Using Printopia with iPads to Print and Add Student Work to E-Portfolios

One of my new favorite apps is Printopia! It allows to you print from your iPad or iPhone to any printer you use with your computer. With any knew thing I use it must not complicate or add time to what I already do. We teachers are busy enough! The beauty of this app is that it requires almost no set up and it works amazingly well. It also offers some flexibility as to where you send your content. You can chose to print a document, send it to a folder on your Mac, or send it directly to Evernote.

The first thing I did was go to the ecamm website and download the app. I opted for the free trial to see if it would work for me. Installation was a snap. What trips up most people is that they think it is an app that you install on your iPad or iPhone. That’s not the case. You just need to download it once to your computer and you’re all set to go. After using it for about a day I ponied up and paid the $19.99 for the app. Very worth it!!

As I have written about in previous posts I use Evernote to build e-portfolios with my students. I also talk about how I use Skitch to allow my students to add content directly to their Evernote e-portfolios. Printopia kind of works in the same way. Anything that can be printed on an iPad can now be sent to Evernote using Printopia. Very cool!

There are certain times I’ll have the kids send stuff to a folder I have specified on my computer. That way I can look over their work before adding it to their Evernote portfolios. I can also use this folder as a container to hold stuff that I want to showcase on our class blog. I can easily drag it right into Evernote from this folder if and when I want to add it the students portfolio. Here are some screen shots to help you understand how it works.

Chose to print a document or photo.

Chose a “printer” or destination for your document.

Choose to print, send to Evernote, or a specific folder on your computer.

Tap print and off it goes!

I hope this helps. What tools, tricks or tips can you share? I would love to hear what you find works well for your situation.