iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

free ipad app

Alphabet Organizer – Create Alphabet Books on Your iPad

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Screen Shot 2014-07-24 at 1.06.53 PM Alphabet Organizer is a free iPad app offered by Read Write Think. The app is designed to help students learn the alphabet and learn new words.

Once you have created a profile or selected a profile on Alphabet Organizer you are ready to start building alphabet charts and books. In the first screen you will given the choice of making simple word lists or making word lists with pictures and definitions. Should you choose to use pictures you will have to find the pictures somewhere outside of the app and import them to the app. You can make lists for every letter of the alphabet or make lists for just a few letters at a time. After making your lists you can move on to having those lists used in printable charts or picture book pages.

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Alphabet Organizer supports multiple users on the same installation of the app. That makes it possible for students to share an iPad and not affect each other’s work. Creating a profile only asks for a first name and that name could be a pseudonym. No information about students is stored by Read Write Think.

Read Write Think offers an extensive list of lesson plans that incorporate Alphabet Organizer.

Shadow Puppet Releases an Edu Version Students Can Use to Create Videos

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Screen Shot 2014-06-27 at 7.08.29 AM Shadow Puppet is an iPad app for creating short audio slideshow videos. Yesterday, the same developers introduced Shadow Puppet Edu. Shadow Puppet Edu is a free iPad app that students can use to create audio slideshow videos. The app offers an integrated search tool that students can use to find pictures from the Library of Congress, to search for images from NASA, and to find Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr. Students can also import pictures from the camera roll on their iPads.

After selecting a set of images students can arrange them into any sequence by simply dragging and dropping them into order. Then to create a story students press the record button and talk while flipping through the images. Shadow Puppet Edu allows students to add text and stickers to each image too. When they’re happy with their work students can share their Shadow Puppet Edu projects through a variety of methods including YouTube and email. Shadow Puppet Edu projects are automatically saved to the camera roll on a student’s iPad.

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Shadow Puppet Edu is free. Students do not have to register for an account or have an email address to use Shadow Puppet Edu.

Animation Desk Premium – Free for a Limited Time

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animation The premium version of one of my favorite video creation apps, Animation Desk, is free today (At least in the U.S. I have not verified availability outside of the United States). Animation Desk is an iPad app for creating short, animated videos. The app allows you to create drawings using just your finger on your iPad’s screen. In each scene you can include as little or as much as you want to draw on the canvas. There are a few different brush and pencil effects that you can use in your drawings. The opacity of the colors you choose can be altered too. When you have completed drawing all of your scenes hit the play button to watch your animation unfold. If you’re happy with your animation you can export it to YouTube or save it to your iPad’s camera roll. Watch the video below for a demonstration of the app.

Animation Desk Lite | screencast tutorial from School Library Journal on Vimeo.

By the way, I discovered that Animation Desk was free today through Apps Gone Free. Every day Apps Gone Free lists paid apps that are available for free for a limited time.

A Video Guide to Using the Google Drive iPad App

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Google_Drive_Logo_lrg-580x461Last Friday I was asked if I could share instructions for teachers and students using the latest version of the Google Drive for iPad app. I’m in the process of organizing all of my screenshots into a PDF. In the meantime, I have the following video overview of how to use the basic features of Google Drive iPad. At the end of the video I offer a tip about using multiple sign-in on shared iPads.

LEGO Movie Maker – Make More Than Just LEGO Movies

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Screen Shot 2014-03-31 at 9.24.20 AM LEGO Movie Maker is a free iPad app for creating stop-motion movies featuring LEGO models. You have to provide your own LEGOs in order to create a LEGO movie. To create your movie with LEGO Movie Maker you build your LEGO scenes then use the free iPad app to take pictures of each scene. After taking your pictures you can apply Instagram-like effects to them. When you’re happy with the pictures you can adjust the speed at which they are played back in your movie. LEGO Movie Maker includes a gallery of free music to play with your pictures. You can also upload your own music or spoken audio track. Completed movies can be saved to your iPad or exported directly to YouTube.

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LEGO Movie Maker can be used for creating stop-motion movies about any topic. I used the app to make a simple stop-motion movie about one of my dogs. The app doesn’t require you enter an email address which makes it a good option for middle school and elementary school use.