iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

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The Three Little Pigs Come to Life In This App

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Most of us are familiar with the story of the Three Little Pigs. Three Little Piggies is an interactive iPad version of the famous fairy tale. Three Little Piggies offers three ways to enjoy the story. You can have it read to you in auto-play mode, you can read it at your own pace, or you can read along with the narrator (your choice of male or female voice). In the read along mode each word is highlighted as it is read by the narrator.

The best part of Three Little Piggies is the interactive elements built into the story. Shake your iPad and the piggies move. You can also touch the piggies to make them move. But the most fun element is the option to blow into the microphone to play the role of the wolf blowing down a house.

Three Little Piggies is currently a free app, but it’s labeled as “free for a limited time” so grab it while it’s still free.

Use TinyTap to Create Your Own iPad Games

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TinyTap is a free iPad app that allows you to create simple games based on pictures that you take. The purpose of the games you build is to help young students (pre-K through grade 4) practice identifying objects and patterns.

To create a game on TinyTap you upload pictures or take new pictures and arrange them into a set. Then select each image to create questions about it. To create your question press the record button and start talking. When you have finished talking select a portion of your picture to serve as the answer. I created a small game about objects in my house. I took four pictures of things in my house. Each question asked players to identify the objects in my house. For example, when a player sees a picture of my kitchen he or she has to identify the tea pot by touching it.

If you don’t have time to create your own games or you just want to see what others have done, you can browse the TinyTap Market. In the Market you can find a mix of free and paid games. A few of the free games that your students can play include “Dress for Winter,” “Match It,” and “Who Is Bigger?”

Haiku Deck Blows Keynote Out of the Water

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Haiku Deck is an iPad app that all students and teachers should have installed on their iPads. Haiku Deck enables anyone to create beautiful slide presentations. It’s so easy to use that when I was describing the app to someone last week I said it was like “Animoto for slide decks.” Like other slide presentation apps Haiku provides templates for creating your presentation. But there are some significant differences between Haiku Deck and other presentation apps.

There are two features of Haiku Deck that stand out. First, Haiku Deck intentionally limits how much text that you can put on each of your slides. Second, Haiku Deck helps you find Creative Commons licensed images for your presentations. When you type a word or words on your slides you can have Haiku Deck search for images for you. The images that Haiku Deck serves up are large enough to completely fill your slide. You can also upload your own images from your iPad or import images from Instagram and Facebook.

A slide from one of my Haiku Decks.

Haiku Deck has an adequate selection of free templates that should suit all students. However, Haiku Deck also has additional templates available for purchase.

Pinnacle Studio – A Fantastic Video Editing App

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If you’re looking for a new video editing app, Pinnacle Studio is one iPad app that deserves your attention.

Pinnacle Studio for iPad reminds me quite a bit of iMovie. In testing Pinnacle Studio I found it to have a more intuitive interface than iMovie (and I’ve used iMovie on my MacBook for years). Within the first thirty seconds of using the app I was applying zoom effects, trimming and combining video clips, and adding a sound track to my project. The Pinnacle Studio editor works in landscape and portrait mode although I found it easier to use in landscape mode. Your finished Pinnacle Studio project can be exported to YouTube, uploaded to a Box.net account, emailed, saved on your iPad, or sent to your PC if you have Pinnacle Studio for PC.

Students Become World Explorers With This App

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European Exploration: The Age of Discovery is a free iPad app that puts students in charge of exploring the “New World.” In the game students are in charge of selecting explorers and ships to send out to the New World. Students have to manage the finances of their expeditions so that they don’t run out of money before they can return home safely.

European Exploration: The Age of Discovery provides students with historical information about the explorers that are available to lead expeditions. Some of the explorers available include Giovanni da Verrazano, Christopher Columbus, and Juan Ponce de Leon. The explorers are graded based on their navigation, cartography, and shipkeeping skills. Each explorer has a different salary which students must account for when managing the budgets of their expeditions.

The object of the game is to unveil the entire New World. To do this students draw expedition maps and send out their explorers. If the expedition is successful it will earn money that students can then parlay into financing another expedition. Successful managers of European Exploration: The Age of Discovery will be able to manage multiple expeditions simultaneously.