iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

Google Drive

New Content Previews in the Latest Google Drive iOS app

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Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 8.28.40 AM Google Drive users who have allowed updates their iPhones in the last few days, may have noticed a slick new feature in the Google Drive app. The latest version of the app supports “peek and pop” previews of files. Note, this feature is only available on iPhone 6 and 6s.

An update that is available to all Google Drive iOS app users is the addition of support for four additional languages. Those languages are Hindi, Indian English, Canadian French, and Chinese (Hong Kong).

Source: Google Apps update blog. 

A Helpful New Feature Coming to the Google Drive iPad App

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Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 8.28.40 AM In a week full of Google Apps updates, here comes another one. According to the Google Apps update blog, over the next week the Google Drive iOS app will add the option to select multiple files for offline use. Enhanced file organization functions will be added to the app too.

This might not seem like a huge update to the app, but it will be helpful to students who don’t have regular access to the Internet at home. Likewise, it could be a good back-up plan for those times when your school’s network bogs down or crashes entirely. Just make sure that you remind students to select files for offline access before they go offline.

Click here to learn more about the Google Drive iOS app.

The Most Frequently Used Apps On My iPad

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ipad-254337_640 Over the weekend on FreeTech4Teachers.com I shared a list of my most frequently used desktop apps. That post was fairly popular so I think that a similar post about iPad apps is in order. These are the apps that see the most daily use on my iPad.

Evernote
When I am reading a blog post that I want to save for later, I share it to my Evernote account. I also use Evernote to save Skitch images. Occasionally, I use Evernote to share items from my iPad’s camera roll.

Skitch
Skitch is the tool that I use on my iPad when I want to create an annotated screenshot. I can use Skitch to draw on and label a screenshot to aid my explanation of how an application works. I can also use Skitch to blur or enhance a part of a picture that I’ve taken with my iPad. And if I just want to sketch out diagram and share it, Skitch for iPad lets me do that too.

Penultimate
Even though I can type relatively quickly with my poor technique, I still prefer to handwrite a lot my notes. For that reason, Penultimate is the app that I use to taking notes on my iPad. 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.

Apps Gone Free
I check this app at 12pm Eastern Time for new apps that are free for a limited time. Some of the apps are only free to download that day while others may remain free for a week or longer.

Google Drive
I don’t do much editing of Google Documents through my iPad because I find it much faster to do that on a Chromebook or laptop, but I do use Drive for reviewing Documents that have been shared with me. I also use Drive for storing videos that I have created on my iPad.

What about RSS subscriptions?
I have Feedly and Flipboard installed on my iPad. I use both to read the latest posts from my favorite blogs. That said, because of the workflow that I have set-up for myself, I don’t do a lot of reading on my iPad. Most of my reading of RSS subscriptions happens on my laptop where I can have my feeds in one browser tab and I can write my notes about what I’m reading in another tab. When I’m not reading at my desk, I tend to browse feeds on my phone which is an Android phone that has Feedly installed on it.

Google – The iPad Medium

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Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 8.28.40 AMThis is a guest post from Jennifer Carey of EdTechTeacher.org an advertiser on this site.

iPads can be powerful devices in education – they are mobile, they are personalized, and they are intuitive. At the same time, sharing content between apps or devices can be a challenge. Fortunately, iPads in conjunction with Google Apps can create a powerful medium by which to input, edit, share, and publish multimedia content.

Google Drive for Privacy and Security

There are many different types of cloud computing solutions. However, the power of Google Drive with Google Apps for Education allows educators to protect the privacy of their students and comply with Federal statutes and mandates. Additionally, its price point (zero dollars) helps those working in a world of tight budgets and limited funds.

Google as a Repository of Content

Because Google Drive exists in the cloud, you can access and add content from anywhere. Students can easily take photos, record video, and import content from a variety of sources to their Google Drive accounts. In fact, students can even collaborate with a shared Google Drive folder; using it as joint storage for group projects. Because Google Drive provides a ton of storage (5GB for single users, 30GB for GAFE), space is never a concern. Using the Google Drive App on iPad, students have access to their material anywhere. Additionally, Google auto-backups content and materials without having to hit save. In fact, with some apps, such as Notability, it’s even possible to have your iPad automatically back-up to Google Drive. The video below walks through this process.

With Drive as a back-up, if a student loses or damages their device, the content is safe in the cloud.

Google as the Go Between in App Smashing!

iPads are not a single app device. In fact, the most powerful projects are created through a medium known as “app-smashing.” When using apps, two of the necessary features for developing sophisticated projects are “export to” and “open with.” For example, students can write a document in Google Docs, open it in an app like Explain Everything, create a video reflection on a portion of their writing, and then export the finished product (in this case a video) back to Google Drive to share with their teacher.

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Even if two apps don’t talk to one another, so long as they talk to Google (and most do), you have a powerful go between to help build sophisticated, higher order thinking projects such as Electronic Books, Videos, and more.

Google for Collaborating on iPads

By incorporating Google Apps, students can readily collaborate without sharing the device itself. They can work jointly and simultaneously on a Google Doc, Google Sheet, and now Google Presentation (just like its web-based counterpart). In addition to collaborating through these Google products, students can use Drive’s cloud storage and sharing abilities to collaborate on images, screencasts, eBooks, and more while working on iPads. For example, students can create a document on Google Docs and share with a classmate for feedback and peer editing. Students who are collaborating on a video project can create a shared folder where they deposit content (images, videos, text, etc) that serves as a repository of material for their final project. Finally, apps that share project files, like Explain Everything and Book Creator, can be shared via Drive and then combined on a single iPad to make a group creation.

Google for Submitting/Publishing Content from an iPad

Users of iPads often struggle with “getting content off the iPad.” Google solves this issue. By uploading a finished project to Google Drive, students can “share” with their teacher to submit an assignment. Explain Everything and Book Creator even export directly to Drive for collaboration, publishing, and assessment. Teachers can even publish student work to the web with a link that allows anyone (whether they have a Google accounts or not) to view content and/or folders.

iPads are powerful, multi-media creation devices. Coupled with Google Drive, users can collaborate on sophisticated projects, submit work, and published sophisticated projects.

Looking to learn more about Google and iPads? EdTechTeacher will be hosting a FREE Google Classroom webinar on Tuesday, September 23rd, at 8:00pm EST. They also have a Google Apps & iPads Pre-Conference Workshop at their upcoming November 12-14 iPad Summit in Boston where I will be a Featured Speaker.

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.