iPad Curriculum

87 Free ebooks from Kaplan Publishing

August 25th, 2010 2 Comments

Application: iBooks free eBooks from Kaplan Publishing

What it is: For a limited time, Kaplan Publishing is offering free ebooks (87 of them)! Find ebooks for teachers; medical, law, and business students, study aids, biographies, family and relationships, and more.

How Kaplan ebooks can enrich learning: These ebooks are a great place to start your professional library. Whether you are a student in high school, a college or graduate student, or professional, the Kaplan ebooks are an excellent addition to the iBooks library. If you teach high school or college students, download all of the free ebooks (did I mention there is 87 of them!) for your students.

Devices: iPad, iPhone

Price: Free (iTunes Link, access from your iPad or iPhone)**

**This offer is valid August 24-30, 2010

Adding PDF Formatted ebooks to iBooks

August 16th, 2010 2 Comments

Apple recently updated iBooks so that PDF documents could be read natively directly in the iBooks application. It is simple to add a PDF to the iBook bookshelf from iTunes with 5 easy steps:

1. Connect your device to a computer.

2. Click on the Books icon in your iTunes Library in the left side bar.

3. Drag the PDF from wherever it is saved on your computer and drop it into Books. (From here you can change the title, author, illustrator, and genre of the book if it isn’t displayed correctly.)

4. Click on the iPad or iPhone in the device list and click on the Books tab.

5. Make sure the box next to the PDF that you added is checked and that Sync Books is checked. Click the “Sync” button.

It couldn’t be easier! Now you can create custom textbooks and reading material for your students virtual iBooks library. Students can create their own “published” PDF books for their iBooks library and swap finished stories saved as PDFs.

ARIS

August 13th, 2010 Comments Off

What it is: ARIS , which stands for Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling, is one of the most innovative applications I have come across. The application is still in development so all of the functionality isn’t available within the application just yet, but it is such an incredible application that I had to share it now. ARIS is an application that will allow you to create your own mobile games, tours, and interactive stories using the built-in GPS and augmented reality. Using the GPS and QR codes, ARIS will let students experience stories and learning in a way never before possible mashing up a virtual world of characters, items and media with the physical locations. ARIS lets you plant photos, characters, and multimedia within a game or tour. Students can even interact with virtual characters by asking questions! Right now when you download the ARIS application, you won’t be able to create your own tours (unless you sign up as an Alpha tester here), but you can play with the virtual tours and interactive stories that have already been created in ARIS.

Right now your students can experience STEEL which is a game about mining and smelting metals. In the game, students hunt for virtual mines located all around Madison and collect them for profit. Since we aren’t all living in Madison to try this game out using the GPS, QR codes are available for those who don’t live in the Madison area.

Mentira is another interactive that you can use right now with students. This place-based-game was created to help develop language skills in Spanish. Mentira plays like an interactive historical novel where fact and fiction combine to set the context and social conditions for meaningful Spanish interactions. While playing students investigate clues and interact with virtual characters to absolve their family from a murder in the neighborhood. The students complete the game by solving it, who-done-it style.

DOW Day is my personal favorite offering right now. In this game, students are plopped virtually in 1967 on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Students have to stage a protest against the DOW chemical corporation for making napalm for the war. Students take on the role of a news reporter and must interview and investigate different interests and the perspectives of virtual students, police, and DOW employees. Within the game students will find virtual characters, items, and multimedia that immerses them in the interactive story through augmented reality. There are QR codes available for this game for those of us who aren’t in Madison to try it out using GPS.

To see ARIS in action, take a look at the demo video below:

How ARIS can enrich learning: When ARIS is launched with full creation capabilities, the possibilities for use will be endless!

For an elementary classroom, ARIS could be used for a virtual scavenger hunt around the school. The first week of school, create a scavenger hunt where you leave virtual clues and items around the school for students to discover. This type of scavenger hunt would be a great way for students to become familiar with the mobile learning devices in your classroom, as well as give them a tour of the school, highlighting places of interest like the library/media center, lunch room, lost and found, and office.
ARIS is an excellent platform for creating interactive stories. I can’t think of a better way to bring history to life than this! Create games with your students using novels that you are reading as a class, to create scavenger hunts for other grade levels, or to bring history to life.
I am envisioning all you could do with this application during an election year, putting your students on a virtual campaign trail with a virtual campaign manager to guide them as they talk to their constituents, others in politics, and news organizations.
Bring any book to life by meshing it with ARIS to create an interactive story, this would be particularly good for mysteries, as students read the book, they can interact with characters in the book, searching for clues on their own.
How about using ARIS for a virtual dinosaur dig where your students act as paleontologists? How neat would it be for them to “discover” and “dig-up” dinosaur bones of their own?!
You could create a tour of math where students visit various locations on the playground and a virtual character prompts them to measure angles, or calculate distance?
Create an art tour where students can interact with various artists throughout history. Plant art replica posters around the school for students to find and at each art piece, the students can “meet” the artist.
ARIS is a natural choice for learning state history, the mobile device adds a “history” layer to the physical landscape in front of them.

As I said, the possibilities with this app are endless! I love that this application gets students out of their seats and discovering their learning. What uses can you think of for ARIS?

Devices: Native for the iPhone and iPod Touch but can also be used on the iPad

Price: Free (iTunes Link)**

Demibooks Composer

September 23rd, 2011 Comments Off

Demibooks Composer

What it is: This may very well be the single greatest iPad creation tool yet. Demibooks Composer is the first iPad based authoring software. Do you know what that means??? It means that you hold in your hands the ability to create interactive books! Weeeee! Students and teachers can use this powerful authoring app to create interactive book apps (yes, I said apps) that include realistic physics, animation, sound and visual effects. This app lets you create books that take full advantage of the iPad’s capabilities. Finished stories can be shared to a Dropbox account, iTunes or published as an actual book app that can be purchased in the App store. Seriously, how cool is that?

With Composer, students and teachers have powerful tools that let them create interactive tools without knowledge of programming. Students will get a small taste of programming language as they use Composer with “if, then” commands. Composer is intuitive enough to have your students creating their own interactive ebooks in no time. Bam!

Composer lets students:

select from a portrait or landscape book
Import images and audio from a computer or use photos from the iPad
Add text and styles
Create frame based animations
Build pages
Add a navigation system
Add complex behaviors (like turning physics on or off, adjusting bounce, friction and boundaries, gestures, taps, touches, hidden objects, etc.)
Add and edit audio including music, effects and speech
Preview your newly created book in all of it’s interactive glory
Export and save work to iTunes or Dropbox
Share work with others who have the Composer app
Publish your book to the App store with Demibooks PrintShop web service

How Demibooks Composer can enrich learning: This app gives your students the power to create true ebooks. This is not just a book that can be read on the iPad. This is a book that they can make interactive. Students can publish creative writing, explanatory informational text, poetry, math story problems (and solutions), ABC books, phonics practice, story retells, historical narratives, etc. The list could honestly go on and on.

Demibooks Composer lets your students create everything that they imagine. It is a powerful tool that is intuitive enough for young students. As students work in Composer, they will gain a beginning understanding of programming with if-then relationships. Students will have to think as programmers, designers, illustrators, authors, mathematicians, physicists, and animators. Brilliant.

Devices: Compatible with the iPad, requires iOS 3.2 or later

Price: FREE– introductory price (iTunes Link)

Dragon Dictation

August 17th, 2010 1 Comment

Application: Dragon Dictation

What it is: Dragon Dictation is a speech to text application. To use it, students speak into the microphone and their speech is converted to text. The accuracy is impressive, even with difficult words or background noise. Students can use Dragon Dictation to compose notes, email messages, or status updates for a Twitter or Facebook account. Tap on a word that was misunderstood to get other suggested words or to delete it and type in the correct word. Highlight text and paste it into another document (Pages, Keynote, Notes, etc).

How Dragon Dictation can enrich learning: Dragon Dictation is an outstanding accessibility tool. It is a great tool for those who are sight impaired and struggle with typing on a touch device or communicating through text. Dragon Dictation can be used in the primary elementary classroom to help students spell and write. Often, young students who struggle with spelling have limited writing. This isn’t because of a lack of deep thinking, it has more to do with the hesitancy to write what they can’t spell. As a result the writing is limited. Dragon Dictation can help students write to their full potential using the breadth of vocabulary they know and not just what they can spell. Students can dictate an entire story, or they can dictate the words that they need help spelling. This keeps the students from constantly raising their hands requesting help with spelling. Dragon Dictation is a fantastic tool for brainstorming, students can talk through an idea and have written notes with their thoughts to refer back to.

Devices: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Price: Free (iTunes Link)**

eduPad-create custom applications!

November 3rd, 2010 2 Comments

Application builder: eduPad– Your e-learning app on the App Store. No coding required!

What it is: Ever had an idea for an app? eduPad lets you create your very own e-learning app on the App Store without any coding! Create your own great educational content using the provided text and Excel templates. eduPad integrates and publishes your content on the main app stores. Students learn and you make money! Set the price of your app and get 20% of each sale. So, how exactly does eduPad work? First, fill out an Excel file with the pedagogical structure and exercises. Write “what you need to know” memos for each chapter. Draw your app icon (eduPad can do this for you). Then eduPad does the rest, they take the content you provide and create the code to make it an app. You test out the app and when you are happy with the outcome, eduPad publishes the app on the AppStore on your behalf. You have access to an Apple panel where you can monitor all of your daily sales, change the price, and set up promotions. The sky isn’t exactly the limit with eduPad, you can’t create highly dynamic apps…you can create a great place for content review and practice. Check out the eduPad site to view some examples of apps created with eduPad.

**eduPad isn’t currently live. You can sign up to get a notice when eduPad does go live.

How eduPad can enrich learning: eduPad is a great way for you to create customized applications for content review and practice. Sell your completed app in the app store for other students who may benefit from your app and make a little side money to buy more apps with It would be really neat to let your students create their own eduPad applications to publish to the app store. Students can take their learning, and with your help, create the framework and artwork for the application. Use any sales of the application to fund technology, app purchases, or field trips for your classroom. Involve students in their learning, create an app, and build a sense of classroom pride as your students track app sales.

Devices: Will be compatible with iOS devices

Price: Free!

Flipboard

August 4th, 2010 10 Comments

Application: Flipboard

What it is: Flipboard is an iPad application that takes social media and turns it into a personalized digital magazine. The way that Flipboard displays feeds is absolutely stunning. Flipboard lets you flip through Facebook and Twitter feeds or follow a specific Twitter list or user. With Flipboard you can like, comment on, and share anything you find. It is a completely personalized magazine and best of all, it is free!

How Flipboard can enrich learning: Use Flipboard to create unique personalized “textbooks” for your students. Create a classroom Twitter account where you post information and share links, pictures, and videos with your students. Each student will add the Twitter account to their Flipboard. As you add content via the classroom Twitter account, your student’s Flipboards are automatically updated with the new content. Send your students links, videos, and photos to enhance learning instantly. You could do the same thing with a class Facebook account that you update from. Older students can create their own Twitter accounts to share from. For example, if each student in class is learning about a different country, students could update their Twitter account with links, videos, information, and photos that they are collecting. Other students in the class can subscribe to the Twitter account from their own Flipboards. There are some ready-made Flipboard channels that may also be appropriate for the classroom and learning.

Devices: iPad

Price: Free (iTunes Link)**

Go Sky Watch Planetarium

July 28th, 2010 13 Comments

Application: Go Sky Watch Planetarium

What it is: Go Sky Watch Planetarium is an incredible application that puts t night sky in the hands of your students. This planetarium displays the night sky with the correct orientation of wherever students are. This means as your students move the iPad around them, the application adjusts to show them what is in the night sky above them in real-time. This application couldn’t be easier to use, just open it up, point it at the sky and start exploring. The application uses the built-in accelerometer and compass navigation to make the sky come to life. The graphics in this application are incredible, your students will feel like they are actually looking up at the night sky and discovering stars, constellations, planets, and the Milky Way galaxy. In addition to discovering the universe by moving the iPad around, students can also do a search by planet, constellation, deep sky object, star, or star light date. An information window can be pulled up that displays information about the star, planet, constellation, or deep sky object that is being viewed.

The preferences offer an added layer of features to Go Sky Watch where students can change the display to night mode (this give everything a red tint), display star color, the Milky Way Galaxy, object images, and day light. Students can add a horizontal grid overlay, celestial grid, ecliptic, or horizon lines. Constellations lines, boundaries, and images can be turned on or off as well. Students can even decide whether to show Pluto as a planet (since I’m old-school, I say yes!).

How Go Sky Watch Planetarium can enrich learning: Go Sky Watch Planetarium will capture your student’s attention and have them exploring the depths of space first hand. When I hand a child an iPad, this is the application that they are continually drawn to. Students can be the guides of their own tour through space as they tilt and twist the iPad. Send your students on a scavenger hunt to find different planets, stars, and constellations that they are studying. Use the application to help students “map” the night sky on the classroom ceiling. Students can create constellation cutouts, label paper stars, or create paper versions of the planets to map the sky above their classroom. Travel through space as a class and make “stops” along the way to learn more about stars, galaxies, or planets that you encounter along the way. If your students have access to video, this is a great time for them to make a connection and learn more about what they are seeing. This application brings space to your classroom in a way never before possible.

If your policy allows students to do so, send the iPad home with students so that they can take their family on a tour of the night sky when the sun goes down. They will love being the “experts” as they teach their families about the night sky. This is a great way to involve families in learning together!

Devices: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Price: Free! (iTunes Link)**

** The iPad education version of Go Sky Watch Planetarium is Free, the iPhone/iPod Touch version is $5.99.

Inkling

September 10th, 2010 1 Comment

Application: Inkling

What it is: Inkling is a new textbook platform for the iPad. It transforms paper based textbooks int engaging, interactive, collaborative learning experiences. My favorite feature of Inkling: the ability to purchase by chapter or whole book. Most of us remember those classes where we purchased a $400 book only to crack it open once for one chapter. Another fabulous feature of Inkling is the shared notes that make it simple to collaborate with other students and teachers in real-time. Interactive media is included in every textbook including movies, 3D objects and guided tours. The tools are easy to access and use, they are well designed to be quick to access but not distracting from the textbook. (As an aside, I’m not sure they can even call these textbooks…they are so much more than text!) Interactive quizzes are built-in that help students to determine their level of understanding as they work. An intuitive search engine predicts the search as it is typed. Right now the titles available are rather limited (7 at the time of this review), with any luck titles will be added quickly making the iPad a must have college bound device. What would be even better is if k-12 texts were made available, that would really be something to get excited about!

How Inkling can enrich learning: Inkling is like a textbook on steroids. It makes reading and learning a joy with built-in multimedia to enhance the learning experience, the ability to highlight and take notes, and the ability to share those notes and annotations with other students and teachers. The collaborative nature of the app is really appealing. Now students and teachers can make learning a collaborative effort by adding discussion questions, annotations, observations, and highlighting key elements of a text.

Devices: iPad Requires iPhone OS 3.2 or later.

Price: Free (iTunes Link)**

Junaio: Augmented Reality

September 10th, 2010 4 Comments

Application: Junaio

What it is: Junaio is an augmented reality browser application for the iPhone, currently the iPhone is the only available device but I suspect that with the addition of the camera in the iPodTouch, the app may soon be available for it as well. First a definition for those of you unfamiliar with augmented reality. Wikipedia has this definition for augmented reality (AR): “a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery.” If that is a little cumbersome for you, let me give you my definition. Augmented Reality generally uses a camera to let you overlay virtual data on top of the physical world you are seeing through your camera lens. The virtual data could be a map, information, multimedia, or even look like a holograph that you can manipulate. For a really simple explanation you can check out this AR Common Craft Video. Junaio uses GPS and markers to help the iPhone determine it’s location. When GPS is unavailable, AR markers can be used. These are square black and white barcodes that store data. When your camera is pointed at a marker, the data associated with it pops up and is seen as an overlay on top of your physical view. Junaio features several built-in channels including culture (learn about places through Wikipedia entries), gaming (play scavenger hunt games and find clues), shopping, food, news (read breaking news and history of the local area you are in), nightlife, and travel. The real highlight of the Junaio app is the ability to create your own channel and publish it to the world. Adding data is easy, simply click on the “add” button at the bottom of the screen and choose to add text, a picture from your iPhoto library, a current picture, or a model (moving images, avatars, live Twitter feeds/messages).

How Junaio can enrich learning: Equip your students with an iPhone (iPod Touch 4G) and let the learning begin. Students can use the built-in culture or news channel to learn about the news and history of their state. This apps potential really explodes when you use it to create your own channels. Create a channel just for ELL/ESL students that overlays vocabulary on top locations and items in the school or classroom. Create a virtual scavenger hunt for your students around the school grounds where they must follow directions and decode clues, discovering learning along the way. Make math hands on by creating a channel where students receive a real world math problem that they must solve by measuring angles, determining perimeter, area, or volume of actual objects in the school.

I recently read an article in the School Library Journal that got my wheels spinning about the ways augmented reality could transform the library experience. In the article they suggest putting AR markers on a book cover so that when a device is used, a librarian could walk across the book jacket and deliver a quick review of the title. Markers inside books could cause 2D diagrams or images to come alive as 3D interactive simulations. Another idea I loved was to create a literary tour using an AR program, which would describe locations that appear in a book. When you actually travel to that place, the text that took place there could pop up along with additional information or content. Each of these ideas is amazing in itself but thinking of transforming a school library, here are the ideas I came up with:

Connecting your card catalog with augmented reality so that students could search for a book or topic from their mobile device and instantly get a layer that directs them to books that may be of interest.
Connecting a tool like Shelfari, where students keep a virtual bookshelf and rate the books they have read ,with augmented reality. Students could instantly ask for books that are recommended based on their ratings of other books and recommendations could pop up in a layer directing students to those recommendations.
Turning booktrailers (professionally created or student created) into an augmented reality layer. Students could use an AR marker on the book cover and instantly watch a booktrailer about the book.
A this day in history layer where a fact pops up each day describing an event in history, the layer could then direct students to additional information, include a video or challenge of some kind.
Connect AR to a search engine so that when students are researching a topic, book recommendations pop up in a layer with directions on where to find them.
Our library is often a showcase of student work, what if each diorama, piece of artwork, or project had an AR marker on it? Students could record themselves (either audio or video) describing their work. This could be attached to an AR marker so that as students viewed other’s work, they could get an introduction to it by the creator. (This would be awesome for parent teacher conference time as well!)
AR Markers next to the computers could remind students of important Internet safety rules, the school acceptable use policy, and what to do if they have been bullied.
The school librarian could have a special selection of books each month that contain an AR marker linked to the librarian reading the story.
Does your school have author visits or use the Skype an Author network? If so record the author (audio or video) and connect it to AR markers on their books.
Label the areas of the library using AR so that ESL and ELL students can get a vocabulary lesson as they walk through the library.