iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

University

Moleskine Meets iPad in Penultimate from Evernote

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Screen Shot 2013-02-04 at 6.58.06 PM Last week Evernote updated the Penultimate app and made it available for free. Of course, I had to install it when I found out that it is available for free.

Penultimate provides a place for you to hand-write notes on your iPad. The app allows you to create multiple notebooks with multiple pages in each. You can change the color and size of the pen strokes that are created when you write in your notebooks. Each page in your notebook can include pictures that you have stored on your iPad or pictures that you take through the Penultimate app. The app provides the option to change the look of the virtual paper on which you write. You can copy and paste content from one page to another and from one notebook to another. Learn more in the video below.

All of your notes in Penultimate automatically synchronize with your Evernote account. I often see people holding up their iPads to take pictures of slides during talks. With Penultimate you can take notes about each of those slides and save them to your Evernote account. The app could be used this way by students to take notes during lectures.

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Six Weeks of iPadApps4School.com

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5043260906_f3cdd53805_mTomorrow marks six weeks since I officially launched this blog. I’ve been amazed by the response to it. In just six weeks 3,500 people have subscribed to either the RSS or email feed. To bring some organization to what I’ve reviewed so far I sat down and created a slideshow of most of the apps that I’ve reviewed in the last six weeks. The slideshow is organized in the following order: math apps, science apps, social studies apps, language arts apps, video apps, and productivity apps.

 

Image Credit: Flickr User Lin T. Image source.

Scrollshow – A Nice Free Alternative to Keynote for iPad

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Screen Shot 2012-12-21 at 11.25.28 AM Scrollshow is a neat presentation creation app for iPad. The idea behind Scrollshow is to present your slides as a continuous stream on top of a panoramic background. Unlike a typical slide presentation tool in which each slide is a separate entity, in Scrollshow the slides are integrated into the flow of a panoramic background. It kind of reminds of me Prezi. Learn more about Scrollshow in the video below.

Creating a Scrollshow presentation is similar to other slideshow creation apps. To get started select a theme and background. When you build your slides you’re really building frames within your background image. You’ll notice that the frame at the top of the editor moves with every new element that you add to your presentation. The frame is there to give you an idea of where each of your presentation elements will appear in the panorama.

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Scrollshow is a free app. For students of middle school age and higher it could be a good alternative to Keynote.

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Put Shakespeare on Your iPad

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Screen Shot 2012-12-19 at 5.16.21 PM Whether we loved it or we hated it, reading Shakespeare was something that most of us had to do in school. Today’s students read Shakespeare’s works too.  When we read Shakespeare we had to carry a physical book around. Today’s students can read Shakespeare’s works on their iPads through Shakespeare by Readdle which puts Shakespeare’s famous and lesser-known works on their iPads.

Shakespeare by Readdle includes all of Shakespeare’s published works. The app includes a search function to find specific phrases written by Shakespeare. Users can customize the app to adjust the color scheme, font style, and font size. The app also includes a scene breakdown or summary for each of the plays on the app.

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The pro version of Shakespeare by Readdle ($9.99 USD) includes an integrated glossary, a random Shakespeare quote generator, a Shakespeare facts database, and Shakespeare portraits. But if just getting Shakespeare’s works onto your students’ iPads is what you want, the free version of the app is more than adequate.

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Download Box for iPad and Get Free Storage

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Screen Shot 2012-12-13 at 9.50.37 PM Last summer Greg Kulowiec got me to try Box on my iPad. I’m glad he did because it has become one of my favorite services for storing and sharing files. I still love Evernote for bookmarking and note-taking and I’m devoted to Google Drive for much of my storage, but Box has a clean, simple layout that makes it a winner too. On Box I can create public and private shared folders to which I can send files that I want others to access. For example, I created a folder just for video files that I share with my editor at School Library Journal. She can access the folder and download the files whenever she wants. A bonus aspect is that I get an email notification when she’s accessed the files.

Box on the iPad offers the same features as Box on the web.  Currently, if you download the  free Box iOS app they will give you an additional 10GB of storage for free. The iOS app will sync with your online Box account so that you can access your files whenever you connect to the web.

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Creating a Box folder that you share with your students could be a great way to distribute content from your iPad to theirs. Whenever you update the folder you students can receive the newest files by just opening the Box app on their iPads. Learn more about Box for iPad in the video below.