Herald-Citizen: 10/30/11
Learning...There's an App for That?
As children begin to dream of the next cool gadget that Santa and his tech-savvy elves will bring soon, parents are wondering how many more hours of Angry Birds and Zombie games the children’s brains (and their parents’ patience) can handle. Do your kids try to operate everything with a swiping motion? Do they draw their house surrounded by Plants and Zombies when asked to illustrate their family during Art class? Maybe it’s time to consider some productive alternatives to these mindless (though very entertaining) games.
When you visit the iTunes App store or Android Market, you’ll find thousands of apps for every subject and concept related to education ranging in price from free to very expensive. On the upper end of the spectrum, if you find the need to pass the New York State Bar Exam, try BarMax NY: $999.00. There are apps for every age group, ability level and topic including ACT prep, language learning, physics, chess, Sudoku, writing, astronomy and every possible area you can imagine. As a parent, filtering this information can be difficult without a little assistance and decent advice. On the flip side, if your kids are only allowed to use the device between
your rounds of Words with Friends, they should choose their app carefully!
Over time, I hope to steer you towards some of the more beneficial apps that I have tried out and would recommend for students and their families. Be careful, though, you may find that you or your kids are engaged and learning!
This week’s app is a powerful collaboration between the scientific community and the curious mobile user. Have you ever been at the park, on a trip, or simply in your backyard and wondered what kind of trees were around you? If you were as lucky as me, when you were young your grandfather would point out different types of trees on a hike and you can still recall some today. If you happen to have an Audubon Field Guide to North American Trees (
What’s a field guide, Dad?), you may be able to pick out a few. Enter the mobile app Leafsnap. With Leafsnap, you place a leaf on a white background, snap a picture, and a helpful list of likely matches will appear. Normally, there are only a few similar leaves, and with a little discussion and comparison, you can choose the correct one. If that was the only thing the app accomplished, it would be really impressive. However, once you select the type of tree the info is automatically identified, geo-coded for your location, and added to the community of Leafsnap users and scientists. The sizeable project has connections to several universities and the Smithsonian Institution. Your nifty new leaf collection is now archived on your device. There are several leaf-identifying games built-in for extra practice. Your mobile device will need a built-in camera, or you’ll have to upload the pictures to your gadget of choice from your computer. The app is free and available on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android. More information about the app can be found in the iTunes store or on the website: leafsnap.com
Dr. Jeremy Wendt
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Herald-Citizen: 11/20/2011
Learning…There’s an App for That?
The Thanksgiving holiday can be a wonderfully hectic time for families. Coffee-charged shoppers head out in the middle of the night to fight the menacing crowd for that elusive bargain. Dedicated football fans settle in to watch the big game on the big screen. That 25-pound bird needs to be roasted, broiled, fried, stuffed, scattered, smothered and covered by someone before the family shows up. In the midst of all this fun, did anyone remember to check on the kids? They may be outside playing in the leaf pile or throwing last year’s fruitcake at Uncle Dave, but what are your options if it rains or when it gets dark at 4:30? Enter the latest app to encourage fun and learning simultaneously:
Stack the States.
Stack the States won’t break the bank at .99 cents, but there is a lite version if you are afraid to commit to the full app. The primary goal for this app is to learn facts about states. Check your K-8 state standards and year-end tests; you’ll find questions like these. Understandably, the best way for a child to grasp the fact that you can fit about 30 “New Jerseys” into one Texas is to pile the family into the Suburban and barrel out across this great country. Go watch a rodeo in Cheyenne and I promise you’ll never forget the capitol of Wyoming! When the real experiences aren’t an option,
Stack the States wraps these tasty little tidbits of trivia into a very appealing interface.
The app’s graphics are very crisp, with striking backgrounds from parks, cities and landmarks all over the U.S. Individual players can set up their own profiles (up to six), avoiding overlap between users’ progress. When the game starts, players attempt to fill up their U.S. map with all 50 states by answering a series of multiple-choice questions correctly. Each correct answer generates a state that drops from the top of the screen. The state can be manipulated and then stacked on the bottom of the screen in an attempt to reach the marked finish line. This section of the game looks very similar to an app called “
Topple” and is very sensitive to gravity. The size and shape of the state has a direct bearing on how quick you get to the finish. The app does a great job with proportion, so Alaska will get you to the finish line quicker because it is much bigger than Rhode Island. If you get a minimum percentage correct, you will earn a new state for your U.S. map. In addition, there are several mini-games that you can earn by filling in states on your map. If there are questions that you are unsure about, the flash cards and interactive map offer additional info.
The seller is also the creator of several other excellent minimally priced apps, including
Rocket Math (a favorite at my house), and
Presidents vs. Aliens.
Stack the States is available on the iPad, iPod, and iPhone. The app is great for anyone around seven or older who wants to learn new facts or simply build on existing state knowledge.
Dr. Jeremy Wendt
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Herald-Citizen: 12/18/2011
Learning…There’s an App for That?
Merry Christmas! You’ll want to be sure and remind Santa that iTunes and Amazon gift cards make great stocking stuffers to go with all those shiny new mobile devices. Ralphie and his little brother would be amazed to see the remarkable changes that have taken place since the days of the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle (and by the way, there is a quiz app to test your knowledge of
A Christmas Story)! When the semester starts back, your children may find that their school has changed their attitude on personal electronics and moved to a BYOD (bring your own device) environment. This movement has been taking place in school districts all over the U.S and opens the door to nearly 50,000 apps identified as education in the iTunes store! Here are a few of my favorites that you should download immediately:
Dropbox is a necessity for any mobile device user. Dropbox is a free 2GB storage app that syncs files across all platforms. Download the app on your desktop and/or laptop and save a file in the Dropbox folder. Open the Dropbox app on any of your mobile devices, and the file is there immediately. View files from your Mac or PC on your iPod, iPhone, or Android device. Save a document in the Dropbox folder on a computer at work and when you get home it will be waiting for you in your Dropbox folder. If you invite others to sign up, you can earn additional storage space for yourself. The interface is very simple and very free! Get it from the app store or from www.dropbox.com.
ShowMe is a simple concept: Create a community of learners by “showing me” how to complete a problem or process on any topic. Can’t remember the order of operations? Need an out-of-the-ordinary explanation for the difference between adverbs and adjectives? Want a new way to work on phrases for Spanish class? Check the ShowMe app or website for explanations. The users truly set this app apart because they are the source of the instructional creations. Research shows that when a student teaches a concept, retention and understanding greatly increases. With this app, a student can literally show and explain the processing that went into solving or learning a concept. Open the app, press record, and all sketches and audio will be saved to your iPad. The files can then be easily shared to the ShowMe community.
Penultimate is a must-have app for note-taking, sketching and drawing that costs about .99 cents. An iPad stylus (although not a necessity) can turn your device into a blank slate to hand-write notes. Plenty of different colors and backgrounds as well as a wrist “smudge” protection setting make this a very productive app. Export your completed notes as a PDF file or e-mail them out to group or family
members.
To make sure that the kiddos have a little fun with mixed in with all this hard work, Puppet Pals is a free/paid app that can help expand the family’s creative side. Pick your characters, backgrounds, and movements. Record your voice as you move your “puppets”. Prepare to laugh!
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Herald-Citizen: 1/29/2012
Learning…There’s an App for That?
Happy New Year! The painfully short and dark days of winter are upon us, so bundle up the kids and rehearse your infamous childhood stories to combat their cold weather complaints: “When I was young it was so cold, we would go to bed with a glass of orange juice on the nightstand and wake up with a frozen Creamsicle! It was so cold, that Grandpa’s false teeth were chattering, and they were still in the glass….” Keep in mind that the kids can do a quick Google search to see that January temperatures in Cookeville in 1961 ranged from a low of 11 to a high of 72.
Today’s fast-paced learning environment has changed and will continue to evolve as teachers strive to meet the needs of the learners. After conducting an iPad in-service for dedicated teachers this January, I spoke to several teachers using their own mobile devices to supplement the school’s technology and enrich their classrooms. Teachers have always used attention-getting props and strategies (a song, a surfboard, a funny story, etc), and technology opens the door to endless ideas. The following apps should be very helpful to teachers, but would also provide knowledge to students and parents:
TeacherPal: This is a must-have free app for any teacher! Teacherpal allows you to easily enter grades, attendance, and comments onto a classic chalkboard interface. My favorite feature is the ability to snap a quick picture of the student and organize the pics into a visual seating chart for attendance and grouping. A new feature, face detection, lets you take a group picture and identifies each student by his/her face.
GroovyGrader: Everyone should download this high-tech update to the traditional (teacher’s best friend) cardboard grade slider. Are there 37 questions on the quiz? What’s the score if the student missed 6 problems? 84! Priceless and free.
iBanner HD: A very simple app that turns your screen into a scrolling LED-style banner just like you would see at a business or ballgame. Use it to remind the students (or your kids) about their homework, dinner, or how much you love them in the car rider’s line (if you want to embarrass them a little!).
BrainPOP: Many schools have access to this award-winning, curriculum-based content service. The educational site has games, videos, tutorials and much more. The partner app has free daily content for anyone, but gives full access with a login. Students love it and teachers use it regularly for content introductions, enrichment, and reinforcement.
This Day in History: The World Book Encyclopedia sponsored app presents daily events from significant historical happenings. The interface is very easy-to-use, with high quality pictures and links for additional information about the subject. Subject areas are broad and include music, art, political, war, geography, science, and much more. This app has won several awards and is priced nicely- free! Each of these can be found in the iTunes Education app store, along with approximately 50,000 other education-themed apps!
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Herald-Citizen: 2/26/2012
Learning…There’s an App for That?
One of the first publicly available electronic calculators in the mid-1960s weighed in at a whopping
55 pounds and cost around $2,200! As calculators rapidly evolved, so did the technology, price, and size. I had a “rad” calculator watch in 1987 that I thought was pretty cutting edge. My teachers confiscated it. Daily. If you check the app store today, there are over 3,000 apps that have some sort of calculator function. A few of the more useful free calculator apps are: scientific, GPA, mortgage, graphing, BMI, tax refund, carpenter’s helper, fuel efficiency, and many others. If you are concerned about rising gas prices, use one of your newly downloaded calculators to keep things in perspective. Help your kids compute some household product “per gallon” prices for fun. That 20 oz. bottled water that costs $1.29 seems ridiculous at $8.26 per gallon! Remember last week’s Valentine’s Day present for your sweetheart? The 1.7 oz. bottle of Perry Ellis perfume would cost a measly $2,800 per gallon. As an alert for unsuspecting parents and teachers, the “Hide Calculator” app functions and appears to be a real app, but enter a secret six-digit code and you can access documents, photos, and movies that are hidden behind the interface!
Speaking of documents, CloudOn uses Dropbox (great app, refer to previous articles) to sync and manage all of your Microsoft Office creations on your mobile device. If you need to make minor edits on-the-go, viewing, and creating, then this app will suffice. CloudOn does a decent job of working with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents (considering the excellent price: FREE). The interface looks very similar to Microsoft Office and is the first app that I’ve seen for free with this much functionality. If you prefer Apple products, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are expensive, in terms of mobile apps at $9.99 each but are much more stable, reliable, and have better resolution.
iTunesU is an Apple concept that has been around for several years but has been given a second chance with the newly released mobile app for Apple devices. In the past, iTunesU focused mostly on audio and video recordings called podcasts from universities and schools interested in sharing some of their materials. The “concept” has now transformed into a fully functioning online content management system. The game-changing piece of the overhaul is the integration of apps and multimedia into the mix. For example, as you’re listening to a pre-recorded lecture on statistics, the teacher will recommend that you download a specific regression calculator to work the problems for Chapter 12. One click and you have the tool. Struggling with the problems? Click on a pop-up video for more examples of the concept or open the book in the iBooks app. From an educator's perspective, the service opens doors for distributing course content that includes audio, video, books, apps, and much more. K-12 schools and colleges are posting content for use in paid courses, but many courses have been posted and are now completely open to the public. The free resources are growing daily and creating plenty of opportunities for learning. Enjoy!