iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

teaching with ipads

Try DMD Topic To Create Talking Pictures On Your iPad

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Screen Shot 2014-11-24 at 4.23.39 PM DMD Topic is a neat iPad app for quickly creating short videos. To create a video you simply take a picture or import a picture from your iPad’s camera roll then start talking about the picture. You can record for up to 30 seconds. When you’re finished recording, watch the video and select “tagging” to make the video automatically zoom to the objects that you are talking about in your video. Watch my sample video to see a DMD Topic video in action.

DMD Topic could be a good app to have students use to create short explanatory videos. Students can also use the app to create a short video about picture of their pets, their families, or anything else that is important to them (perhaps the players on their favorite sports team). DMD Topic does not require registration.

DMD Topic is free for a limited time (as of November 24, 2014). The regular price is $0.99 USD.

Create Short Biographies With Morfo 3D Faces

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Screen Shot 2014-06-26 at 6.05.58 PM Yesterday, at the Catholic Schools Foundation Summer Tech Conference at Boston College I saw a fantastic panel discussion on using technology in K-2 classrooms. One of the really neat things that I saw was an example of students using Morfo 3D Faces to create short biographies. Morfo 3D Faces is an iPad app that you can use to create a talking picture of person’s face. You can take a picture of a person or you can take a picture of a picture of a person (think taking a picture of a picture of George Washington). Once you’ve captured the picture you can customize the face by altering the eyes, mouth, and nose to move as you talk. After customizing the picture you can record yourself talking.

In the example that I saw yesterday students used Morpho 3D Faces to create short biographies about historical figures that they learned about in their history lessons. Students recorded themselves talking as if they were the historical figure. Students gave pieces of information like birthdate, what the person is known for, and when the person died.

Figure – A Fun App for Creating Music on Your iPad

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figure Figure is an iPad app for creating music and sound loops. You don’t have to have any musical talent or inclination to create music with the Figure app. To create music you simply have to drag your finger across an instrument to create a pattern. You can combine patterns across drums, bass, and lead guitar. Each pattern can be adjusted for tempo and key. The volume of each pattern can be adjusted individually then blended with the others. When you’re happy with the music you have made you can export it to SoundCloud or iTunes or send it to a friend via email.

Figure could be a good app for students to use to develop soundtracks to use in video projects or to use as bumper music in podcasts. Of course, the app could also be good for students to use to just experiment with tempo and key change.

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Figure is currently featured as Apple’s app of the week. The app is free this week.

iHowTo Teaches Children Activities for Daily Living

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Screen Shot 2013-10-18 at 8.21.39 PMiHowTo is a free iPad app through which children can learn the skills for activities of daily living. The free app contains a series of short stories that children can read and or listen to. Each story teaches a skill. Some of the skills that children can learn about through the app are eating, cleaning, brushing hair, and getting dressed.

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Children who are using the iHowTo app can turn the audio support on or off for each story. Children can hear entire sentences read aloud or simply tap an individual word to hear it read aloud.

Seven Free Science Apps for iPads

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eskimo-nebula-11125_640 I’m preparing to do a virtual presentation for a small district next month. My hosts asked for a list of some science apps that their middle school and high school students can use. This is part of the list that has free apps.

The Bill Nye The Science Guy  iPad app is a free iPad app on which students can watch Bill Nye videos, play games, and discover kitchen table science experiments to do at home with their parents. The app is beautifully designed. Students enter the app by “scanning” their thumbprints. After entering the app students select an object on Bill Nye’s desk. Each object launches a new element of the app. My only complaint about the app is that in the video section it looks like you have to buy the videos (it’s an option) even though you can watch them for free.

goREACT is a free iPad app from the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. This free iPad app allows students to virtually create chemical reactions. To create the reactions students simply drag elements from the periodic table to the “reaction area.” The app includes suggested reactions to help students get started. In all there are nearly 300 chemical reactions supported on the app. The app includes pictures and videos related to the reactions that students can virtually create on goREACT.

Powers of Minus Ten: Bone is a neat iPad app for biology students. The app takes students through ten levels of viewing the inside of human bones. Students can zoom through and explore each of the microscopic levels. The imagery starts at the level of viewing bones from the outside and ends with viewing the atoms within the bones. A neat aspect of the app is that students can select “healthy bone” or “broken bone.” By selecting “broken bone” students can view a broken bone and see how it heals.

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Virtual Heart is a free iPad app that allows users to take a closer look at how the human heart functions. The free app lets users speed up and slow down the virtual heart rate. Users have four views of the heart in the app. The views are of the electrical system, the valves, blood flow, and the interior of the heart. Each view can be experienced with or without labels. The first time each view is tapped, a short introduction to that view is displayed.

3D Brain is a free iPad app that features a model of the human brain. he app provides a three dimensional model of the human brain that students can rotate. To look at a specific part of the brain select it from the drop-down menu and it will be highlighted on the model for you to view. Click the “info” tab to read one page summaries about each part of the brain. On the app you can also find some case studies about disorders and brain damage.

Essential Skeleton is a free iPad app that students studying the human skeletal system should download. The app puts a 3D skeleton on your students’ iPads. Students can zoom-in, zoom-out, and rotate the skeleton 360 degrees. When students zoom-in and tap on a bone they will see its name in English and Latin, have the option to hear an audio pronunciation of the bone’s name, learn about the connected bones, and write their own notes about the highlighted bone.

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.