Dropairs is Delightful!

Dropairs is the one of the coolest new Palm applications I have seen in a long time! This is one of those applications that could be used with kindergartners all the way up to seniors in high school. And, Dropairs can be used for virtually any curriculum area!

Here's the instructions from Dropairs' Help menu:

• The object of the game is to match both paris before they reach the ground.
• Two shapes are sliding from the top to the bottom, increasing speed as you advance in the game. Before the shapes hit the ground you have to find their two matching paris or your game will be over!
• Each correct match is worth 100 points, plus the remaining bonus (up to 160 points). This means the faster you match a pair, the more score you gain.
• When you match 16 pairs one after another without a single mistake, you get the big bonus: 5000 points!
• Each wrong answer will deduct 100 points off your total, and the big bonus count will reset to zero.
• To change the board you are currently playing, select "Pairs".
• You can pause the game by tapping the menu icon or tapping the upper (title-bar) part of the screen.
• During the game you can enter the letter "t" on the Graffiti area to see the correct answers. Warning! Viewing the correct answers will cost you your bonus

When you download the application, it comes with 12 Pair Boards, including boards where you match artist to their works, multiplication problems to their answers, and flags to their countries. The developer, NorthGlide, has another 24 Pair Boards on the website and promises many more to come. You can download boards to match state capitals to their states, American Sign Language letters to their finger shapes, and photos of minerals to their names. Dropairs even lets you review the pairs before you play the game.

Can't find a Pair Board that matches your curriculum? Then use Dropairs Pair Board Maker for Windows. You can make your own Pair Boards! Making your own Pair Boards takes some knowledge of working with images. First, create pairs of JPG, GIF, or BMP images (images that are 60 x 60 or 30 x 30 work best) in a drawing program. The images can have words, phrases, pictures, diagrams, numbers--you name it! You'll import these pairs of images into Dropairs Board Maker for Windows. After completing some information fields and importing the images, you can make a PDB file that loads onto your Palm handheld. You can beam your newly created Pair Board to students! The Pair Boards tend to be large files, so they will take a while to beam. Quality Pair Boards will even be posted to the NorthGlide site so more people can enjoy the boards made by others!

I have not yet made a Pair Board myself, but I have downloaded and played around with the board maker for Windows. I plan to make a Pair Board for matching photos of the staff in our school with their names so students know the names of all adults in the building. I also want to do one for second graders where they match kinds of landforms with photos of those landforms. I think making these Pair Boards will actually be some fun! I look forward to designing my own backgrounds, colors, and sounds!

Dropairs is an amazing piece of software because it is so customizable. It's even more amazing because it is free! Even the additional Pair Boards and Dropairs Pair Board Maker for Windows are free! Thank you NorthGlide!