Class Dojo is a great Behavior Modification app. Students and teachers all get fun monster avatars to chart behavior and take attendance. Teachers can input their class roster and give or take away points for students’ behavior. Students are given points for being on task, participating, or working hard. Points are taken away for being off task, talking out of turn, or being unprepared. There is also the option to email the reports to parents on a weekly basis. This app can be used online with a SmartBoard or on a mobile device. . . by Samira Brigati
Come explore with NASA in the palm of your hand. This is a very easy to use and informative app for research on the solar system. It features current NASA mission information, over 156,000 images (and growing everyday), latest news and feature stories, on demand NASA Videos from around the agency and much more. The app gives quick facts and statistical information with an overview of each planet, the sun, asteroids, comets and meteors. I have used this app with 4thgrade but it could just as easily by used by 2nd grade for easy to find facts and images. . . by Carol Denby GeoBoard is a great app for mathematical manipulation and discovering the basic concepts of geometry. This app is appropriate for all grade levels from kindergarten through high school. While developing concepts about geometry, students are able to manipulate angles, calculated area/perimeter, and explore the relationship between specific shapes. It is also a great way to practice spatial relationship skills. In order to determine if students have understanding, have them hold up their virtual geo-board each time they've completed the question. The virtual design of this app is excellent! Fifth grade students just used this app on iPads to review for a test. . . by Donna Mazur Sushi Monster is an excellent, engaging and interactive app. It is a great way to practice and reinforces math facts and operations. The music is very calming and the graphics are totally engaging. This app promotes a challenge by incorporating a reasoning strategy when choosing combinations of math facts. Be careful of the monsters’ distractions, Bon appetite! . . . by Donna Mazur Dragon Dictation is an app that provides speech to text recognition. It is relatively accurate and pretty fast. To use Dragon Dictation, you press the record button and begin to speak. You can record up to 60 seconds of speech at a time. If you require more, just press the record button again to continue. When finished, you press the "Done" button and the text will appear on the screen. You can also set Dragon Dictation to detect when you have finished speaking and end your recording automatically. This app also allows you to edit or add to the text using the keyboard. Once you are done recording, you have the option to save or email your note. You can also upload your text to Facebook or Twitter. . . by Donna DeLuca Draw Free is an easy to use free hand drawing application for students of any age. It features a paint brush, colored pencil, crayon, preset stamps and backgrounds. Students can create from a blank page or add a background. It also allows you to take a picture and draw on that. Fifth grade students recently used the iPads during an introductory lesson on Concrete Poetry, using words to form a picture (see pictures below). The application has a small advertisement notice at the top but it does not interfere with the function or cause interruptions. . . by Carol Denby Are you looking for a great app on the states? Well, look no further. The States app provides the following information on each state: outline map, when the state was admitted to the Union, capital city, population and land area. In addition to these fast facts, the application allows students to view the development of our country geographically beginning in the 1790s. They can follow the progression for every year and/or decade up to the year 2000. Another feature of this app is that it provides information about each presidential election. Students can view the candidates, their running mates, and the tally of electoral votes and popular votes each candidate received. When the “electoral map” option is tapped, students can also view the distribution of red states and blue states. I highly recommend this app. I have used it with 5th grade classes as they study the states and regions of the U.S. . . by Louise Prescott NOVA Elements: This entertaining and educational app brings the periodic table to life. It is appropriate for students in middle school through high school, and can be used during introductory lessons or as a refresher. The app includes an interactive periodic table, a molecule-building game, and a video of an entire NOVA program, “Hunting the Elements.” The interactive periodic table of the elements is highly engaging. Students simply tap any element to view an image of the element and learn more about it. Students can then build the elements by adding the correct number of protons, neutrons and electrons. This can be done independently, but if students need more support, they can use the use auto-build function. Some elements, such as gold, include video clips. Another motivating part of the app is the “My Essential Elements” game. This game also allows students to build elements to create the molecular make-up of various items, from a banana to DNA. When students build these molecules, they can see why certain base pairs fit together. This is a particularly valuable aspect of the game, since DNA is part of the science curriculum for all eighth-grade students. The excellent graphics and interactivity make this an extremely appealing app. It is also a high-utility app in that it can be used at multiple grade levels, and can help in differentiating instruction. It provides students with additional opportunities to view and interact with the elements. Teachers of both biology and chemistry will find NOVA Elements a useful teaching tool. . . by Sheila Tobin Cavooris Educreations is a handy app that allows you to create video lessons right on your iPad. These lessons are created using a recordable interactive whiteboard that captures voice and handwriting. Lessons can be viewed on student iPads or in any web browser that supports Flash. Some of the cool features include:
If you have used educreations, share your experience by leaving a comment below: Are you using a great app that you would like to share with others? Tell us about it. How are you using it? How are students using it?
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