Ipads & Ipods in the classroom: A list of FREE educational Apps + everything you need to get started

***Updates to this post are added in red.


Cases

First off, I purchased the standard magnetic cover from Apple, which I have throughly enjoyed.  However, I will also be investing in a separate covering called an Otterbox Defender.  It's pretty much like a tank!  It adds a lot of weight to the ipad, but I think it will be a good investment considering that it will be used by 6 year olds all day!   It does add about 2 pounds to the ipad!   Here is the link to Amazon, where they are fairly low priced.  If you have one strictly for personal use, I do NOT recommend this product.  But for educators, particularly with the little guys, I think it's not a bad idea!  :)  Anyways, the Otterbox Defender Series are the ones that would work best in the classroom.

Apps to Control Your Computer
 

My ipad can now wirelessly control my computer.  You (and the students!) can even write on it with a pen tool called a stylus.  I'm going to be purchasing this stylus, but there are many available for the ipad.

Some other fantastic news for your is that this app also lets you remotely access and control your home or school PC. The app is called Splashtop ($2.99 for a limited time), Splashtop WHITEBOARD $9.99 and it comes with whiteboard editing tools just like any other pricey interactive white board!  This is HUGE people!!!!  Brand new updates!!!


and you can watch a video tutorial to set it up.  Did I mention you could access your home computer?  From school?!  Or the beach?!

Another exciting tool is an app called "Penultimate" ($1.99).  It allows you to write with your finger or the pen stylus tool in many colors, save your thoughts into several notebooks, change the paper & pen style, and email a single page or entire notebook.

Warning: Many of the apps are just a counterpart to expensive software.  Examples include: Doceri Remote ($50 full version) and Power Teacher Mobile.  Read the descriptions before downloading! 

Other (mostly) free apps you need to download:

• Grade Book Pro- 
• Wordlens- Translates any typed text into another language Menus!  :)
• Teacher Pal- Free scheduler & organizer made especially for teachers
• Dragon Dictation- free speech to text app.  You talk to it, it types it up and you can save it or email it.
• Siri- personal assistant.  You can talk to it and ask it for movie showtimes.  You can even tell it to make you dinner reservations!!!
• Shazam- tells you the title, artist, and detailed information about any song playing around you
• Walgreens- I refill my prescription through this!
• Dictionary
• Calculator- I'm note sure why this isn't standard!
• WeatherEye or any other weather tool
• Google Books
• Zapd- create a beautiful website in seconds from your ipad
• Pandora- Customized radio to your preferences
• Evernote- another note creating tool
• Speller- Spell checker
• Google Earth
• Peek- This is the first app designed to work with the magnetic cover of the Ipad 2.  Study anything from Evernote using this clever app
• Neu.Annotate- Annotate on PDFs
• Popplet lite- pretty great brainstorming app
• Disney Family Fun- Digital version of their magazine full of crafts and creative ideas.  Great for teachers and it's free too!
• Flashlight- you just always need one
• QR Reader- Read QR codes  See my separate post about QR codes in the classroom
• Roambi- Interact with your data on your Ipad. I am going to have my first graders interview each other to collect data & then use this app to play with the data!  Great for teaching about charts & graphs.  I'm planning to The students will track our classroom economy next year with this app.
• Stitcher- free smart radio
• Flipboard- News, flikr, lifestyle, Oprah, Tech, Facebook & Twitter all in one visual content app
• iCardSort- word work, anyone?!

Here is an extensive list of every free educational app that we use in my 1st grade classroom.  I think this list of apps is great for K-2 classrooms, and possibly higher grades.


Note: Since these apps are free, they can often come with annoying ads or popups.  This is the downside of free apps.  I talk with my students about how to use the apps and I have not had a problem with this.  You have to enter your password to make purchases- double check that yours is set up like this!  :)

Math

• McGraw-Hill math apps: Tric-Trac, Top-It, Fractions, Squeeze (I got these for free during a promotion- now they are paid, but still great apps!)
• Zombie Math ***Class favorite!
• Coins
• Coin Math
• ClockMaster
• Math Blaster
• 10 Frame Fill
• What Day
• Pizza 1
• Math Bingo
• Bills&Coins
• Coins Genius
• MathPracLite
• MathTables
• Math for Kids
• Math Free
• MathMasterLite
• LobsterDiver
• Math Mix-Up
• Nutty Numbers
• Number Line
• MAD Math
• Kids Clock 
• AB Arithmetic
• Abakus-Diff
• Math Bingo
• Kids Mathlete

ABC/Easy Great for Kindergarten or the beginning of 1st!

• ABC Phonics
• ABC Lite
• 1-Letters
• ABC Free
• ABC X-MAS
• Dr Kids Lite
• Phonics

Spelling

• Spelling Bee
• Spelling Bug
• Spelling Tree
• Spelling Cat
• Spelling Farm
• SpellingMagic
• Textropolis
• SpellWizLite
• Word Abacus
• Hangman (Hard)
• LetterHunter
• SBSpelling
• Spel It Rite 2
• Spell & Fill
• Spell2 Lite
• Grade1Words

Sight Words

• 1st Grade
• Primer
• Sight Words
• Sight Words
• Sight Touch
• Sight words lite

Handwriting

• UYH
• ABC Tracing
• 123 Writing Alphabet Tracing
• Handwriting

Reading

• Toy Story Interactive Read Aloud- The best app EVER!!!!!!  LOVE THIS!  The students can listen to reading while it highlights the words, read by themselves and touch a word if they get stuck, or even record themselves reading!!!!!  When they record themselves, it adds the background music from the movie and zooms on the picture to give it the effect of coming to life!  It's amazing, it's free, and it's fantastic!!!!
• StoryChimes- Do a search in the itunes app store for "StoryChimes"  I have about 40 FREE books from them!!!!!!
• 3 Pigs 2
• A Story B4 Bed
• Read Me Stories
• Time Reading
• Stanza
• Wolf's Story
• OceanFriends
• Alice ABC- **Very cool story app- feels 3d!

Music

• ShelMovies- As in Shel Silverstein!
• SingNSend
• Grammar Jammers Primary
• KidsSongs
• Singing Fingers
• There are many, many more in this section including pianos and amazing things.  I haven't really gotten around to exploring the full potential of this area.

Science:

• Leafsnap HD- take a picture of a leaf & this app will identify it.  Pretty amazing!
• BrainPOP- a free movie everyday! (Needs a wireless connection)
• Google Earth (also needs wireless)
• Learn Sharks
• Stellarium
• Cosmic
• HubbleSite
• NASA
• SkyORB
• Space HD
• Space Images
• DinoMatch
• Animal Fun
• Dinos
• Planets
• Moon
• Weather Eye
• Dinosaurs
• Dinosaurs for Kids

Social Studies

• Stack the States Lite
• Trains
• Match Chinese New Year
• World History Maps
• French for kids
• Kids Chinese
• iTheaurus
• Spanish LE
• WordPower Lt
• Translator
• Dictionary

Special Needs

• TapToTalk
• FaceCards- Great for children with Asperger's!  

Games/Miscellaneous 

• Tap Zoo
• Switch
• Tangram
• Kid Genius
• Miss Spell
• Things
• Zapd- Create a webpage in seconds from your ipad

Digital Storytelling

• Story Kit
• StoryRobe

Just for fun:

• Angry Birds
• Netfilx
• New York Times/USA Today or any other major news as well as WSMV app for local news
• MoMA
• Around Me
• Amazon
• IMDb- Internet Movie Database
• iHandy Level

Paid Apps- Just cool stuff

• Vernier Video Physics- create your own video and then it graphs the trajectory, position, & velocity.  It's only $2.99, and I would love to figure out a way to break this down to the lowest level and put it in the hands of our firsties.  Any ideas?  I mean, we teach them about graphs.  And recording their own through a video would be super cool.  Let me know what you think. (If it's nice!  ha!)
• RulerPhone- This app is soooo neat!  It uses your camera to MEASURE any object!  How cool is that?!  There is a lite version for free that limits what you can measure and a paid version for $3.99 Check out this video:

• Frog Dissection is another unique app-  Kinda gross and fascinating all at the same time.  $3.99
• Word Wall HD- $0.99 See, hear, say, write!  75 sight words, 65 word family words, 12 word families.  Ages 5-6
• Analogies 4 Kids- $0.99 from the makers of Patter Recognition. 
• A 1st Grade Pattern Recognition Game has a different 99 cent game for each lower grade level!  
• Life Cycle App $0.99
• 1st grade Reading- I Like Writing Free Appears to be really a digital storytelling book where the students take pictures, write sentences and record their own voice to narrate.
• Phonics Easy Reader (1-4) HD- From the beloved educational company Rock 'N Learn, this looks like a really great set of apps.  Each app comes with 3 stories.  The stories have 'read to me' and 'let me read' features, including where they can actually record their voice and play it back to hear their own fluency.  $1.99 apiece- 4 total apps.  They also offer a Multiplication Rap for the older grades.

Links 
Here is a link to my Livebinder with a plethora of resources!



Thank to our local Apple Rep, Jim Eden, who sent me this list:


1. Here are links to App Reviews and Resources:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/ios-education/id6017?mt=8

http://www.iear.org/

https://spreadsheets.google.com/lv?key=tenru11ELMGfma9kDka2moQ&type=view&gid=0&f=true&sortcolid=4&sortasc=true&rowsperpage=250

http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/

http://www.ikeepbookmarks.com/browse.asp?account=424831

2. Exceptional Education Apps:

iPhone App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMultiRoom?fcId=399470369

iPad App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMultiRoom?fcId=399470755

3. Apple Resources:

App Store Volume License Program for Education: http://www.apple.com/itunes/education/ 

  How to set-up a school iTunes account WITHOUT USING A CREDIT CARD : http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534

  Create links for the iTunes Store or App Store using the iTunes Link Maker:  http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker

  iPad Integration & Security:  http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/integration/

  Mobile Device Management Solutions for iOS Devices:  http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/integration/mdm/

  iPhone (iPod Touch, iPad) Configuration Utility for Mac:  http://support.apple.com/kb/dl851

  iPhone (iPod Touch, iPad) Configuration Utility for Windows:  http://support.apple.com/kb/dl926

Anyway, I hope this gets you started a little better with your Ipad/Ipod/Iphone. I think this is the best educational investment that we've ever made as a school.  Next year my students will be creating, editing, and publishing their own educational movies and tutorials through the ipad.
We will be studying Chinese, Spanish, and French as behavior rewards.

What apps are you using in the classroom?   What apps have you purchased?  I would love a list of PAID apps- so that is where I'm turning to all of you!
 Leave a comment so we can have a great list!  :)