iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

digital storytelling

Tell About This – Quickly Create Simple Digital Stories

by

Screen Shot 2014-01-13 at 4.31.04 PM From the developer of the popular story starter app Write About This comes a new iPad app called Tell About This (free and paid versions available). Tell About This is a fantastic new iPad app through which students can quickly create short digital stories. The concept behind the app is simple and well-executed. When students open Tell About This they can pick from an assortment of pictures that contain a story starter. Students listen and or read the story prompt and reply by tapping the record button to record a short story about the picture that they see. The stories that students record can be saved to their iPads or emailed to their teachers.

In addition to using the existing story prompts, Tell About This allows teachers and students to create and share their own story prompts. To create a story prompt just take a picture or import a picture from your camera roll, add some text, and record the prompt.

Evernote Camera Roll 20140113 163135

Tell About This is available in a free version and a paid version ($2.99). The free version of the app limits students to one story and a small collection of story prompts. The paid version of the app allows you access more story prompts, offers unlimited student profiles on the app (no email required), and unlimited story creations.

Easy Studio – Grab This App Gone Free and Make Great Animations

by

Screen Shot 2013-12-13 at 1.00.27 PM

Update: The app was free for the day on 12/13/2013. It is back to full price today. That said, it is one of the few apps that I think is worth $3.99.

Easy Studio is a great app that students can use to create animated videos on their iPads. The app normally costs $3.99, but it is free to download today. If you download it today you will also get new holiday templates to use in your video productions.

The process of creating a video on Easy Studio is a drag and drop process. To create a video a child drags shapes and characters into place on a scene. The process is repeated to create each new scene in the video. After all of the scenes have been created the child taps the play button to see how the video looks. A child using Easy Studio for the first time can follow one of the six story templates to get a feel for how the creation process works.

I discovered that Easy Studio is free today through Apps Gone Free.

Toonia Storymaker – Create, Read, and Share Illustrated Stories

by

toonia_storymaker Toonia Storymaker is a cute iPad app that children can use to create short illustrated stories. To create stories on Toonia Storymaker children choose pre-drawn characters and settings for their stories. The characters can be dropped into multiple settings within the same story. The appearance of the characters in Toonia Storymaker can be edited. Once a character and setting is chosen children can type their stories in the speech bubbles. When the story is complete it can be emailed to parents and teachers or simply saved in the app.

Toonia Storymaker does not require children to start every story from scratch. The app offers a couple of pre-made stories that children can read and edit. Any story that a child saves on the app can be revisited and edited at anytime. In that way you could have students craft a story, email it to you, and then you can give them suggested edits for their stories. Doing that could make using Toonia Storymaker a fun way for students to develop their creative writing skills.

Evernote Camera Roll 20131210 130641

Toonia Storymaker is currently listed at $2.99.

Doodlecast Pro Is Free Right Now – Grab It While You Can

by

Screen Shot 2013-11-27 at 5.29.01 PM Thanks to Tony Vincent, I just learned that Doodlecast Pro is currently available for free. Usually, this awesome app costs $3.99.

Doodlecast Pro is an excellent iPad app for creating instructional videos. At its most basic level Doodlecast Pro allows you to draw on a whiteboard and explain what you’re doing at the same time. You can adjust the size and color of the drawing tools. Doodlecast Pro records everything that you draw and say. You can pause and resume recordings at any time. If you have images on your iPad’s camera roll that you would like to include in your Doodlecast Pro video, you can import them into your project. Your Doodlecast Pro creations can have up to 100 pages in them. You can flip between pages during your recording. Doodlecast Pro also allows you to save a work in progress and come back to finish it later. When you are finished with your project you can export your video to YouTube or save it to your iPad’s camera roll.

Watch the video below for an overview of Doodlecast Pro’s features.

Photo-1_8_13-3.06.01-PM-2-e1357910323845

Book Creator for iPad Now Supports Handwriting

by

book_creator The very popular iPad app Book Creator recently received a couple of updates of note. The first update was a new look for iOS 7 users. iOS 6 users will be happy to see that even though the app has been updated, it will still work the same way on their devices. The more important update to Book Creator is the addition of support for handwriting and free-hand drawing in your books.

Book Creator allows anyone to create their own books using images, text, videos, free-hand drawings, handwriting, and audio recordings. You can arrange your book in three different formats; portrait, square, or landscape. Each page in your book can include pictures and videos from your iPad’s camera roll and or from your iTunes library. In addition to the pictures and videos you can include as much as text as you can fit on each page. In fact, if you just want to have text on a page you can do that. If you would like to narrate your book you can tap the record button to add your voice to each page of your book. Every page in your book can have a custom color scheme.

Book Creator costs $4.99 (less with volume purchasing), but you can try it and create one entire book for free. Click here to try the free version.

Book Creator for the iPad from Book Creator for iPad on Vimeo.