How To: Make Prettier Web Clips in iOS

Web clips are an often under-utilized feature of all iOS devices. The ability to add direct links to websites on your device’s home screen is often overlooked in favor of native apps that don’t always need access to the internet in order to function. However, giving students a “one-click” button to a popular web service used in your classroom makes navigating the device a bit easier, and allows them to then quickly jump quickly between multiple tabs and websites while they’re in mobile Safari, rather than dive into a single purpose app.

Many popular websites, like CNN, provide nice custom icons for the web clips you add to your home screen. However, many popular learning sites (like Spelling City), don’t always provide those nice icons, instead creating a screen shot of the entire webpage, which gives you a less than spectacular visual result. Here’s a brief video that I hope will help teachers create “prettier” web clips so it’s easier for younger learners to navigate visually if their literacy skills are quite ready for them to be using text search.

It’s not a terribly creative or “game changing” feature as far as using your learning devices to improve your instructional practice, but it is a nice way to manage your iOS device so all learners have an easier time navigating the environment.