Go Kids Save Paris!

Go Kids Save Paris!
by Fun Educational Apps

Chief Commander Froochapaka says, “Special Agent Applicable2U I am sending you on a mission. There is a diabolical plan being conjured up by the Gloopies. The Gloopies will be invading Earth and it is your job to Save Paris before the Gloopies gloop Paris to oblivion.  Are you prepared to take on this top secret mission?”

Save Paris! is the first in a series of kids travel games for ages 7 and up developed by Fun Educational Apps.  As you navigate through this educational app, you will find it to be very interactive, provide humorous characters and also very informational.  Within the Apple Store there are thousands of educational apps on the market, but how often do you find one that will turn you into a special agent that can travel the world.  There are so many wonderful wonders of the world that we might not necessarily see in our lifetime. With the help of Fun Educational Apps, your child or student can now experience France is whole new way.

As you begin each mission, there are a total of 10, you will be presented with a microfilm of information that will guide you through each level.  Be sure that you read this information carefully or else the mission might fail.  Once you feel confident with the knowledge that you have been provided, you will go on a matching hunt.  If successful, your mission will continue with a game similar to one that you might see at a carnival where you have to strike or “whack” objects, in this case, gloops and medicine kits.  Just be sure that you are on your toes as you loose points when you hit people.  Each successful mission will unlock a new one where you continue to learn more information about France while also stopping the evil colorful Gloopies!!!

As a classroom teacher, I could certainly see this fitting in nicely to a French class.  If an iPad were accessible, connect to a large screen and complete the mission(s) as a whole group.  Navigate through the informational pieces which could provide further discussions amongst the class.  What a great way to either introduce or reinforce a lesson(s) on France of such things as: information, word/phrases, and landmarks to name a few.   Another way that I see this playing out in the classroom is: with an option to add four agents, students could work individually via an iTouch and work at their own pace throughout each mission.  Or do you happen to home school your child(ren)?  If so, this would make a nice addition to a history unit as you begin countries of the world.

Applicable2U believes that this educational app can apply to you!  In searching for educational apps that are worth downloading, we would give this a thumbs up!!!  For those that have not or can not travel the world, this application provides a virtual field trip like experience in a fun way.  We are excited to see what other series are added in the future.

If you would like to learn more about Fun Educational Apps, please visit their website.  If we have tempted you enough and would like to begin your download, then click here to begin Saving Paris! now by going to your iTunes library today!

Reviewers website: www.applicable2u.wordpress.com

Lifecards

Lifecards
by Vivid Apps

Lets give our students or child(ren) opportunities to be creative.  A child’s day to day life in the classroom is so structured and provides little opportunities to showcase their creative side and to have fun.  However, with the integration of technology and mobile learning, fun is back in business!  Applicable2U randomly stumbled upon this educational app and couldn’t be happier.  Lifecards is a multi-purpose app for teachers, parents and students.  As Applicable2U begins to explore any app, our first thought is how can this fit into my curriculum or daily life?

Lifecards is just as the name says, they are cards that anyone can make that deal with your daily life.  With the help of various templates, users can now create newspapers, scrapbook like pages, holiday cards, birthday or party invitations, stationery, and announcements are just some of the amazing things this app has to offer.  My teacher brain is now screaming CURRICULUM, CURRICULUM!!!  Our fourth grade studies national landmarks and monuments which is incorporated with letter writing. Students are expected to use a graphic organizer to collect research via books and online resources.  Their research is then shared through a friendly letter to their teacher via a template that is designed by the instructional technology specialist in iWorks: Pages.   Technology, yes!  But lacks creativity.  Today’s exploration of Lifecards has changed our typical end product!

Lifecards is accessible on both the iPad and the iTouch. Once in the app, select a category and an appropriate template,  user will have a variety of options.  Text boxes can be manipulated by adding additional boxes for content, changing font style, color and size.  Photos can be added once imported into your Photo Library.  In addition, photos can be altered with various affects such as: grayscale, sepia, and comic.  Speech bubbles, stickers and additional text boxes can also be incorporated and manipulated to fit the page based on its size and rotation.  Cards can be trashed or saved by a distinct name and added to your “My Cards” folder.  Yes, the iTouch experience was a bit tedious due to the small screen, but still positive. We are excited for the arrival of our new iPad2 and how Lifecards can be incorporated further in the classroom and its larger screen.  If a classroom has a 1:1 situation, connect student iPads to a projector and have students present their Lifecard to the whole class.  The possibilities are endless!  So how can a classroom then share out their end product?  This is where I was afraid that Applicable2U was going to be disappointed, DEFINITELY NOT!!  We were pleasantly surprised! Sharing of your final product like a postcard or class newsletter can be done via email as a PDF, added to Facebook, Flickr and  Twitter if  incorporating as a classroom tool.  Well done, Vivid Apps!

If you are a classroom teacher that has Apple devices, or a parent that likes to design various types of cards, then Applicable2U thinks Lifecards applies to you!  If you would like to learn more about Vivid Apps, be sure to visit theirwebsite.  The $1.99 that you will spend to download Lifecards from your iTunes library is well worth the money and you can start creating your own real “life” cards today.

Reviewers website: www.applicable2u.wordpress.com

Office2 HD

I was reading a post from Adventures in Teaching and Learning by Mr. Keenan, Why the iPad IS for Content Creation in Education {iPads in Education, Mobile Learning, 21st Century Learning} and I splurged and bought one of the featured apps in that article, Office² HD.

Office²HD, $7.99

I decided to buy it for one main reason that I just couldn't resist: it allows you to edit your Google Docs documents! Not just edit, you can create a document and save it as a Google Doc! I was already resigning myself to have my students create written content on their iPads and then either email them to the desktop computers or use Dropbox to get the documents to the desktop where the documents could then be uploaded to Google Docs. Now we don't have to! The one shortfall I have come across so far is that I can't find where or how to view comments left on a Google Doc on Office². I'm still working on figuring that one out but I can't find anything. It doesn't help that when I add "comments" into my search I get mostly hits on blog comments. Maybe people haven't noticed the problem or maybe it's just me.

While searching to see if anyone else has noticed that you can't view comments or if someone has figured out how to view comments I came across this blog that describes Office² very well and gives tips on how to set it up to view your Google Docs documents and spreadsheets as well as your Dropbox files. Viewing and editing those files has been working very well for me. The blog is Editing Google Docs with Office2 HD, from MobileContent Today. It's worth the read if you plan on buying this app.

This app was definitely a good purchase.

iPads in Science - by Al Gonzalez

(Click on any image on this post to see it full size.) This is a cross post that I started on my blog as a plan for using 12 iPads in the Fall of the 2010-11 school year with my middle school Science classes. I teach three 6th grade classes and two 8th grade classes. Here's what I'm planning to use on the 12 iPads. On the bottom dock of the main screen, next to the Safari, Mail and iPod links, I've placed a link to my 6th grade Moodle page, a link to my 8th grade Moodle page and a link to our classblogmeister blogs. Students can access my Moodle documents and links and resources as well as their blog accounts. With Cinch students can even create podcasts to load onto their blogs. Along with Cinch I also had to get Blue FiRe cause it's great for recording. Sadly, they can't create glogs or prezis on the iPads but that's why I'm glad I have iMacs and PC's for students to be able to do those as well. At least that's what I thought until @NMHS_Principal reminded us that CloudBrowse allows you to view flash content on the iPhone and iPad. We'll see if prezi and glogster will work. I'm planning to use twitter in class so I got Twitbird Pro. I love having class discussions where more than one student can "talk" at a time, especially the quiet, shy ones. Go backchanneling! I tried using Moodle chat this past year with students in their small teams and after a slight hiccup it became a huge success! For an RSS agregator I find Reeder to be fantastic. The Weather Channel Max (TWC Max+) for the iPad is awesome and kicks butt of the iPhone version. It's going to be great. I got my school a Google Apps account and with the Documents2 app students can access their Google Docs or share their work from Documents2 via FTP or via a web address. It's a pretty nifty app. Photo Pad allows us to share pictures using Flickr so I'm excited about using that app too. I'm sure students will find Dragon Dictation useful, my 7 year old daughter loves it but she enjoys all the errors it makes :). I also have a Science glossary, ScienceVL, and a regular Dictionary with Thesaurus (dictionary.com). Google Earth for the iPad, a calculator app, PCalc Lite, a timer app, iLab: Timer HD, and a unit Converter app, round out the main screen. [Addendum: After trying out Tweetdeck for the iPad I'm not happy with it. It crashes constantly and I can't add a Facebook column and I couldn't even figure out how to delete a column. Maybe I'm missing something. So I've deleted Tweetdeck. I've also decided against Read It Later, it's great for me but I'm not sure students will need it. Same thing with the Delicious Bookmark app. So those three are gone. Add to the list Dropbox. I would need to buy another app because I can't use Documents2 with Dropbox so I've decided to keep Documents2 and delete Dropbox.]

On the second screen I have some Science apps. One of my absolute favorites is The Elements app, which is the most incredible way I have seen to learn about elements in the periodic table. There are some fantastic periodic table websites out there but this app blows them away! The Star Walk and Solar Walk are also very cool and along with the moon phase app will be very enjoyable and helpful for students. The BrainPop app is pretty cool and I'm curious about the Bug Sim app (pictured below). I haven't tried it yet, but it's a simulation game (the only game I have on the iPad cause the learning apps I have are fun enough, right?) "for Darwinian Evolution, specifically through survival of the fittest." [Okay, so I tried Bug Sim. Not visually stunning, the bugs are multicolored one or two pixel square boxes. Fainter, smaller circles represent food. You choose how many bugs to start with, how much food, and how food regenerates. You can even add up to two gardens of Eden with quickly regenerating food supply. Then you let it run and see what happens with a graph showing population growth and decline. It also shows births, deaths, and mutations. I think i will try it with my 8th grade Life Science classes.] With Animation HD students can create animations to use on their blogs or wikis. Ezimba is a cool app for students to add effects to photographs. Another creative app. VideoScience has some great videos of science experiments and labs. So along with DNA Lite, Molecules, Insects HD, Animals HD, and HD Marine Life 2 I think students can do some fun learning (had to find stuff for my 8th grade Life Science students). MeAnderthal is just fun (too bad you can't take pictures with the iPad, we really need that feature added). GoDocs is good for viewing Google Docs (viewing only as I discovered after buying it). Then iBooks, Kindle and Stanza round out this second screen. After reading iPad in Education I added the Photopad app to this screen for photo editing to go along with Ezimba.

The third screen is as yet undeveloped. I have some apps here that I am using this summer but don't plan to use with students. HistoryMaps is cool so I'll keep it for my students who appreciate history like I do :) I added some more apps to fill up this screen after reading iPad in Education. I added Comic Touch Lite (the free version), Draw Free and Doodle Buddy to help students create what they need for their blogs or wikis. I also added 3D Brain, Brain Tutor and 3D Sun for some fun Science. And I gave in and added a game. The free version of Rush Hour. So I can't wait until October! :o) Please let know if I'm missing anything or if there's a cool iPad app I should try.

Since writing this post I've added a few more apps that I'm looking forward to testing on my kids to see how they work.

I've added 3D Cell Stain for my 8th grade Life Science classes.

I've also added the following:
GoodReader,
Qikcrossword,
GroupBoard,
iDraft,
Sundry Notes,
Idea Sketch,
Free Emoji,
Adobe Ideas,
Caster Free,
SparkVue,
Firefox Home,
GPS Tracker, and
GoToMeeting.

Those are the latest I want to try out. Don't know if they're must have or not. I'll see which ones work or are even needed when I start using them with students.

eClicker (Host and Client)

 App Title:  eClicker (Host and Client)

Grade Level: grades 4-12, higher education, and professional development

Cost: $24.99 for host, free for companion client

 Purpose: A+

Purpose Rationale: eClicker is an efficient personal response system (PRS) that allows teachers to access information about their students’ understanding in a quick and engaging manner. The eClicker system is made up of two companion apps: the host app and the client app. Teachers use the host app to create questions and begin polling sessions; students use the free client app to enter their responses once polling has begun. 

Program Functionality: A

Program Functionality Rationale: eClicker was easy to set up and worked well when connected to another iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Occasionally, you may need to wait a minute or two in order to connect.

Overall Educational Value: A

Overall Educational Value Rationale: eClicker’s full value in the classroom is dependent upon the teacher utilizing it. It is an excellent tool that is both useful and engaging in the educational setting.

Recommendation: If you are a teacher or school district looking for a PRS that will allow you to poll your students and receive real time feedback, I highly recommend eClicker for your classroom and school use. The host app may appear a bit expensive in the world of iPhone and iPod Touch apps but eClicker’s features are well worth the expense.

 
Classroom Use Examples/Ideas: eClicker offers a wide variety of educational uses in the classroom. By combining the two companion apps, teachers can assess students’ knowledge, engage students, access prior knowledge, quickly check for understanding, gather data through polls, preview and review content, administer pop quizzes, and even have a little fun while doing all of these things. 

Since eClicker is Wi-Fi based and will allow up to 32 clients, many teachers can easily utilize this app with their entire class at the same time. The question editor is simple to use in either landscape or portrait mode, and teachers can edit questions on their iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches or on their laptops/desktops using the eClicker editor website (http://editor.eclicker.com). Once question sets are created, teachers can share the question sets with other teachers via Bluetooth or any Wi-Fi enabled device (please note that this feature is not supported on the first generation iPhone and iPod Touch). Questions can be given one at time by the teacher’s control or back-to-back for more of an assessment-based option. Students can view class rankings, which can either be turned on to create a more competitive game atmosphere or turned off to remove the competitive component. Teacher-created questions are stored separately from question sets so that they can be used in more than one questions set; this allows teachers to easily modify lessons for different levels of classes. To help differentiate instruction or add more information to a question, graphics can easily be added through an iPhone camera or an iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch photo library. An excellent feature of the most recent update of eClicker is the ability for teachers to annotate and draw images they can then use with their questions. 

The real time feedback included in eClicker is an excellent way to find out which students are struggling in your class regardless of how proud or how reserved they may be. At the end of eClicker sessions, teachers can email a log of the eClicker session to themselves so that the data collected can be reviewed at a later date. Also, all of the historical polling data is saved for future viewing by the teacher.

After utilizing this app with both students in my classroom and teachers in my workshops, I am very pleased with its multiple functions in the educational setting. Since the client version is a free app for your students, eClicker is a great way to tap into the iPhones and iPod Touches that are already in the pockets of your students/staff without your school district having to purchase the devices.

Developer: Big Nerd Ranch

Developer Website: http://software.bignerdranch.com/home

Product Overview PDF: http://bnreclicker.appspot.com/eClicker_Host_Overview.pdf 

iTunes Link for Host Version: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eclicker-host/id329199509?mt=8 

iTunes Link for Client Version: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eclicker/id329200145?mt=8 

Reviewer Name: Meg Wilson

Reviewer Blog: www.iPodsibilities.com 

Reviewer Twitter: http://twitter.com/iPodsibilities  

Other: Don't forget to check out our Ning (Online Community) devoted to helping teachers utilize these devices to the their fullest. Please leave a comment if you agree, disagree, or have other creative uses for this app in the classroom, etc to keep the app review discussion going.