. Hopefully this information will spark some ideas for teachers and students about how to use notetaking apps to improve organizational skills and productivity (for both the students and the teachers!). There are also other notetaking apps out there, but these are the two with which I am most familiar. I use both apps on a regular basis, and I do not endorse one or the other each has its advantages and disadvantages. In Part 2, I will discuss some of the differences between the two apps and present some pros and cons of each. I also presented a checklist template for progress monitoring of notetaking skills. In Part 1 of my posts on the topic of notetaking apps for the iPad, Note-taking Applications for the iPad: Part 1, I discussed two available iOS apps, PDF Expert and Noteshelf 2, and described the ways in which students can use these apps to complete, organize, and submit assignments and decrease the amount of paper copies they have to manage.
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