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Title: Paper
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free with in-app purchases available

It's been at least a couple of years since FiftyThree's Paper app originally launched. The latest update brings the app to the iPhone and adds some new features, functionality, and updates. As a result the app is now, even more than it was before, a tool that teens and library staff will want to consider for their arsenal of creative thinking, note-taking, and designing tools.

Watch the 14.5 minute screencast below to see a brief overview of how the app works and read the rest of this post after that screencast to find out a bit more.


As the screencast shows, the Paper app makes it easy to write notes, to create drawings, and to save and caption photos. All of these can also be combined so that drawings can be added to images and notes can be added to drawings. With each iteration of Paper the tool becomes more and more powerful as something for teens and others to use.

How might teens and library staff that work with them use Paper:

• As a tool for visual note taking. For some students using drawings and sketches as a way to take notes is much more effective than traditional text note taking. Paper can help with that visual note taking. If you want to learn more about visual note taking there's a great post on Sketchnoting to check out.
• For creating drawings when learning about visual arts. Learn how the Guggenheim Museum used Paper for this purpose.
• As a way to create to-do lists for projects, homework, research, and more. Because the app makes it so easy to create lists and save what's created into folders, it's easy to create a collection of resources for a specific purpose. For example, a teen might create a Paper space/folder called App Project and in it save sketches of potential app designs, lists of URLS for learning how to code apps, to do lists for building an app or website, and more.
• To use as a visual drawing tool during a brainstorming session. For example, as a part of a service learning project teens might brainstorm various outcomes of their project. In that brainstorming the teens could use Paper to visually diagram their ideas and plans.
• As a tool to expand digital and visual literacies. In the YALSA Future of Library Service for and with Teens: A Call to Action report, the importance of supporting acquisition of media literacy for teens is highlighted as a priority for libraries. Because of the combination of tools that Paper provides, it has great potential for helping teens to develop skills in these areas.

Don't miss the Paper blog - The Open Studio to learn more about the various ways you and teens might use the app. Also, as noted in the screencast, make sure to check-out the tips available within the app. There's lots more possible then is highlighted here.

Title: Post-it Plus

Cost: Free, with in-app purchases

Platform: iOS

From LiveScribe to Moleskine, there have been a number of visions on how to capture the physical process of notetaking in a digital incarnation. Like many with a love for stationary, I had played around with the digital sticky note applications, but when a student raved about the Post-it app, it sounded like something more than a mere yellow placeholder.

There are two methods for creating notes. You can add them with a click, as you might in decades-old Windows programs, or your can photograph your actual physical notes. The in-app photography mechanism is among the easiest I've seen, coaching you on light levels and holding your device steady. But it's what happens when you take that picture that sets this app apart.

In contrast with Evernote and its associated applications, Post-it Plus is a little different: it doesn't attempt to make sense of your writing. Each note remains its own image, which can be dragged and dropped into intuitive order. But you can write more on the notes, or even use a typewriter gadget for longer, more legible input, or even delete it altogether after you have capture or refined the sentiment.

Your scanned notes retain their original colors, but a $2 in-app purchase gives you access to a rainbow's worth of post-it color options, which also make for fun organizational options. When you're done with your creation, you can share it in a range of file formats, depending on your needs.

Post-it Plus is a possible solution for students, teachers, and librarians, or anyone else looking for digital brainstorming and storyboarding tools that can be output in a variety of file formats. The transformation of the fixed physical into the mutable digital is bound to give you a little thrill, too.

Check out more Apps of the Week in our Archive. Know an app you'd like to see featured? Let us know.