iPad Curriculum

Virtual Rat Dissection App

June 6th, 2011 Comments Off

What it is: The Virtual Rat Dissection app from Punflay is a fantastic alternative to the actual dissection in the classroom. The app is perfect for students who are learning about organs and the organ system in life science. The app is brilliant in the way it offers students all of the tools that come with a real dissection without all the mess (and smell…do you all remember the smell? *gag reflex kicking in*). Students are led through the dissection procedure step by step, guided with instructions and explanations all the way through. When students have completed the dissection, the rat’s organs are exposed so students can study them further. High quality 3D images make it easy for students to visualize the organs. The app also includes great reference information about rats. The step-by-step instructions include voice over, perfect for accessibility to all students.

How Virtual Rat Dissection from Punflay can enrich learning: First of all, did I mention this app is free from the smell of Formaldehyde? That alone makes it worth it’s weight in gold (in my humble opinion)! Virtual Rat Dissection solves the budgetary and physical problems of getting a rat for every student to dissect. Not only that, it is a much greener alternative. The app has been beautifully created with attention to detail. Students will get the full effect of a wet dissection lab without needing all of the tools. Best of all, students can go back through the lab over and over again. This gives them the opportunity to review learning and process, something that isn’t possible with real rat dissections.

Use this app as an alternative to actual dissection, or use it to prepare students for a real dissection.

Devices: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later

Price: $3.99 (iTunes Link)

Ansel and Clair’s Adventures in Africa

May 5th, 2011 Comments Off

Application: Ansel and Clair’s Adventures in Africa

What it is: Now this, my friends, is what I’m talking about! Ansel and Clair’s Adventures in Africa is everything an educational kids app should be. The app is truly spectacular with animations, quests, puzzles, games, excellent graphics, fantastic storyline and plenty of ways for kids to engage in play and learning. Ansel and Clair’s Adventures in Africa was designed for kids aged 4-9. When students enter the app, they are introduced to Ansel, a friendly inter-galatic travel photographer from the planet Virtoos, and Clair, a brilliant robot. Ansel and Clair introduce students to Africa where students can explore interactive locations including Nile Valley, Sahara Desert and Serengeti Plains. As students explore, they are asked to discover, help Ansel and Clair find spaceship parts and help Ansel take pictures. As students explore, Ansel asks questions that Clair answers with her encyclopedic knowledge. Students are deeply immersed in story and learning of:

Geography: continents, oceans, rivers, monuments and landmarks
History: pyramids, pharaoh, mummy, hieroglyphics, Sphinx
Science: Metamorphosis, migrations, climate seasons, temperature changes, animal characteristics, behavior, habitat and food habits
Concepts: Camouflage, migration, nocturnal, herbivore, predator, vertebrate, cold-blooded.

Students can learn more with more than 50 screen overlays complete with text and illustrations. Throughout Ansel and Clair’s Adventures in Africa, students will find fun games and puzzles with multiple levels to challenge students at different ages and developmental levels. Games include a treasure hunt where students learn about actual Pyramid and tomb artifacts; a clock puzzle where they learn to tell time; Frog Life Cycle where they learn about the life cycle of a frog; a maze where they learn about omnivore, carnivore or herbivore animals and Fur Ball-a-tor where students identify animal patterns.

There is SO much attention to detail in this app. Students can spin, touch and learn geography on a 3D globe, explore the Sahara in the day AND night (that way they can interact with nocturnal animals), experience a sandstorm, learn about extreme temperatures, experience the wet and dry season of the Serengeti and watch animals migrate.

Throughout the app, students observe Ansel asking questions and using higher order thinking skills to learn about Africa. Critical questioning is modeled in every area of the desert.

How Ansel and Clair’s Adventures in Africa can enrich learning: Ansel and Clair’s Adventure in Africa is one of those wonderful apps that packs in all kinds of learning and important thinking skills. This app could be used to teach students how to ask critical questions, to improve listening and reading comprehension, to learn more about geography, to enhance a unit on Africa, to strengthen audio direction following, to enrich an animal adaptation unit or to let students “experience” history in a new way. Honestly, this is what I WISH every text-book looked like. This app immerses kids in learning in a fun and engaging way that encourages discovery and inquiry.

Rating scale: 1= low 5= Highest

Overall satisfaction 5

Graphics 5

Easiness to learn 5

Educational value 5

Fun 5

Overall performance 4.5 (Some screens take just a few seconds to refresh)

I cannot wait to see more from Cognitive Kid, they know how to make an educational app!

Devices: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later

Price: $1.99 (iTunes Link) – I know!! You were probably expecting it to be more like a $10 app, at $1.99 it is a steal!

Virtual Frog Dissection: Punflay

March 4th, 2011 Comments Off

Application: Frog Dissection

What it is: The Virtual Frog Dissection app from Punflay is a fantastic alternative to the real deal in the classroom. The app is perfect for students who are learning about organs and the organ system in life science. The app is brilliant in the way it offers students all of the tools that come with a real dissection with out all the mess (and smell…do you all remember the smell *gag reflex kicking in*). Students are led through the dissection procedure step by step, guided all the way through. When students have completed the dissection, the frog’s organs are exposed so students can study them further. High quality 3D images make it easy for students to visualize the organs. The app also includes great reference information about different types of frogs, a frogs life cycle, an anatomical comparison between frogs and humans, a quiz and detailed descriptions of the organs. The step-by-step instructions include voice over, perfect for accessibility to all students.

How Virtual Frog Dissection from Punflay can enrich learning: First of all, did I mention this app is free from the smell of Formaldehyde? That alone makes it worth it’s weight in gold (in my humble opinion)! Virtual Frog Dissection solves the budgetary and physical problems of getting a frog for every student. Not only that, it is a much greener alternative. The app has been beautifully created with attention to detail. Students will get the full effect of a wet dissection lab without needing all of the tools. Best of all, students can go back through the lab over and over again. This gives them the opportunity to review learning and process, something that isn’t possible with real frog dissections.

Use this app as an alternative to actual dissection, or use it to prepare students for a real dissection.

Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later

Price: $4.99 (iTunes Link)

Britannica Kids Ancient Egypt: Student Review

February 25th, 2011 Comments Off

Application: Britannica Kids

What it is: The Britannica Kids Ancient Egypt app let’s students explore hieroglyphics, mummification, the Pyramids, Tutankhamen, Cleopatra, the Ancient Egyptian world, dynasties of Egypt, the River Nile, gods and the afterlife, every day life, and 14 Egyptian Gods, and other Egyptian topics as they play a variety of games. Games include memory (matching type games), jigsaw puzzles, and the magic square. Students can zoom into an Egyptian map to see an up-close and personal view of the pyramids, “brush” off layers to reveal images of ancient Egypt, test knowledge with a quiz feature, and even tweet answers or post to Facebook.

How Britannica Kids Ancient Egypt can enrich learning: Britannica Kids: Ancient Egypt is a fun, informative place to start a study of the Ancient Egyptian culture. The app offers students great opportunities for exploring culture, life, and landscape of Ancient Egypt. There are several games built in but each provide students with opportunities to view artifacts from Ancient Egypt, interact with facts about Egypt, and familiarize them with life in Ancient Egypt.

Shipley 5th Grade Student Review:

Overall impression: This app is overall highly rated by us. Even though there is a ton of information, there are many games but they are not very educational. This app does have the educational value a kid needs, even if the games are a little distracting. After you learn all the information you will be able to take a test on your knowledge. Many people say this app is very fun. Overall it has a lot of very solid information and make sure you pay attention to it.

Tips and tricks: The main screen has many different things that you can check out. You use the wheel at the bottom to get around. The icons on the wheel are not always obvious. All the different features suit different people. Make sure that you use all of the app’s features because it makes it a lot easier to learn by trying all the features instead of looking at the same old thing. Make sure you have a general idea about Ancient Egypt before you go on the app otherwise it will not make sense. Don’t spend all of the time on the puzzles because you don’t get that much information. Overall this is a very good app and we would recommend this for when you’re studying ancient Egypt.

Rating scale: 1= low 5= Highest

Overall satisfaction 4.5

Graphics 4.1

Easiness to learn 4.7

Educational value 4.4

Describe educational value: learn new things and practice what you already know

Fun 3.6

Overall performance 4.4

Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later

Price: $4.99 (iTunes Link)

Welcome Shipley School 5th Grade!

February 25th, 2011 Comments Off

I would like to introduce some FANTASTIC new guest bloggers for iPad Curriculum. 5th grade students from Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, PA are going to help me review educational apps from a student perspective. I am thrilled to have help reviewing apps, and can’t think of any better voice to help me do that than the students at Shipley. Take a look at the introduction they wrote below:

We are the Shipley School 5th grade in Bryn Mawr, PA, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Our school is not large, but a lot bigger than medium. We have a little more than 820 students PreK-12. We are the 5E class of the 5th grade. There are sixteen people in our class. There are 3 sections in the grade. Our teacher, Ms. Eiteljorg, got the idea to get iPads for the class. We use the iPads for pretty much all of our classes. We especially use the app Pages (for essays). We each have a blog where we can write anything that we want; we use the iPads for that. Some apps we enjoy are, Stack the States, Tangrams, Britannica Kids (Ancient Egypt), Number Line (Math practice), My Scratch Work (Blog posts), Google Earth, The Game of Ur, and probably more that we have not discovered yet. We have had these iPads since November, and they are working out pretty well.

Once we heard of Kelly Tenkely’s idea for reviewing apps, we thought we would want to do that too. It took a lot of preparing, and we Skyped with her. In the Skype session we asked her many things like rating the apps, what format we should do, and more. After a lot of work, we started reviewing some apps. Our class hopes reviewing apps will work out well, and work out for a while.

Here is the main entrance of the Shipley Lower School.

Welcome students, I am so happy to have you join me here! All posts written by students will be labeled with the “Shipley”.

Grammaropolis Word Sort

February 15th, 2011 Comments Off

Application: Grammaropolis Word Sort

What it is: Grammaropolis Word Sort uses the characters from one of my favorite grammar websites, Grammaropolis, and makes learning the basic parts of speech fun. Students “grab” a word as it flies across the screen and drag it to the correct part of speech container. Grammaropolis personifies each part of speech making learning grammar relatable and fun instead of reducing it to a tedious list of rules to memorize. Students learn about the parts of speech by “meeting” a Grammaropolis character. There are three levels of game play. In level one, students play with nouns, adjectives, and linking verbs. In level two, students play with pronouns, prepositions, and interjections. In level three, students play with adverbs, conjunctions, and action verbs. Within the game levels there are also three levels of difficulty for play. Grammar Champ has one word on the screen to sort at a time. Grammar Fiend has two words on the screen to sort at a time. Grammar master has four words on the screen at a time. The game includes in-game character review and a high-score page.

How Grammaropolis Word Sort can enrich learning: Grammaropolis Word sort is a fun way for students to practice their recognition of the parts of speech. I love that this app goes beyond just drill and introduces students to the parts of speech by personifying them as characters. Students learn the parts of speech not because they have memorized a list of rules, but because they recognize the character traits of the Grammaropolis characters. The game is great for visual learners who will associate the part of speech with a visual character representation. The game is wonderful for the elementary classroom and has enough level adjustment to meet the developmental needs of all students, adding a level of difficulty as they become proficient in their parts of speech recognition.

Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later

Price: $1.99 (iTunes Link)

iDev Books: Column Addition

January 20th, 2011 Comments Off

Application: Column Addition

What it is: The Column Addition app gives students a great place to practice and study the column addition method. Students can choose to solve random problems or input their own problems to solve. The carrying of number is handled automatically with a clean animation. When students solve the operation for each column, the correct answer “flies” to the right place. If the answer is incorrect, it will not move. As students solve an addition problem, they earn another piece of a six piece puzzle of an animal. There are 21 complete puzzles in all, in order to complete them all students will have to solve almost 200 addition problems. Students can add two or three numbers, they can practice with randomly generated problems or enter their own, each number can have between 1 and 5 digits, the current operation for each column can be hidden, students can swap color themes of the apps for increased individualization, and the speed of the animations can be set by students.

How Column Addition can enrich learning: What makes the Column Addition app so great is the immediate feedback it gives to students. They don’t work through an entire problem before realizing their mistake, but instead can take a closer look and re-solve as they go to come up with the correct answer. The app is very easy to use and has some nice customization options that will appeal to students using it to study. The step by step animation and guidance will help students get the column method of addition down in no time. The ability to enter their own numbers means that students can input problems from a math curriculum or text-book and work through the step by step process with any problem. Your reluctant math students will love this app, it will act as their own personal tutor sitting with them and encouraging them on!

Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later

Price: $3.99 (iTunes Link)

iDevBooks- Long Multiplication

January 20th, 2011 Comments Off

Application: Long Multiplication

What it is: With the Long Multiplication app, students can solve random and user inputted multiplication problems using the column multiplication method. Just like the Long Division app, when students enter the correct answer it “flies” to the right place. If the student enters the wrong number the answer will not move. Students can practice long multiplication with up to 5 digits in the upper number, 1 or 2 digits in the lower number, enter a custom problem, hide the current operation for each column, highlight the operands for the current operation, choose from three different color schemes, and change the speed of the animations. Students can choose the position of the regrouping (either above or below the equation) based on the method they are using in your classroom.

How Long Multiplication can enrich learning: What makes the Long Multiplication app so great is the immediate feedback it gives to students. They don’t work through an entire problem before realizing their mistake, but instead can take a closer look and re-solve as they go to come up with the correct answer. The app is very easy to use and has some nice customization options that will appeal to students using it to study. The step by step animation and guidance will help students get the column method of multiplication down in no time. The ability to enter their own numbers means that students can input problems from a math curriculum or text-book and work through the step by step process with any problem. Your reluctant math students will love this app, it will act as their own personal tutor sitting with them and encouraging them on!

Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later

Price: $3.99 (iTunes Link)

iDevBooks: Long Division

January 20th, 2011 Comments Off

Application: Long Division

What it is: The long division app lets students solve long division problems step by step with each step animated. In the app, students will divide, multiply, or subtract to get their answer. If the answer is correct, it will “fly” into the correct place; if the answer is wrong, it won’t move into place. Students can practice long division with dividends up to 5 digits, divisors with one or two digits, input their own numbers, allow or disallow remainders, allow decimals in the dividend, hide the current operation for each step, choose different color themes, and choose the speed of animations.

How Long Division can enrich learning: What makes the Long Division app so great is the immediate feedback it gives to students. They don’t work through an entire problem before realizing their mistake, but instead can take a closer look and re-solve as they go to come up with the correct answer. The app is very easy to use and has some nice customization options that will appeal to students using it to study. The step by step animation and guidance will help students get the long division method down in no time. The ability to enter their own numbers means that students can input problems from a math curriculum or text-book and work through the step by step process with any problem. Your reluctant math students will love this app, it will act as their own personal tutor sitting with them and encouraging them on!

Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later

Price: $3.99 (iTunes Link)

Math Girl Addition House

January 7th, 2011 1 Comment

Application: Math Girl Addition House

What it is: Another great math app for girls! Math Girl Addition House is a great alternative to flash cards for math practice, this math practice app will have girls enjoying math and working on addition fact recall in no time. Girls can build their own customized playhouse by adding flowers. Students will add numbers from 1+1 to 99+9 by exploring groupings of flowers. Even better? If you have the Math Girl Number Garden app the garden and house can be synced together!

In Addition House students will:

Count flowers in patterns, add flowers.
Improve recall by recognizing patterns.
Earn hearts for correct answers.
Replay levels to earn more hearts. (12 levels in all!)
Use the hearts earned to “buy” items for the playhouse.
“Sell” items to upgrade to bigger items.
Play in and save the playhouse.
Save houses for up to 4 players within the app.
Sync to the Number Garden app to view your house and garden.

How Math Girl Addition House can enrich learning: Math Girl Addition House is a fact practice app that will keep girls practicing. The cute graphics and ability to “buy” things for their playhouse will keep them working to get faster at their math recall so they build out their playhouse. The game is made up of twelve levels that get progressively harder. Students begin in single digits, progressing to speed rounds, double digits, and adding doubles. The app is brilliant in the way that it helps girls think about numbers in patterns, no more adding with fingers!