Appy Friday!!
I actually have time for reviews! Yay! It’s not the longest list of apps, but there are some goodies.
I also want to share that last week Rashell Mehring and I had a great group for our iPad for Special Education Classrooms workshop. Everyone was really pumped to share apps they already use and learn about new ways to implement their iPad in the classroom!
Have a great weekend,
Betsy
Reviews
Early Childhood/Early Elementary
Starfall Learn to Read by Starfall Education
Normally $2.99
Starfall has an amazing website that is ubiquitous amongst educators. The tough part is the website is flash based, so you are either dependent on a flash emulator app like Puffin, which can get slow and lag or downloading their individual apps, some which cost money. Starfall Learn to read app used to be $2.99 but based on the description, it seems to be now free forever! Whoo hoo! This app has a set of books that works on short vowels, long vowels and then phonics and chunking. Just like the website, the app includes books that you can either read by yourself or tap a button to hear the sentence or individual words. There are also activities on building words using word families, music, animations, word sorts, and matching. One of my favorite activities is the picture find. Occupational Therapists can use this activity to work on visual discrimination and Teachers and Speech Language Pathologists can work on vocabulary in the context of a visual scene! The app also includes some samples from their subscription service which includes some math activities. If you are looking for an app that is age appropriate for older students, this is not a good choice for them. The design of the app is very young in terms of content, animations and voices and may seem babyish to some users.
Middle-High School/Teacher Tool
Simple Repeat Timer. by abiem LLC
Normally $0.99
This is a visual, repeating timer that takes a little messing around to figure out how to use it, but depending on the features you are looking for in a timer, this could be worth figuring out. How it works: you have a bar that represents an amount of time on your timer. You swipe up and down to set the amount of time and tap to start. As the time elapses, the bar goes down like an egg timer, top to bottom from colored to gray. When the time is done, it makes an alert sound and repeats the timer. Now the cool thing is you can have a series of timers. Meaning you can have the first timer be 5 minutes, the next 1 minute and so on. It will go through the cycle again and again until you stop it. This is great for teachers, OTs or SLPs who want to do centers or PTs who are doing circuit training. For example, set a timer for 10 minutes, then a second timer for 1 minute to allow kids to move to the next center and then it repeats. Students could use this to help them focus on homework and managing break time independently. Set the first time for 10 minutes to read their book, then a 5 minute break, then 20 minutes to do a worksheet and then a 5 minute break. I could also see using this as a parent when you are trying to help your kids take turns on the family iPad! Helpful hint: the alarm is using the ringer/alert volume, not the standard volume. If you can’t hear the alert noise, go to your settings in your iPad to turn it up.
Always Free, Always Awesome!
Early Childhood-Early Elementary
Tap and Count to 100 by Nancy chupp
Many of the counting apps available for younger students only go up to 20. But what do you do when it’s time to count 20-30? Or maybe it’s 100 celebration day in kindergarten and all kids are counting to 100 with all objects imaginable?! This is a very simple app that shows a hundred’s chart. You tap on each number and it will say the number, but it will only allow you to tap them in order. When you count to 100 you can set off some rockets, counting by 10s! What I don’t like about it is you can’t count 1-100 in one activity, it makes you count 10 at a time and there are no customization settings available.
Also free today!
EARLY CHILDHOOD
Toca Life: School by Toca Boca AB
Normally $2.99
*Also on Google Play, but not free today
Swiggles Colors by Werds
Normally $0.99
SWITCH SKILLS
RadSounds: Music Player by RJ Cooper & Associates, Inc.
Normally $29.99
RadSounds Cause/Effect by RJ Cooper & Associates, Inc.
Normally $29.99
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE
Point To Pictures by RJ Cooper & Associates, Inc.
Normally $29.99
Scan To Pictures by RJ Cooper & Associates, Inc.
Normally $29.99
VISUAL PERCEPTUAL/FINE MOTOR
Next - Numbers by Vito Technology Inc.
Normally $1.99
*Also on Google Play!
ELECTRONIC STORYBOOKS/INTERACTIVE BOOKS
Sheldon's Adventure by Intense Media, LLC
Normally $1.99
Sheldon's Adventure: Cornered! by Intense Media, LLC
Normally $1.99
What Was That Noise? by Iain Anderson
Normally $0.99
MATH
Numbers and Counting Early Learning Math Match Games for Kids in Pre-K, Kindergarten and 1st Grade by Eggroll Games LLC
Normally $2.99
*Lite version available on Google Play (full version is not free today)
TASK-RELATED
Membot - Memorize and Learn Instantly by Ajith Varghese
Normally $0.99
iJot by Zack Smith
Normally $0.99
Orderly - Todo Lists, Location Based Reminders by Tekton Technologies (P) Ltd.
Normally $0.99
Universal Image Search Pro by surendra kumar
Normally $0.99
