iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

For those of you asking about educational iPad apps to use with elementary students, here is a chart we published a few months ago featuring some good options to start with. We have arranged the apps into 10 main categories: math apps, social studies apps, digital storytelling apps, art apps, music apps, apps for learning grammar, apps for learning spelling, writing apps, apps for learning coding, and apps for learning science.

Sometimes the best way to escape from a productive rut is to switch up your tools. Whether it’s a simple word processor, a smarter to-do list, or a more efficient way to transcribe interviews, downloading some new apps can help manage your time and produce better work. Here are some of the best productivity apps for phones, tablets, and computers that launched in the last year or got a substantial upgrade.

For this week’s Apps Gone Free series we curated for you this collection of interesting iPad apps that are free today and only for a limited period of time. This deal is available at least in the Canadian and American iTunes Stores. Hopefully the apps are still free by the time you are reading this post.

At the start of the BETT Show Mark Anderson and Steve Bambury announced the release of their new Periodic Table of iOS Apps for AR and VR. The table is an interactive Thinglink image that links to AR and VR apps. The apps can be used to address topics in STEM, creativity, geography, storytelling, art, teaching, science, and history. Some of the apps in the table are free while others are paid. And it should be noted that Mark and Steve work in the UK so the links point to the UK version of the app store.

Making animated movies is one of my favorite video creation projects for elementary school students. Students love hearing their voices bringing to life an animated character on the screen. You can have students create animations to tell stories from their own lives or to animate short stories that they have written in your classroom. The following three free iPad apps enable elementary school students to create talking animated movies.

Below is a collection of some good iPad apps to help students with their math homework. They provide detailed instructions on how to solve a wide variety of math problems covering different mathematical topics from algebra and trigonometry to complex calculus and statistics. The main educational strength of these apps is that by walking students through math solutions, students get to enhance their mathematical thinking, develop new skills and learn from the process. Some of these apps are featured here for the first time. We invite you to check them out and share with your students.

Here is an updated version of our popular visual ‘Teachers' Favourite Apps’. This is a collection of some useful apps we curated based on your interaction and feedback regarding reviews we share here. The collection is especially useful for teachers new to the 'educational app culture' and are looking for some reliable recommendations to try out in class. We have arranged these apps into four main categories: apps for lesson planning, apps for fostering students creativity, apps for communicating with parents, and apps for creating digital quizzes.

Free resource of educational web tools, 21st century skills, tips and tutorials on how teachers and students integrate technology into education

Creativity is more than the ability to paint a pretty picture; it is a way in which original ideas are born and how they take form. It is about pushing boundaries, solving problems and bringing together skills in unique ways.  In a recent poll, 60% of CEO’s agreed that creativity was the most important skill to have in the workplace. With that in mind, it is important that we start turning to technology to facilitates the creative process. Through technology, we are not only offered new mediums but ways in which to organize our thoughts. Below are 16 apps that will support the creative process for both artists and big thinkers.

The best writing apps for iPad, like any concept of ‘best,’ is subjective and further based on need and circumstance.

Are you a poet drafting when inspiration strikes? A student taking notes and writing essays? A novelist that usually uses a desktop, but needs their new iPad Pro to do work on the go?

While the idea of writing more than a few hundred words on an iPad may seem crazy, using the iPad as a powerful portable writing tool allows you to take advantage of inspiration whenever and wherever it strikes. And with iPad screens now approaching 13″ and capable of supporting USB connections to enable standalone keyboards, it’s easier and more comfortable than ever to draft a masterpiece while away from your desk with the help of an app, an iPad, and a good idea.

Last night I answered an email from a reader who was looking for a free alternative to Tellagami. Tellagami hasn't been updated to work with iOS 11 so if you've updated your iPad, the app won't work. Tellagami says that an update is coming, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for that. They said the same thing about the Android app and eventually just removed the Android app from Google Play. So if you're looking for a free iPad app to use to create animated videos, try one of the following three options.

In today's post we are sharing with you this collection of interesting iPad apps to help kids and young learners learn the basics of coding. They (apps) provide a wide variety of interactive games, digital stories, video tutorials, and several other materials to make learning coding fun and engaging. All of these apps are featured in iTunes Apps for Young Coders collection. You may want to check them out and share with us your feedback.

If anything the Internet and web technologies have instigated a massive learning revolution analogous, in its grandeur and scope, to the one that marked the 15th century especially after the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440. Gone are the days when you have to pay or attend specific formal settings (e,g, schools) to learn. Now, the world knowledge is just a click away. Independent learning, self-learning, life-long learning, self-directed learning are all forms of learning that have been radically redefined by this digital boom. There are tons of resources, educational materials, video tutorials, free online courses, and several other learning materials to help you take responsibility of your own learning and become an enlightened individual. In today’s post we are sharing with you a sample of some of the best iPad apps that will help you in your learning endeavour. They provide a treasure trove of knowledge covering a wide variety of topics presented in different formats. Check them out and share with us your feedback in our Facebook page.

Have you ever wondered what products or apps you’re missing out on? It’s easy to find the most popular ones in a particular category—but what about the hidden gems? One of Product Hunt’s community members David Spinks has the same question. So, he asked other users: What’s one app you use a lot that most people don’t know about?

The community responded with over 220 product recommendations. Here are 27 of our favorites—from a plug-in that helps you write better, to a Mac volume booster, to an automated website that tracks just about everything in your life. Read on for more…but be ready to go down an app blackhole for the next few hours. :-)

Here is a collection of some good iPad apps you can use with your students and kids to help them learn about human body. The apps feature a number of interactive games and activities to enable kids to identify and memorize names of different parts of the body. Kids will also get to learn how to correctly spell and pronounce each of the featured parts. Most of these apps are particularly designed for kids and preschoolers but they can also be adapted to different age groups.

For those of you teaching music, the visual below is a good resource to keep handy. It features a number of interesting iPad apps to help you with the teaching of music. The list contains apps with guides on how to operate different musical instruments, apps on musical theory to help learners grasp the theoretical basis of different musical lessons. There are also apps to help with the reading and composition of music and several other useful musical tools

Evaluating Apps for the Classroom is an excellent free short interactive eBook (15 pages) created by Apple Education to be read on iBooks. As its title indicate, this guide is meant to help teachers make informed decisions about educational apps to integrate in their classroom instruction. Sifting through tons of educational apps in the App Store can be a daunting task especially for teachers whose schedules are already full enough to allow for such an endeavour. This is where the utility of such a guide comes in handy. It provides you with a set of tips and ideas to help you better evaluate educational apps and  tap into the learning potential of iPad.

After posting about apps to help students unleash their artistic creativity here is another collection of apps to use with students to introduce them to the world of art and get them to explore some of the most popular art masterpieces from different parts of the globe. More specifically, the apps will help students virtually explore some famous museums, learn about events and stories that shaped famous masterpieces, discover collections curated by professionals and many more.

One of the best things about audiobooks is that you can take them with you wherever you go. At your desk, in the kitchen, on the road, on a run — there’s nowhere that you can’t be listening to a work of fiction.

However, the places where you do most of your listening (and which devices you use to listen to audiobooks) can change which audiobook apps you should be using on a daily basis.

We have found six of the best audiobook apps available right now, all of which offer something different. Your job is to work out which audiobook app is right for you.

Here are four good iPad apps for music teachers. These are apps that are featured in iTunes App Store and which enable you to: learn and master several musical instruments such as piano, guitar, bass or ukulele; create a masterpiece from selected tracks on your playlist and share it with others, identify music and get song lyrics, make melodies and beats with an easy to use loop editor and many more.