iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

admin

Pango – Interactive iPad Stories and Games for Kids

by

pango_1Studio Pango produces a bunch of iPad apps that children (pre-K through grade 2) are sure to love. Some of the apps are free and some of the apps require purchase. To get a sense of what the paid apps offer, try the free apps first. This morning I tried two of the free apps. I tried Pango Book 1 and Pango Playground for Kids.

Pango Book 1 is an interactive story in which children help Pango ( little racoon-like character) take a bath, repair his house, play hide and seek, pick apples, and find hidden objects. When Pango takes a bath students scrub him with soap, rinse him off, and gather his bath toys for him. When Pango plays Hide and Seek students help him look behind and under objects. Students help Pango around the house by sawing boards, painting them, then nailing them together to build a birdhouse.

Photo-12_18_12,-12.00.14-PM-1

 

Photo-12_18_12,-12.00.14-PM-3

In Pango Playground for Kids children arrange objects in a little virtual town. Kids can find hidden objects, make trains and cars move, and slide down slides. Pango Playground for Kids has one free level. Accessing the other levels requires purchasing the full app.

YouTube Capture for iOS – Quick and Easy Video Publishing

by

youtube_captureYesterday, Google released a new YouTube iOS app. The new app is optimized for iPhone 5 but works on my iPad 2 as well. Using the YouTube Capture app you can quickly record videos and upload them to YouTube with just a couple of taps on your screen. The first time that you open the app you will be prompted to sign into your Google account and choose your sharing settings. After that you’re ready to start recording and sharing videos.

YouTube Capture includes a few options for quickly editing and enhancing your videos. Within YouTube Capture you can trim the length of your video, stabilize the images in your video, add a soundtrack to your video, and touch-up the colors in your video.

Photo-12_18_12,-10.02.22-AM-1

YouTube Capture isn’t going to replace a true video editing tool like iMovie, but using YouTube Capture could be a good way for students (13 or over) to create short video observations of things that they see on field trips. It could also be used by students to record and share short video blog entries.

Here’s a short video I made with the YouTube Capture app.

Use the Gooru iPad App to Find Good Educational Videos and More

by

Screen Shot 2012-12-17 at 12.00.29 PM Gooru is a free service that launched earlier this year with the goal of organizing educational videos and other resources according to subject and grade level. Over the weekend Gooru launched a free iPad for that purpose too. The app is called Gooru Collections.

Gooru Collections is designed for students in grades five through twelve. Through the app students can find collections of resources for studying and learning about mathematics and science. To find some resources select science or math then choose a subject within either of those categories. Before you open a collection of resources you can preview the material to see if it contains videos, text, or links to websites. Watch a tour of Gooru Collections in the video below.

Gooru Collections is completely free to use. There are not any in-app purchases and you can use it without registering on Gooru. That said, registering on Gooru will open up extra benefits like the option to organize a shelf of your favorite resources.

Photo-12_17_12,-12.20.06-PM-1

An Interactive Guide to the Revolutionary War

by

Screen Shot 2012-12-16 at 8.32.00 PM The Revolution: Interactive Guide is a free iPad app all about the American Revolution. The app is basically an interactive book for students. The app includes interactive maps, a timeline, and biographies. The maps provide a guide movements of troops throughout the war. The timeline provides students events leading up to the start of the war. The interactive biographies include John and Samuel Adams, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Paine, and Madison.

Watch a tour of the app in the video below.

This app is free and is best suited to students in grades 5-9.

How to Use the Google Drive iPad App to Create Student Portfolios

by

Google_Drive_Logo_lrg-580x461

I love Google Drive and I love my iPad, but they don’t always love each other. The Google Drive iPad app has improved over the last couple of months to the point where it’s not as robust as using Google Drive on the web or on an Android device, but it is much more functional than ever before. In fact, it’s now possible to create student portfolios through the Google Drive iPad app. Last week Greg Kulowiec, who I have done some iPad workshops with in the past, wrote up a fantastic set of directions on using the Google Drive iPad app to have students create portfolios. You can read Greg’s complete post on the topic here. The how-to video that he made I have embedded below.