iTunes App Store: Education Collections

Did you know that there is a section in the iTunes App Store called Education Collections? The Education Collections section features 27 sub-sections including reading, math, physics, chemistry, music, writing, geography, astronomy and earth science, foreign languages, test prep, and lots more.

Apps for Teachers
Also included in the Education Collection is an Apps for Teachers section. The section has apps for classroom tasks, curricula support, instructional tools, personal organization, and reference applications. Free and paid apps are listed.

Special Education
A great new additional is the Special Education section. The section highlights apps for communication, emotional development, seeing and hearing, language development, literacy and learning, diagnostics and reference, organization, and life skills.

Other resources for educational apps and uses of iPads in the classroom:
☆ Tony Vincent's Learning in Hand Blog
☆ Richard Byrne's iPad Apps for School
☆ iPads in Schools Livebinder
☆ TCEA iPad App Resources
☆ The Mobile Native Blog

App of the Day: Doceri

Doceri combines screencasting, desktop control, and an interactive whiteboard in one app, you’ll never have to turn your back to the class or audience again. This definitely is my new favorite app for presenting material. Download the Doceri Desktop for your Mac or PC by clicking here (there is a cost for the desktop version and is needed to run the app from your iPad).

Application for Education:
Forget Apple TV and try Doceri. With Doceri your iPad becomes a wireless interactive whiteboard or take control of your laptop/desktop with the app. The app provides multiple whiteboards to choose from, i.e. chalkboard, grids and graphs of different sizes, maps, music staff, construction paper, ruled paper, etc. Run software from your laptop/desktop from your iPad. This app allows the teacher the freedom to move around the classroom freely, give the iPad to students to solve the issue in hand (math equations, graphing, etc), annotate still images or PDF files, and have visibility on a whiteboard instead of a blank white slate.

Benefits of using Doceri:
☆ CREATE hand written or hand drawn Doceri projects on your iPad
☆ CONTROL a computer through your iPad.
☆ PRESENT anything from your Mac or PC connected to a projector, using Doceri’s desktop software.
☆ SHARE still image captures, multi-page PDFs or audio/video screencasts via email, iTunes, YouTube or Facebook.

App of the Day: 9Slides

What is 9Slides?
9Slides is online interactive presentations. With 9Slides you can add video or audio commentaries to upload PowerPoint presentations or PDF files. Users can access 9Slides via their website or the app. 

Application for Education:
With 9Slides teachers could turn their instructional presentations into a video that can be uploaded to their blog or website for students to view at home. This could also be a tool for "flipping the classroom"...delivering instruction online outside the classroom and bringing homework inside the classroom.

Benefits of using 9Slides:
☆ Cloud-based solution
☆ View on most browsers
☆ Password protect available with upgrade
☆ Add video and audio commentary directly from iPad
☆ Import from Microsoft PowerPoint or Adobe presentations from SlideShare, Dropbox, Google, or Box

Pricing Options:

App of the Day: Socrative

What is Socrative?
Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets.

Applications for Education:
Socrative is a great tool for collecting immediate feedback from students via mobile apps or the internet on laptops or tablets. With Socrative teachers gather assessments via short answer, multiple choice and/or true or false questions. Socrative auto-grades multiple choice quizzes. All quizzes can be exported to Excel or viewed online in a Google spreadsheet. One of my favorite features is the exit quiz. Exit quizzes quickly check a student's understanding before the end of class.

Benefits of Using Socrative:
☆ Engages students through the use of technology
☆ Quick response from formative assessments
☆ Exit tickets to check student understanding
☆ Games to track performance while playing
☆ Multiple choice quizzes auto-graded
☆ Quizzes can be exported
☆ Up to 50 students logged in at one time per room
☆ Accessible from multiple devices (iOS/Android app, smartphone, laptop, tablet)

App of the Day: Flashcard [+]

What is Flashcard [+]?
Looking for a new way to study? Flashcard [+] is the answer. Flashcard [+] is a FREE app that allows you to create rich text formatted flashcards and download millions of flashcards on hundreds of subjects created by both experts and novices.

Applications for Education:
Flashcard [+] is a great way to study for exams no matter the subject area. The most unique part of this flashcard app is that you can not only create your own flashcards but import directly from Quizlet. Quizlet has thousands of flashcards. Just type in a key word and the app will search the Quizlet site for you.

Benefits of Using Flashcard [+]:
☆ Create your own cards with rich text formatting and images
☆ Download millions of flashcards made by other users from Quizlet
☆ Organize your cards into folders
☆ Share your decks with friends through iTunes or email
☆ Keep track of your progress for each deck and each card
☆ Manual and Slide show modes
☆ Combine or split decks
☆ Sorting flashcards
☆ New added feature: Text-To-Speech (more than 40 voices)

NOTE: The free version has the same functionality as the full version but is limited to 7 decks with 100 flashcards each. Also available is the Student Version for $.99 (up to 10 decks, up to 500 flashcards per deck) or the Ultimate Edition for $2.99 (unlimited decks and flashcards).