iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

geography

Enjoy Learning – Free World and U.S. Map Puzzles for iPads

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Screen Shot 2013-12-17 at 9.22.12 AM Digital Gene offers a variety of educational apps for iPads and for Android tablets. Two the Digital Gene apps that I recently tried are Enjoy Learning World Map Puzzle and Enjoy Learning U.S. Map Puzzle. Both of these free iPad apps have the same basic types of puzzle activities.

In Enjoy Learning U.S. Map students have to drag and drop the states into their proper places on the map. The app has three levels of difficulty beginning with state names and borders drawn out for students and progressing to a blank map that doesn’t have any border or state name hints. The map in Enjoy Learning U.S. Map places Hawaii and Alaska in their geographically correct locations instead of off the coast of Mexico.

Enjoy Learning World Map uses the same drag and drop puzzle concept as Enjoy Learning U.S. Map. Enjoy Learning World Map allows students to study the regions of the world one at a time or the whole world at once.

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Learn the 50 States With Flat Stanley on Your iPad

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flat_stanley Learn the States With Flat Stanley is an iPad app that uses the familiar Flat Stanley character to help students learn the geography of the United States. Students practice identifying the fifty states by virtually slingshotting Flat Stanley to the name of the state appearing on their screens. When Flat Stanley lands on the correct state students are asked to spell the name of the state before moving onto the next state. Students can choose to focus on just one region of the country or they can practice the entire map at once.
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Learn the States With Flat Stanley provides a nice practice activity for elementary school students. One complaint that I have about the app, and this is a complaint I have about many geography apps, is that the map in this app does not put Alaska and Hawaii in their proper places which can lead to some students thinking that Alaska and Hawaii are located off the west coast of Mexico.

Learn the States With Flat Stanley is currently priced at $0.99.

Wikihood – An iPad App for Exploring the World

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Screen Shot 2013-12-02 at 9.12.59 AM Wikihood for iPad is a free app that combines maps and Wikipedia entries. With the app installed and location services enabled Wikihood will determine your location then show you Wikipedia entries about places, people, and events near you. If you choose not to enable location services, you can just search the Wikihood map to learn about any place in the world. For example, I simply searched for “Iceland” then clicked through the Iceland entries to open summaries about famous people, culture, economy, and the physical geography of Iceland. I could have also jumped directly to the Wikipedia page about Iceland in general.

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Wikihood could be a good iPad app for students to explore to learn about all kinds of places and events around the world. It’s kind of like having an encyclopedia and an atlas side by side. Geography teachers who assign students the task of researching a country may find that Wikihood enables students to get beyond general overview facts about a country and move into learning about the regional and or cultural differences within one country.

5 iPad Apps for Geography Awareness Week

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compass-152121_640 Next week is Geography Awareness Week. National Geographic offers the GeoBee Challenge app for students to play to sharpen their knowledge of geography. The app is challenging. Here are five other iPad apps that your students can use to learn and test their knowledge of geography.

Tiny Countries for iPad (currently priced at $0.99) is designed to help students learn the locations of 75 countries, their capitals, their notable cities, and some of their unique geographic features. Students learn this information in a game format. The scenario of the game is this, students have to help capture the “evil” characters (the characters are farm animals) by correctly answering the questions faster than the evil characters. Before trying each of the missions students can review each of the countries by tapping on the “learn” icon in the game.

SimpleSort: Continents (currently priced at $0.99) is a game in which students review physical and political geography facts then test their knowledge by dragging objects to the continents that they are representative of. For example, if students see an American Buffalo they need to drag it to North America. The concept and the visuals are not unique, but SimpleSort: Continents makes up for that shortcoming by providing clear narration for each part of the app. From the introductory screen through the end of every game students will never be stuck wondering what to do next. Students can tap on any object they see in the app to hear some information about the object. For example, if a student taps on a picture of the Galapagos Islands they’ll hear a short bit of information about them.

Discover USA (currently listed as free) is a geography iPad app that takes students on a tour of natural and man-made landmarks across the United States. Students are guided by an animated owl that talks to students at each stop on the tour. At each stop students learn a few facts from the owl. Before moving on to the next stop in tour students have to tap objects to answer some questions. Students keep track of their progress in Discover USA by collecting animated bees to put into a hive. Bees are collected at each stop in the tour. Parents can monitor the progress of their children by creating a free account on Discover USA.

Geography Drive USA (currently priced at $3.99) is an iPad app that elementary and middle school students will enjoy using. The app challenges students to drive their virtual cars to each state in the United States. The students move from state to state by correctly answering questions about each state that they visit. Students earn money for each correct answer. That money is then used to buy fuel for their cars and customize their cars. Students can also win trophies for accomplishments throughout the game. The game has more than 750 questions about state and national geography. Students will find questions about physical and political geography. There are some history questions mixed in too. In addition to the main game Geography Drive USA contains four mini-games and a visitor center. The visitor center contains information that students can use to answer questions when they get stuck. In the visitor center students can learn things like state capitals, state flags, state postal abbreviations, and the size of each state. The mini-games in Geography Drive USA ask students about state capitals, shapes, spellings, and flags.

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GeoMaster Plus (currently listed at $3.99) is an iPad app for learning and practicing identifying countries, capitals, and landmarks around the world. GeoMaster Plus offers a simple interactive atlas that students can use to familiarize themselves with the countries of the world. Students can search the atlas by country name and capital name. Students can also navigate the atlas by tapping on a country on the map. Tapping a country on the map will bring up a fact sheet about that country. Students can test their knowledge of world geography through a variety of GeoMaster Plus activities. Students can practice identifying countries and capitals in a series of progressively more difficult levels. The identification activities can be sorted by continent. In addition to practicing identifying countries and capitals students can practice identifying landmarks as well as natural geographic features like mountain ranges. For a final challenge students can try to match flags to their respective countries.

The Wider Image – A Great Way for Students to Visually Explore the News

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Screen Shot 2013-10-07 at 9.11.50 AM The Wider Image is a beautiful free iPad app from Reuters. The app features slideshows of news stories and cultural events around the world. Open the app and browse through the thumbnails until you find a story that grabs your attention. Then click through to view a slideshow with accompanying text about the story.

You can browse for stories in The Wider Image according to location. The map will show you a connection between the story and the location.

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You can save stories and slideshows to your account in the The Wider Image iPad app. Those stories that you save can be shared with others via email, Twitter, and Facebook. Saving and sharing stories could be a good feature for students in a current events class. When I taught a current events course I always had students save articles to bring to classroom discussions. With The Wider Image app your students can do the same by saving and sharing stories with you and their classmates.

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