iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

ipad apps

Ask3 – An iPad App for Creating Flipped Video Lessons Your Students Can Actually Respond To

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Screen Shot 2013-03-16 at 4.29.45 PM Ask3 is a free iPad app from TechSmith. TechSmith is probably best known as being the company that produces Jing and Camtasia screen capture software. Ask3 is a tool that teachers can use to create short instructional videos that are shared directly to their students’ iPads. Students can use Ask3 to ask questions about the video, mark the video with drawing tools, and create their own audio comments about the video.

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You share Ask3 videos to your students through a virtual workspace room. When you register as a teacher you are given a room number to share with your students. Students then open the Ask3 app on their iPads, enter their names, create a password for themselves, and enter the room number that you gave them. Students do not have to have email addresses to use Ask3. Anytime students enter your Ask3 room they can access the videos you’ve posted to the bulletin board in that room.

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Ask3 could be a great app to use to develop and share short tutorials with your students. The option for students to insert comments and questions might make Ask3 your new favorite whiteboard app.

Chore Cards for iPad – Record and Reward Your Child’s Good Work

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Screen Shot 2013-03-11 at 10.08.27 PM Chore Cards is a simple iPad app that you can use to create custom, digital chore cards. Chore Cards for iPad allows you to record a child’s completion of tasks that you have assigned to him or her through the Chore Cards app. You can create profiles (name and image) for each of your children, assign chores to them, and assign rewards toward which each child is working. You can assign any or all of 25 pre-defined chore cards or create your own custom chore cards.

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Chore Cards includes an option to print QR codes for each chore. Children can scan the QR codes to view the chores and record their completion on through an iPhone or iPad. The full version of Chore Cards costs $0.99 USD. There is also a free version to try. The free version only allows you to track chores for one child.

Matchmatics – Math Puzzles for Your iPad

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Screen Shot 2013-03-01 at 11.23.12 AM Matchmatics is an iPad app that presents mathematics puzzles in the form of matchsticks laid out on a canvas. The challenge of Matchmatics is to move one matchstick to make an incorrect equation correct. Points are awarded based on how quickly you can correct the equation. The puzzles get progressively more difficult as you work through the app. Matchmatics has a timed mode and an un-timed mode. The full version of the app costs $0.99 USD. The free version of the app contains ten problems that you can try before upgrading to the full version.

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Even Monsters Get Sick – A Great Interactive Story for Your Child’s iPad

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Screen Shot 2013-02-26 at 11.33.00 AM Even Monsters Get Sick is a cute children’s story that is available in an interactive format for your child’s iPad. The story starts with a child named Harry trading some stickers and gum to his friend Mona for a pet monster. To move the story along your child has to drag the stickers and gum into place to complete the trade. From there children read and or have read to them the story of Harry taking the friendly monster home with him. The monster gets sick and Harry helps him get better. Throughout the story there are interactive elements for children to manipulate. For example, children can help Harry and the monster navigate their way home, make the monster sneeze, and play music on a record player (it occurs to me that you might have to explain to your children what a record player is).

Students can read the story on their own or have the story read to them. If students choose “read on my own” at the beginning it is easy to switch modes. To switch to having the story read to them students simply need to tap the words that they see.

Even Monsters Get Sick is currently a free app.

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Strip Designer – A Great Comic Strip Creation App

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Screen Shot 2013-02-24 at 9.38.55 AM Strip Designer is a great comic strip creation tool to add to your students’ iPads. Priced at $2.99 USD it is $2 less than Comic Life and is just as good. Strip Designer provides dozens of comic strip layouts from simple one frame comics to one page layouts in a variety of configurations to multiple page layouts there is probably a layout that works for all students. And if not, your students can create their own custom comic strip layouts in Strip Designer.

Strip Designer allows students to create comics from scratch by drawing pictures, taking pictures, or importing pictures. Students can import pictures from a variety of places including Facebook, Dropbox, and the camera roll on their iPads. Each frame in your students’ comic strips is created individually and is not tied to an overall theme. This means that one frame in their comic strips could be based on a photo and the next frame could be based on a drawing. The borders and shading effects for each frame can be individually adjusted too. To help students really tell stories through comics, Strip Designer offers a slew of text editing tools, digital stickers, and drawing tools.

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Completed Strip Designer comic strips can be shared through a variety of channels including email, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter. Completed comic strips can also be saved as PDFs to store on your students’ iPads or sent to a Dropbox account.