Wunderlist HD s a free ‘To-Do List” which synchronises your tasks / lists across all your devices – iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and your web browser. It is a great personal organisation tool. Requires a free user account.
For more information about how it works, please visit the official site.
For: Teachers, Students (Upper Primary – Secondary), Administrators
Cost: Free (Download)
Requires WiFI?: Yes
Show Me
1) Create an online lesson for an in-class topic. Record the main ideas of your lesson and give students a link or post your creation to an online social media site.
2) Have students create a narrated visual presentation on a topic using your/their iPad and show it in class as opposed to a “stand in front of the class” type presentation.
3) Create a Vocab Map using Skitch / DoodleBuddy and ShowMe together. Pick a picture that is related to a topic you are teaching and annotate it with Skitch showing the vocabulary for the picture. Then, upload the photo and use it on ShowMe to narrate and pronounce the vocab.
4) Download the presentation and upload it to YouTube so students have instant access to your ShowMes!
These are just a few uses for ShowMe. I use it all the time, and I’m sure that you will too once you get used to it.
You can visit Phil`s blog, ESL Commando, to find more ideas for using ICT in ESL classes.
Having previously reviewed DocumentsToGo Premium ($17.99 AUD), we were pleasantly surprised to find Office HD offering almost identical features and cloud functionality at a much more affordable price ($8.49 AUD).
While neither app performs flawlessly; if you need to access and edit your Microsoft Office and cloud documents (e.g. Google Docs, Dropbox) on your iPad, we highly recommend purchasing Office HD.
Please note: There are persistent rumours that an official Microsoft Office app will be launched in late 2012. We will keep you informed.
For: Teachers, (Older) Students, Administrators
Cost: $8.49 (Download Link)
Requires WiFi?: Yes, to access documents stored online
The Brushes app is a beautiful professional painting app for the iPad. With realistic colours, hues, saturation, and colour-mixing, and advanced editing options, this app is ideal for art teachers and students.
Brushes even records your brush strokes while painting, saving your actions as a file which you can download off the web, and view in Brushes Viewer, a free application for Mac OS X.
For more information, please visit the official site: http://www.brushesapp.com.
For: Teachers, Students (Upper Primary – Secondary)
Cost: $8.49 AUD (Download Link)
Requires Wifi?: No
Further Reading
Apple iPad art: portraits created by David Kassan using the Brushes app – The Telegraph
Shakespeare in Bits brings Shakespeare to life on your iPhone, iTouch, and iPad through animated, narrated re-enactments of The Bard’s most popular plays.
Highly recommended by secondary English teachers, the app includes full study notes, plot summaries, character notes, and language explanations, helping students better understand and appreciate the plays.
The app itself is free; however, teachers will need to download the plays via in-app purchase at a cost of $15.99 AUD each. (There is a volume licensing option for the USA)
For: Secondary English teachers and students.
Cost: Plays available via in-app purchase (see above). Download Link
Requires WiFi?: Yes, but only for initial download of the plays
DocumentsToGo is one of several file management apps which enable users to view, edit, and create Microsoft Office 2007-2010 documents, (PDFs, and iWork files) on their iPad.
DocumentsToGo comes in two formats – DocumentsToGo and DocumentsToGo Premium, with the Premium version enabling users to edit PowerPoint files, and work with online files stored in Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, iDisk, etc. Both versions work with iTunes and the new DocumentsToGo desktop application to keep your files in sync with your home / work computer.
This app works as advertised, but is really only useful for teachers and students who need to edit Microsoft Office documents on their iPads. Everyday users will be better off using the Apple iWork Pages and Keynote apps.
For: Teachers, Administrators, Students (Upper Primary to Secondary)
Cost: Documents To Go ($10.45AUD) Docs To Go Premium ($17.99AUD)
Requires Wifi?: Yes, to sync files with your home computer / cloud services
QuickGraph is simply the best graphing calculator app for the iPhone and iPad. Using a simple visual & touch interface, this app makes it easy to enter, edit, and visualise 2D and 3D algebraic equations and inequalities (optional) in all standard coordinate systems. Graphs can be copied, emailed, and saved to the iPad photo library.
Please click here for a complete technical description of QuickGraph’s capabilities. Some optional features, including the ability to project visualisations on your interactive whiteboard, are available via a $1.99 in-app purchase.
For: Secondary Teachers and Students
Cost: Free (Download Link), some advanced features available via in-app purchase
Requires WiFi?: No
iPads open up exciting opportunities for teachers and students to self-publish and share their own books with authentic audiences. While iBooks Author (Mac) & Creative Book Builder (iPad) are good options, the most intuitive and professional app we’ve found to date remains Book Creator for iPad.
This app makes it easy for teachers, and students (Grade 1 and older) to create and publish their own storybooks, projects, textbooks, cookbooks, etc using their own photos, text, audio (included recorded speech), and video. The recent update to V 2.4 allows users to include hyperlinks, and combine books / chapters to create collaborative texts. (Requires iOS6).
Finished books can be saved to Dropbox, iBooks, and Evernote, or sent to your computer as an ePub or high quality PDF file. They can be imported back into the app for further collaborative editing, or submitted to the Apple iBooks Store, where they can be shared with the world.
For: Students (Primary to Secondary), Teachers
Cost: $5.49 AU (Download Link)
Requires WiFi?: No
Educational Applications
Further Reading
The iTunes U app gives teachers and students access to 500 000+ educational resources, including videos, course materials, and podcasts. Originally created to share content from top universities and colleges, such as Harvard, Cambridge, and Stanford, iTunes U was recently opened up to K-12 schools and educators.
This app allows teachers to integrate iTunes U learning materials into their subject areas, and even create their own learning area courses – including podcasts, quizzes, lessons, etc, and share them with the world.
We highly recommend teachers explore the possibilities of this free app, and discover what teaching materials are available for their learning areas, and year levels. There is currently a great deal of material suitable for secondary classes, and a growing body of materials for primary year levels.
For: Teachers, Students (K-12)
Cost: Free (Download Link)
Requires WiFi?: Yes.
Educational Applications
Please share your ideas for integrating iTunes U content into your classroom in the comments below!
Further Reading
View flash files on an iPad!!
iSwifter is a browser app that allows you to view flash files on your iPad. You open the app and enter the URL of the site you want to view. This allows you to view flash video content and play some flash based games.
It is not perfect and initially tages take a while to load but mostly it does the job. The company also makes a (Free) browser app for education called Rover.
For: Teachers, Students (Primary to Secondary)
Cost: Free for 7 days (link) but then upgrade to paid version. Alternatively, download the Rover education browser for free.
Requires WiFi?: Yes
Management Tip
Streaming can flow more smoothly than browsing.
Please help us to build these resources for teachers by supporting the research. Click here to complete a short survey and enter the draw to win an iTunes voucher.
Check the students’ understanding before, during and after a lesson.
Pinnion is an online polling and an audience response app. There are versions for iPads, iPhones and Andriod devices. You can create surveys and quizzes, and share a link via email or Twitter. There is even a WordPress plug-in for your blog.
For: Teachers, Students (Primary to Secondary)
Cost: free for launch
Requires WiFi?: Yes
Management Tip
How to use Pinnion
Explain Everything This is the screen casting app that I am using with the TIPS research project schools. It provides a way for students to create and produce their own resources and share their learning.
Many teachers use this app to deliver instructional content to students. You can capture your lesson with diagrams, demonstrations typed or drawn and annotated pictures. This is easily shared with students to view as many times as they need at home or at school.
* Note: Google Drive integration is coming in imminent release of EE v2.0 in late Jan 2013)
Suitable for primary to secondary classes, Explain Everything is integrated with Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Drive; making it very easy to import materials (e.g. pictures, slides, documents) from your computer or the internet (including your web browser!).
Explain Everything is the only screen-casting app which allows users to choose where they export and share their work. Screencast movies, and EE project files, can be emailed, or saved to the iPad Camera Roll, Evernote, and Dropbox. This allows users to collaboratively edit project files, and choose a service to host their video online (e.g. YouTube).
With advanced editing options, including the abilities to create multiple slides, feature live websites, and use visual aids (eg. arrows, laser pointer), Explain Everything remains the most versatile screen-casting app in the Apple Store, and comes highly recommended by iPad educators around the world.
In response to common complaints about the length of time required to render EE project files to movie formats, Explain Everything recently released the Explain Everything Compressor for Mac OS X (10.7 / 10.8 only). This paid app ($14.99) enables users to render EE videos on their computer – saving a considerable amount of time. (Click here for an alternative non-Mac solution – via EdTechTeacher).
For: Teachers, Students (Primary to Secondary)
Cost: $2.99 AUD (Download Link). (VPP Option)
Requires WiFi?: Yes, but only for access to full functionality and web-sharing.
Please help us to build these resources for teachers by supporting the research. Click here to complete a short survey and enter the draw to win an iTunes voucher.
Educreations is an incredible FREE interactive whiteboard tool available as an iPad app and online web tool. Once you create a (free) account, it is easy to add images, draw pictures, and write on the whiteboard slides as you explain your ideas.
When you’re happy with your video, you can watch it on the iPad, or upload to the Educreations website. You can share your videos publicly or privately, via email, Facebook, Twitter, or the Educreations Tutorial Gallery (under development). Public screencasts can be embedded into blogs, websites, etc.
Educreations is a more advanced app than ShowMe, and it was specifically designed with educators in mind (see the video tutorial below). Like ShowMe, teachers recommend the use of teacher / class accounts to save and share student videos (tip via blog post by @nate_kremer)
For: Teachers, Students (Primary to Secondary)
Cost: Free! (Download Link)
Requires WiFi: Yes, to upload completed work
Please contribute to our iPad research by completing a short survey, and entering our draw to win an ITunes voucher!
Make the pages come alive by using augmented reality.
Augmented reality combines computer graphics and images of natural objects to make a 3D image or simulation. This is used in advertisements and texts indicated by a large A icon.
To use this app in class, the students can create their own video footage to link to an icon. This is good for learning journeys to showcase project work.
It can also be used outside in treasure hunts and discovery trails, where icons are posted around the school. When students scan the icons using the Aurasma App or the iPad the Auras they have created will spring into life giving the audio and video commentary.
For: Students (Secondary) & Teachers
Cost: Free for lite version (Download Link)
Requires WiFi?: Yes
Your views are important to this research. Help us in the Tips research project to support teachers as they use iPads in education.
This week, our focus is on maths.
How do you use iPads to support teaching and learning in maths classes? Please leave us a comment sharing details of the maths apps you use, and a short descriptor of how you use them in your classroom.
Give us some guidelines about which grade levels will find the app or activity most useful.
Thanks,
Jenny
Dr. Jenny Lane
