Draw and Tell HD

iPad

Teaches: language, creativity

CTR Rating: 94%

CTR Review

The title says it all with this well designed creativity app for young children -- the first to successfully mix a full featured drawing program with narration, by way of the iPad's microphone. Think of your iPad or iPhone as a drawing/flannel board and story telling machine. The drawing is just one part of what this app does well. It is paired with a narration feature that makes it easy to do a "color commentary" on the picture you just made. The end result is a powerful language experience. After you finish your picture, you tap a microphone, and are told to "record your voice -- 3-2-1-Go!" As a recording light flashes, you can describe your work. Note that this is a very different process than apps like Doodlecast, where you redraw your picture and talk in real time. With this app, an innovative highlighter is layered over your drawing, letting you highlight features as you talk; a nice touch. Once you have a picture and a highlighted soundtrack, your work is saved automatically in your photo library, making it possible to share by email. This works backwards as well... you can import images and sketch or talk over them, with a glow in the dark marker, if you like. For pure creative punch, this title offers more than any app we've reviewed, with 22 varieties of paper (including blank), a set of crayons, paints and fine-point pencils. The 156 item sticker library has non-branded, resizable items that can be dragged, dropped, or erased by moving them off the screen. We noted that it is possible for it to become "stuck" under a menu bar; a frustrating problem. In all other cases, there is an undo feature. Weaknesses include some overbearing cello music -- that is nice -- but on by default. Fortunately you can turn it off, but that requires finding the icon that is only on the home screen. In the short history of children's apps, Duck Duck Moose (DDM) has more than it's share of home runs, but this one is the most important. It stands a good chance of becoming the "KidPix for the iPad" providing a few bugs are worked out.