Drape's Takes

This was a fun email I wrote tonight. If you find these recommendations helpful, all the better.

Colleagues,

With Scot wanting to tour my favorite iPad apps yesterday and Hollie asking for recommended math apps today, I thought I'd throw together a quick list for you tonight. Hit delete on your keyboard now if you're not ready for a lengthy email: I won't be offended in the least. :-)

First, the iOS Report that Katie Blunt and others recently created includes dozens of recommendations. I asked them to include specific examples by subject and evidence-based instructional priority and think they've made a solid start. Be sure to use the clickable Table of Contents on page 2 to quickly jump to your interest.

Download here: http://cnyns.org/JwiKj8

Next comes my list. Because I come from a secondary background, these apps are probably best suited for older users - including adult learners - although many are also mentioned in the more elementary-slanted iOS Report.

Some of the apps included below are free, but most are not. Therefore, you can at least rest assured knowing that if I recommend an app here, I've given it a try and found it worthwhile enough to recommend to you. If you'd like to try any of these apps before you buy, you're more than welcome to take them for a spin on my iPad. (Would a list of apps to avoid purchasing be worthwhile to publish on our site?)

To be sure, iOS apps keep getting better and better every day! More to come, if you're interested. Which apps can't you live without?

D

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Drape's Recommended iPad Apps
(Random Order)

iThoughtsHD - Decent mind mapper for brainstorming and thought organization.

iMovie - Very well-designed nonlinear video editor. Easily publish to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and elsewhere.

iPhoto - Powerful photo editor and organizer. Great for digital storytelling and organization!

Comic Life, Skitch - Digital storytelling, different apps for different projects and audiences. I also like Skitch for annotating photos, quick note summary of meeting slides.

PDF Pen - Edit PDFs, think of a textbook that is now editable by each student.

GarageBand - Teach music theory and generate a love for music creation and organization. Try it, you'll like it.

360 Panorama - Quickly and easily create panoramas. 2D pictures are so 2011.

Reminders - Now ties to Outlook Tasks (and has replaced ReQall and IMExchange for me with Siri - thanks Paula Logan for the suggestion).

Quick Office Pro HD - Nice alternative to iWork (Pages, Keynote, Numbers). At $20 for the suite, it's $10 cheaper than iWork if you're going to purchase all three, but doesn't yet support the retina display. Ties into more storage providers than iWork. If on a Mac, though, I prefer iWork - mostly because I'm bored to death of PowerPoint.

Noteshelf - Note taking app, with a Cornell template.

Remote - Control Keynote presentations from your phone, allowing you to wander the room. A little buggy, but better than nothing.

Goodreader, Dropbox - De facto storage solutions for iOS.

Star Walk for iPad - Interactive star map, smells better than most astronomy professors.

Google Earth - Interactive map with geographical highlights. I love using this for historical tours.

ArcGIS - Tap into ESRI's online GIS or create your own maps. Also GeoMobile for ArcGIS. 

GeoMeasure - Would've loved to have had this app when teaching geometry! Have students measure the area of a sector in real life (like a football field or section of lawn), verify answers with GeoMeasure.

iTunes U - Now on the iPad. See also Newsstand, iBooks, and iBooks Author!

ShowMe - View and create digital tutorials. Simple, yet very effective for electronic explicit instruction.

SCOtutor for iPad - Free for a limited time, video tutorials on how to use the iPad!

Study Apps:

TIPPS - SAT Prep, not ACT but still decent
ACT Student - Practice ACT questions
Khan Academy - Instructional videos by topic
Wolfram Alpha and most Wolfram Course Assistants - Nice supplements to traditional instruction
Simplepedia for iPad - Wikipedia reader with offline support