Great iPad Apps for the Classroom - Part II

Here is Part II of a list of iPad Apps that my colleagues and I recommend for classroom iPads.  These are excellent Apps for creating and sharing.  Give them a try.  They are very easy to use and figure out.  We also suggest these Apps to parents for their kids.  We are not into skill and drill, we prefer making things.  These are a good place to start.  Many of them work on an iPhone or iPod, as well.

App Icon	Description     and  single-copy price/volume price - 20 or more
	Baiboard is an ipad app that allows you to create, share and collaborate on your education content.  It allows for zoomable multi-page whiteboard, collaborative annotation on PDF docs, and screen sharing from iPad to web browser.  Free
	Qrafter (Crafter) is a two-dimensional barcode scanner for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Its main purpose is to scan and parse the contents of QR Codes.  Free
	Feltz allows you to create pictures from over 550 felt graphics to play with. So if you want to make a farm, a monster flying a plane, dinosaurs and frogs on skateboards or a simple flower, your imagination is the limit.  $.99/$.49
	Comic Life, the award winning photo comic creation software, is the funnest, easiest and fastest way ever to create photo comics on a mobile device. Your comics come to life with our integrated reader on brilliant iOS displays. Easily go from taking photos to creating full comics all on one device with full page templates and panel layouts.  $4.99/$2.49
	Hopscotch teaches kids to code using simple, intuitive building blocks. Kids can create games, animations and other programs in this colorful, interactive environment.  Free
	Daisy the Dinosaur! is a free, fun app that has an easy drag and drop interface that kids of all ages can use to animate Daisy to dance across the screen. Kids will intuitively grasp the basics of objects, sequencing, loops and events by solving this app's challenges.  Free
	Skitch is an app that will help you show how you feel instead of writing about it. Snap it, mark it, and send it on. Capture a photo and make a friend laugh with you or inspire a student by labeling the insides of a robot. Impress your boss with a snap of the white board with her comments right after the meeting finishes.  Free
	Drawing Box Free is the most suitable app to learn and practice drawing and painting. With responsive smooth pencil and brush strokes, graphical and intuitive interface, you can use it to make a quick sketch or a detailed study on the go.   Free
	Voice Record Pro is a professional voice recorder. It allows you to record voice memos and on-site sounds at unlimited length with configurable quality.  Recorded voices are in standard AAC/MP4/M4A format. They can be converted to MP3 and can be saved in various places.  Free
	Light-bot is a programming puzzle game: a puzzle game that uses game mechanics that are firmly rooted in programming concepts.  Light-bot LITE lets players gain a practical understanding of basic concepts like writing instruction sequences and procedures, just by guiding a robot with commands to light up tiles and solve levels.  Free
	Popplet is a platform for your ideas. Popplet's super simple interface allows you to move at the speed of your thoughts. With Popplet you can capture your ideas and sort them visually in realtime. Quickly and easily!  Free
	My WebDav can turn your iPhone, ipad, ipod into WebDav client, download files from WebDav server and upload files into WebDav server.  Free
	Book Creator is the simple way to create your own beautiful iBooks, right on the iPad. Read them in iBooks, send them to your friends, or submit them to the iBookstore.  Ideal for children’s picture books, photo books, art books, cook books, manuals, textbooks, and the list goes on.  $4.99/$2.49
	Google Drive is one safe place for all your stuff. Upload photos, videos, documents, and other files that are important to you, then access what you need wherever you go, on any device.   Free

Great iPad Apps for the Classroom - Part I

Here is Part I of a list of iPad Apps that my colleagues and I recommend for classroom iPads.  These are excellent Apps for creating and sharing.  Give them a try.  They are very easy to use and figure out.  We also suggest these Apps to parents for their kids.  We are not into skill and drill, we prefer making things.  These are a good place to start.  Many of them work on an iPhone or iPod, as well.

App Icon	Description     and  single-copy price/volume price - 20 or more
	Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere.  $2.99/$1.49
	Pages is the most beautiful word processor you’ve ever seen on a mobile device. This powerful word processor helps you create gorgeous reports, resumes, and documents in minutes. Pages has been designed exclusively for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch with support for Multi-Touch gestures and Smart Zoom.  Free on new iPads
	Keynote is the most powerful presentation app ever designed for a mobile device. Built from the ground up for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, it makes creating a world-class presentation — complete with animated charts and transitions — as simple as touching and tapping.  Free on new iPads
	Numbers is the most innovative spreadsheet app ever designed for a mobile device. Created exclusively for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, Numbers includes support for Multi-Touch gestures and Smart Zoom so you can create powerful spreadsheets using just your fingers.  Free on new iPads
	iMovie puts everything you need to tell your story at your fingertips, with a beautifully streamlined interface and Multi-Touch gestures that let you enjoy your videos like never before. Browse your video library, quickly share favorite moments, and create beautiful HD movies and Hollywood-style trailers. And with iCloud, you can enjoy them in iMovie Theater on all your devices.  Free on new iPads
	GarageBand turns your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go. Use Multi-Touch gestures to play a piano, organ, guitar, and drums. They sound and play like their counterparts, but let you do things you could never do on a real instrument.  Free on new iPads
	iBooks is an amazing way to download and read books. iBooks includes the iBooks Store, where you can download the latest bestselling books or your favorite classics – day or night. Browse your library on a beautiful bookshelf, tap a book to open it, flip through pages with a swipe or a tap, and bookmark or add notes to your favorite passages.  Free on new iPads
	Office² HD, the most intuitive and straightforward office document editor available on the iPad, makes it easy to open, view, create and edit Word (DOC & DOCX), Excel (XLS & XLSX), and PowerPoint (PPT & PPTX) files right from your iPad!  $7.99/$3.99
	Pixie is the award winning authoring tool students can use to share ideas, imagination, and understanding through a combination of text, original artwork, voice narration, and images. Students can use Pixie’s paint tools, text options, clip art, and voice recording to develop storybooks, curriculum projects, videos, and so much more.  $9.99/$4.99
	Storybook Maker is an amazing app for children to express their creativity. With Storybook Maker you can make a book and share it with friends! The app comes equipped with all the tools needed to create incredible and exciting stories!  $.99/$.49
	iMotion HD is an intuitive and powerful time-lapse and stop-motion app for iOS.  Take pictures, edit your movie and export HD 1080p & 720p videos to your device or directly to Youtube.  Free
	GoodNotes lets you take handwritten notes, sketch diagrams, mark-up PDFs and organize them on a beautiful bookshelf. Turn pages with a swipe, highlight or add notes to any page, and share your notes with anyone. GoodNotes will automatically save your notes and has full backup function to prevent data loss.  $5.99/$2.99
	Notability is the best-selling note-taking app on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Notability is so powerful that it will transform how you work: sketch ideas, annotate documents, sign contracts, complete worksheets, keep a journal, jot travel notes, teach a class, make a presentation and much more. With iCloud support, your notes stay up to date on all your devices!  $2.99/$1.49

Lenmar Power Pack

This power pack from Lenmar is outstanding for iPhones and iPads.  The one that we have is the Lenmar Wave 7000.  My daughter took it on her trip to Washington, D.C. and had great success keeping her iPhone 5S charged on the bus.  Her friends all wanted one.  It was easy to charge and easy to use.  If you are looking for an external portable charging source, this could be your answer.

Office2 HD is an Awesome App for the iPad

Office2 HD is an awesome iPad app.  It does cost $7.99, but well worth the money.  It is  like buying Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, but you are getting Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, for one price.  You can edit and save current documents, as well as create new documents from scratch.  Documents can be saved locally on the iPad or saved to a server or cloud.

We have found the Webdav connection allows our teachers and students to create, edit, and save right to their server account.  It is also extremely easy and convenient to disconnect from the server, so that others can use an iPad that is shared in a classroom.  Office2 HD also connects to Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, as well as other cloud services.  This app is very versatile.

I would recommend this app for you to try.  With wifi access to files and the ability to create and edit documents and presentations, this is quite useful.  It also allows you to save as .DOC, .DOCX, .PPT, .PPTX, .XLS, and .XLSX.  I have found it to also open and view Pages, Keynote, and Numbers files, though you cannot edit.  Give it a try.

Desmos Graphing Calculator for iPad

Desmos is a nice online graphing calculator for a browser.  I posted earlier about it, but they have recently introduced a free iPad app for graphing calculator fans.  You can click here to download the free app for your iPad.

On the iPad, you can graph on cartesian, parametric, and polar graphs.  It has nice slider feature for variable graphs.  You can easily zoom in or out on your graphs.  You can graph inequalities, as well.  You can also use it as a scientific calculator - even if you don't need a graph.

This app is very easy to use and intuitive to figure out.  Give it a try.

Flipboard

Create an online magazine just for you.  Sound great, well it is.  With Flipboard, you can bring all of your online accounts into one application right on your iPad or iPhone.  It also works on other devices, as well. Flipboard allows me to set up one app and read my Twitter feed, Facebook, Google Reader, and many other accounts.  I get to choose what comes in.  It even brings in the photos that go with the article, so I can decide if I want to read more or just skip over it.  It's awesome.

I can also reply to articles by re-tweeting, sharing, and emailing.  It really does bring all of your social networks together in one easy location.  Check out all of the the things you can add.  It has different subject materials, so you can add topics that Flipboard collects based on that topic.  I add some tech topics as well as sports topics.  It even allows you to add hashtag searches, so you can bring in those Twitter topics you are keeping close tabs on.

The nice thing is that you can control it all.  I really think that anyone that owns an iPad should take advantage of Flipboard.  It is one powerful app.  Download the app here and give it a look.  I think you'll love it.

Skitch for Science

In an earlier post, I mentioned a free App for the iPad called Skitch.  I thought I might share a way that Skitch can be used in the classroom.  Students can use a picture of an item, and label it's parts.  I will use a picture of a frog that I obtained from Flickr.  The picture will be loaded into the photo library on the iPad.  Students will open the image in Skitch and label the known parts of the frog.

The picture below will be the Skitch markup with parts of the frog labeled.

So, very quickly, you can have a picture labeled by the students to illustrate the parts they know, or show the parts they don't.  Skitch allows for easy annotation of a picture or document, as well as easy saving of the new and marked up diagram.

Another way Skitch could be used is by having your students take pictures of an experiment to document the process.  They could open the pictures in Skitch to label and document the what the picture is showing.  Once all of the pictures are marked up and completed, the students could use them in some other program to report out their findings - like a word processor or presentation software.  Skitch would allow the student to explain the picture in detail, right on the picture.

Online Stopwatch and Timer

Teachers are frequently looking for a way to keep track of time.  Online stopwatch is a free and easy online tool that can be projected onto a screen or just utilized on your computer.  Whether you want a stopwatch, or a countdown clock, this is an outstanding site to visit.  It can be used in many ways,, provides multiple different formats, and because it is web-based, can be accessed on many different devices.  I know teachers that have used it for timing standardized assessments, timing speeches, and for many other activities.  If you want to keep track of time, this is for you.  Give it a try, it is one bookmark you'll want to save.  Check out the chart below for other ways this free tool can be used.

Skitch

Skitch is an awesome iPad annotation application. It allows you to mark up and save pictures, add text, take pictures, and add voice. It is so easy to use, and so flexible, you'll absolutely love it. You can bring your picture in from just about anywhere - your photos, the camera, the web, a map, etc.

One of the other features that I just love, is that Skitch was purchased by Evernote. Evernote is one of my favorite applications and Skitch will save directly into your Evernote account. Skitch also sends to Twitter, an email, or into your photos folder. Take a picture, mark it up, and send it to a friend or your students.

In the photo collage below, you will see many different features right at your fingertips.

3 Free iPad Drawing Apps

Here are three drawing apps for the iPad.  They seem to be pretty good for kids to be able to produce work.  Thanks to Shannon Miller for mentioning these.  There are different features available for each program.  These product are free and can be used by students of all ages.  They can play and create.  Check them out.

Crayola's ColorStudio HD - You can make pages using animations, clip art, and free writing.  Work can be saved or shared via email.  The user can also save a picture of their page with a screen-capture.  

Doodle Buddy for iPad -  You can create pages of artwork.  Doodle, stamp, add sounds and pictures to create you work.  Share your work via e-mail or save a picture with a screen-capture.

SketchBook Express - A high-quality tool for creating art.  Use tools to create pencil, pen, or brush marks.  You can also use shapes to create lines, circles, squares, etc.  You can even use layers to add depth to your creations.

10 iPad Apps Every Teacher Needs

Pages
9.99 (4.99 for schools buying at Volume Pricing)
Pages is a word-processing application.  It is designed to allow the user to edit, create, and view documents.  The documents can easily be shared via e-mail, or iTunes.  You can add photos and graphs to your word-processing and you can also utilize some standard templates to create new documents.  Pages is a necessity for the iPad user.

Keynote
9.99 (4.99 for schools buying at Volume Pricing)
Keynote is a presentation application.  It is designed to allow the user to edit, create, view, and share presentations.  Like pages, Keynote presentations can be shared easily via e-mail or iTunes.  Photos, graphs, charts, and other media can be added to your presentations.  It is an outstanding application for the iPad.

Numbers

9.99 (4.99 for schools buying at Volume Pricing)

Numbers is a spreadsheet application.  It is designed to allow the user to edit, create, and view spreadsheets.  It is easily share via e-mail and iTunes.  Data entry and chart creation are nicely accessible in the iPad app, making the Numbers app quite helpful to teachers that utilize spreadsheets.

Air Display

9.99 (4.99 for schools buying at Volume Pricing)

Air Display is an application that allows the iPad to take control of the users computer.  The display of the iPad mirrors the display of the other computer.  The user then utilizes the computers software and documents to perform tasks.  Teachers with LCD projectors on their computers can get the iPad to perform like a Interactive White Board if their computer has software that allows writing.  See information by Wesley Fryer with regards to that process.

Dropbox

Free

Dropbox is a free online storage application.  It is a site that installs on iPads, iPods, iPhones, and computers so the user can store files and have access to them no matter where they are.  Sign up for your free account at dropbox.com and get your friends to sign up as well.  Them more people you get to sign up, the more free storage space you get.

Evernote

Free

Evernote is an outstanding note-taking and idea-organizing application.  It can be used on an iPad or computer with an account that syncs the information between the locations.  It is easy to record audio, take photos, and write notes that can be organized into topic notebooks.  Your account will even give you and email address to e-mail notes into Evernote.  

Google Search

Free

Google Search makes searching the internet extremely easy, by saving you keystrokes.  Google Search utilizes Google's searching capabilities - like Voice Search (speak into the phone or iPad and it translates and starts the search), Google Goggles (searches using photo recognition - take a picture and it tries to find it), and it also uses your location to find information that is in your vicinity.  This is an outstanding application.

Dragon Dictation

Free

Dragon Dictation is a voice-to-text translator.  This application records your speech and translates it into text with outstanding accuracy.  The text can then be sent to others by text message, e-mail, and cut to your clipboard.  Dragon Dictation also connects easily to social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Show Me

Free

Show Me is a screencasting application.

See Previous Post

Screen Chomp

Free

Screen Chomp is a screencasting application.

See Previous Post

Here are 10 applications that your iPad would love to have.  The applications will help you be productive and efficient.  As you can see, I like "Free" and feel like there is so much out there to help you do good work.  Here are some.  Send me your others.

Honorable Mention

Scan - A QR Code Reader

Dictionary.com - A Dictionary and Thesaurus look up.

Keynote Remote - Allows you to control your Keynote Presentations from your iPad.