iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

free app

Students Become Disease Detectives in Solve the Outbreak

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Screen Shot 2013-03-21 at 7.53.13 PM Solve the Outbreak is a free iPad app produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The app is a game that contains three epidemics for students to research. In each investigation students have to read the background, read clues, analyze data, and answer questions. The questions put students in the role of a medical professional tasked with helping to curtail the spread of the epidemic. Points are awarded to students for correct answers.

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Solve the Outbreak is a game that is appropriate for middle school and high school biology students. Extend your students’ use of the app by asking them to investigate other epidemics and how they were eventually curtailed.

Thanks to Barbara Rademacher for recommending this app. 

Read and Create Your Own Stories With the Collins Big Cat iPad Apps

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Screen Shot 2013-03-17 at 9.00.51 PM The Collins Big Cat iPad apps are part short story and part story creation tool. Each of these free apps, produced by Harper Collins, contains a short story that students can read to themselves or have narrated to them. The stories contain interactive elements that students can move around on each page of the stories.

After reading and or listening to the story in the app students can create their own stories using settings and characters that match the theme of the story they just read. On each page students can select a background, drag design features into the background, drag characters into the story, add text, and record their own narrations for their stories.

The Collins Big app that I tried was It Was a Cold, Dark Night. In the story I followed a hedgehog as he tried to find a warm place to sleep. The story contained a quiz designed to check my understanding. When I created my own short story the elements that I had to work with matched the tone and theme of It Was a Cold, Dark Night.

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The Collins Big Cat apps recently won the BETT 2013 award for Primary Digital Content and I can see why. Children will enjoy reading the stories and creating stories in all eight of the free apps.

Explore the Design Museum On Your iPad

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Screen Shot 2013-02-28 at 6.35.59 PM The Design Museum Collection for iPad is a collection of 59 featured objects from London’s Design Museum. The collection includes items that changed the way we work, items that changed the way entire categories of products are designed, and some items that are notable just for being different. As you browse through the collection you can read about the items, watch videos about them, and listen to museum curators talk about what makes the items notable.

The Design Museum Collection for iPad is a free app. To use this app in your classroom have your students browse through the items in a category then suggest other items that they think deserve recognition for their significant design features. Or ask your students to pick a favorite item from a category and design improvements to it.

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Photography Assignment Generator for iPad and iPhone

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Screen Shot 2013-02-22 at 10.44.21 AM Photography Assignment Generator could be a helpful iPad and iPhone app for photography teachers and students or anyone else interested in taking better pictures. The Photography Assignment Generator app provides users with assignments that are designed to help them learn about various elements of photography. The assignments range from using different camera settings like shutter speed and white balance to creative composition prompts. Each assignment includes a description, basic directions, and some sample images to model the assignment.

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Photography Assignment Generator is available for iPads and for iPhones. The apps comes in a free version and in a paid version. The paid version includes more assignment prompts. The video below provides an overview of the app on an iPhone.

A New Rhino Story Added to the Beautiful WWF Together App

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wwf WWF Together is a beautiful free app from the World Wildlife Fund. In fact, I think it is the most visually beautiful app I tried in January. WWF Together features interactive stories about endangered animals around the world. Each of the interactive stories includes beautiful images and videos, facts about the animals and their habitats, and the threats to each of the animals. This week a story about rhinos was added to the app. If you haven’t tried the WWF Together app yet, download it today and give it a try. I think that it could be a nice way to help students learn about the challenges facing wildlife around the world.

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