Featured 7-2-2014: Peekaboo Studios

 

Peekaboo Studios is an educational app developer focused on building apps aligned with Common Core State Standards for PreK-12.

 

Peekaboo Studios has created over 140 apps that teach early concepts, critical thinking, vocabulary, math, music exploration, and more. A few of the available titles are Best Books for Tweens, Ultimate Trivia: The Fault in our Stars, Learn the Colors, Math 7 Testing Prep, Learn the Alphabet, and Reading 5.

 

There are apps available for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Google Play Android devices, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and Amazon's Kindle devices. For a full list of apps:

• iPad/iPhone/iPod: Apple apps
• Nook apps: Nook apps
• Apps for Kindle: Kindle apps
• Android apps: Google Play apps

You can contact Peekaboo Studios for a free promo code to try out one of their iOS apps (only Apple provides promotional codes).

 

 

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Extra 4-11-2014: ReferenceMe

ReferenceME is a free mobile app that makes managing and organizing research simple.

 

Use the ReferenceME app to scan book or journal barcodes to create and manage references for your essay or research report. You can alternatively enter the ISBN, ISSN, DOI, or website URL into the ReferenceME search field and the reference will be created.

 

ReferenceME creates references in Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, MHRA, MLA, Oxford, APA, and Turabian formats. You can request custom styles at the online platform.

 

 

ReferenceME syncs with the ReferenceME web platform or you can save your references to Evernote to organise your research.

 

ReferenceME for iOS is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and requires iOS 7.0 or later. The Android app requires Android 4.0 and up.

 

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Featured: 4-8-2014 Mobento

Mobento is a video learning platform that features a “spoken word” search. They believe they have invented a better, faster way to search.

 

A keyword search in Mobento will yield videos in which those keywords were spoken as well as the frequency of the words and the the precise location of the words in the video.

 

 

Mobento wants to help you manage the wealth of educational content and technology that can be overwhelming without proper tools. School Accounts are quick, easy, and affordable to set up. Intuitive and simple to use, School Accounts enable you to organize and secure video and other digital assets and deliver education that is efficiently used without online distraction.

 

Benefits for teachers:

• Powerful and flexible video learning system
• Simple to administer
• Manage users
• Easily create digital courses
• Build secure public/private libraries
• Attach documents and links to videos
• Control content and assure security

Students who have been raised on online video get a fast, engaging user experience. They can download or stream content and make Inline notes while viewing.

 

 

 Mobento offers free mobile apps for both Android and iOS that allow streaming and downloading, note-taking, favorites, watch lists, and device synching.

 Watch a video overview of Mobento

 

Mobento launched with only 200 videos, but that number has grown to well over 4000 currently, sourced from speakers at Stanford, Yale, Khan Academy, TED, and more.

 

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Featured 4-7-2014: Geddit

Geddit is a free iOS app that enables students to give instant private feedback about their understanding in real-time in the 1:1 classroom. It also works on any web-enabled device.

 

Designed to be used with any lesson, you don't have to change anything to use Geddit.  Start collecting real-time, personal student feedback as they participate in your lesson.

 

You can get insights into your students’ confidence and understanding in context. Geddit includes several built-in question-and-answer features. Multiple choice and short answer responses let you immediately check for evidence of understanding. 

 

 

Students can develop metacognitive skills using Geddit. They are able to develop a realistic understanding of their own learning, at the same time you can identify individual student needs on the fly with Instant, real-time feedback facilitating better differentiation.

 

Geddit supports differentiation by helping you: 

• Respond to needs and effectively direct your attention
• Form collaborative groups based on ability
• Facilitate peer-to-peer coaching

 Watch What is Geddit?

 

Geddit for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch is available free from the iTunes Store and requires iOS 5 or later.

 

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Featured 3-6-2014: goREACT

You can be a virtual chemist with goREACT,  a free iOS app from the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.

 

goREACT lets you create nearly 300 virtual chemical reactions by dragging elements into the Reaction Area. Images and videos illustrate the molecules you create.

 

 

goREACT and the Periodic Table:

• Touch any of the Periodic Table's 118 elements to see an image and fun fact about it.
• Learn more about how the Periodic Table is organized, and follow links to additional educational resources.
• Select alternate views of the Periodic Table to discover different aspects of the elements’ chemical properties.

 

 

Featured Reactions guide you through themed sets of chemical reactions related to particular applications, such as the environment, beauty products, or cars. Helpful hints and suggestions about reactions to try generate exciting explorations.

 

 Visit the goREACT YouTube channel

 

 goREACT requires iOS 5.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

 

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Extra 2-28-2014: Kingsoft Office for iOS

In October of last year, I shared Kingsoft Office Free 2013,  a no-cost, powerful  Windows alternative to MS Office. Earlier this month, Kingsoft Office released an iOS compatible with for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Kingsoft Office is compatible with and allows you to read and edit Word and PowerPoint documents and has the capability to view Excel files.

 

Kingsoft Office can sync with popular cloud services such as GoogleDrive, Dropbox, and others; transfer documents to other Kingsoft users over Wi-Fi; sync documents opened to your account from either your device or desktop without using any cable connection. File management allows creating folders, copy, move, delete, rename, and save as.

 

 

Kingsoft Office is free from the iTunes App Store. It requires iOS 6.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

 

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Featured 2-24-2014: ZipGrade

Grade multiple-choice tests with ZipGrade using your iPhone's camera as a scanner.

 

ZipGrade is a fast, accurate, cost-effective way to grade tests in the classroom or wherever you may be.

 

You can grade, analyze, and store as many as 20 tests per minute on an iPhone 5. By giving teachers the ability to grade papers quickly anywhere, ZipGrade provides rapid feedback that can be used to better focus lessons and assignments.

 

Download free answer sheets in several formats and sizes from ZipGrade.com and print as many copies as you wish.

 

 

Results are organized for reporting and exporting as PDF and in Excel-readable format. Results are stored by students, subject, and quiz.

 

 See ZipGrade V1.1 In Action

 

ZipGrade is a free download from the iTunes App Store, with a 100 quiz demo; 27 languages including English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Chinese. Requires iOS 7.0 or later.

 

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Extra 2-21-2014: Corkulous

Corkulous idea board is an iOS app that can be used to collect, organize, and share your ideas.

 

Corkulous features:

• Notes, Labels, Photos, Contacts, Tasks, Index Cards, and Arrow Flags
• Full board view with pinch zooming
• Search cork board items
• Email board snapshots as PDFs or images
• Export board PDFs via iTunes File Sharing
• Save images to Saved Photos album
• Unique back side of the cork board
• Excellent and proven customer support

The free version of Corkulous gives you a single board on your iOS device's collection to work with and lets you connect with Dropbox folders and view Corkulous boards shared by others. 

 

Corkulous Pro adds iCloud support, multiple and nested cork boards, and passcode locking.

 

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Featured: 2-20-2014 Timeglider

Timeglider is a flexible time-based visualization tool that can be utilized for a variety of applications.

 

Timeglider can quickly enhance your experience of the past, present, and future. It has been used by thousands of teachers. Students can easily create timelines, helping them understand the history of an event.

 

Timeglider is a data-driven, interactive timeline application. You can drag the timeline left and right, zoom in and out to view centuries at a time or a few hours. You can create event spans to see durations and how they overlap. 

 

 

Timeglider lets you collaborate and share easily. If you choose to make a timeline publicly accessible, a URL will be created with which to share your timeline. You can use that URL inside of an embed code, as well, for placing on blogs and web pages.

 

 See how to sign up for and use Timeglider

 

Individual students can open a free Timeglider account that provides up to 3 timelines. A basic teacher account that allows up to 30 student users is $5 US monthly ($50 US annually). School accounts are also available.

 

 Timeglider is not Flash-based. It uses HTML-5, so it functions on an iPad and other iOS devices through their browser.

 

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Featured: 2-17-2014 myHistro

Create stories that are displayed on maps and geo-located interactive timelines with myHistro.

 

You can watch and read thousands of user-created timelines at myHistro or create your own dynamic timeline mashup with text, video, and images.

 

 

Combine maps and timelines seamlessly into unique presentations, convert any public timeline into a pdf file, or export it into Google Earth format (kml) for offline storage. Completed timelines can be embedded into blogs and websites for sharing.   

 

Features of myHistro:

• Archive with several hundred historical timelines to choose from.
• Collaboration tools, ideal for class activities.
• Secure content management.

Three privacy levels to choose from let you decide what others will see. You can keep your timeline private, make it public, or keep it between you and those you choose.

 

  

 View a slide presentation: myHistro Basic Guidelines For Teachers

 

There is an official free myHistro application for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch with simplified functionality. In this version you can create new accounts, add new stories, add new events, and manage existing stories and events.

 

Currently myHistro supports YouTube videos and pictures in JPEG and PNG formats. It does not require Flash.

 

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Haiku Deck Now for iPhone, Too

When first featured last month, Haiku Deck, a free app that offers a simple new way to create inspired presentations for teaching a lesson or telling a story, was supported only on the iPad.

You can now download Haiku Deck for iPhone.

 

You can download any or all of the Haiku Decks you’ve previously created for fast, fluid viewing and impromptu presenting. Easy, one-hand operation lets you use your iPhone as a remote.

 

Read more about the new (also free) Haiku Deck iPhone app here.

 

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Featured: 2-5-2014 DragonBox

DragonBox was created to counter student negativity toward algebra by making it simple to understand and learn algebra´s "big ideas," with or without help, at one’s own pace. 

 

The conception of DragonBox was based on...

… the belief and the vision that human beings are hardwired to learn extremely complicated concepts. By placing the student at the center of the learning process one can engage the brain of the students in an optimal manner, achieving results in agreement with the marvelous capacity of the human brain.

DragonBox starts by teaching algebra before arithmetic. Initially, pictures rather than numbers or variables are used to demonstrate the algebra ''game'' before developing its traditional formalism. The game is focused on mathematical rules throughout.

 

 

Playing DragonBox can help kids develop creative thinking. Players discover algebraic rules and have to use the rules to solve puzzles. This can lead to a lot of trial and error, encouraging higher level thinking.

 

Some of the key principles used in designing DragonBox:

• Students learn more when they are engaged.
• An important contributor to learning is immediate feedback.
• Students should be presented with challenges that match their level of mastery.
• Students should be assessed in a formative, non-intrusive way.
• Discovery or experiential learning is more effective than instructional-based teaching.
• Students learn differently and at different paces.
• The language we use to teach mathematics is a barrier to understanding.

 View The DragonBox Concept

 

DragonBox Algebra 5+  is meant to give younger kids a head start in mathematics and algebra. DragonBox Algebra 12+ covers more advanced topics in mathematics and algebra. Both are available for Android and iOS.

 

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Extra: 1-1-2014 Cram

Flashcards can help you organize information in a way that helps you learn more efficiently. Cram  an online flashcard tool, utilizes the Leitner System of studying. This system has helped thousands of students around the world memorize large amounts of information.

 

About 40 years ago, Sebastian Leitner devised a learning system that made selective learning possible with less effort. The system consists of a box separated into a number of compartments. The compartments are filled with flashcards that are moved from one compartment to another, according to the current level of knowledge. When a flashcard is answered correctly, it is promoted to the next compartment. When a flashcard is answered incorrectly, it is demoted to the first compartment. 

Cram can automatically hide cards you already know so that you can focus on the ones you don't. Flashcard sets can also become memorization games. Cram can easily make your flashcards into multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank and matching questions so you can test yourself.

 

 View the video Make flashcards and quizzes with the Cram app

 

Cram also offers mobile apps for iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry, to take your flashcards with you and study anywhere.

 

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Featured: 11-18-2013 Cometdocs Mobile App

 

Cometdocs is a popular, free, online document management system that has served more than 3 million customers. Document sharing, transfers, and storage are among the many many free services it offers. You can now experience the benefits of Cometdocs’ features on your smartphones and tablets.

 

 

The Cometdocs mobile apps give you the ability to do document conversions to and from multiple formats on-the-go from iOS and Android devices. Transfer large files to anyone from your mobile device. There is no limitation on converted pages or size.

 

Find the document on your device, and open it with Cometdocs. The file is then uploaded to your Cometdocs account, after which you can choose the conversion type you desire. Shortly, the converted file will be available. 

 

Supported conversion formats:

• Converting from PDF to Word, Excel, Images, HTML, and AutoCAD, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Text, PowerPoint, and more.
• Converting to PDF from numerous formats such as jpg, xls, xlsx, doc, docx, pptx, ppt, rtf, png, pub, and more

 

Your documents can be accessed from anywhere - your desktop browser, mobile phone, or tablet. Have them with you and ready to be edited or converted at all times. 

 

 

 

 

 See a short how-to-use guide for Cometdocs mobile apps

 

The Cometdocs app for iOS or Android is available free of charge. To use Cometdocs from your mobile app, you need to have a registered account.

 

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Featured: 11-14-2013 Classroom Quiz Master

Classroom Quiz Master is a universal iOS app that allows a teacher to take on the role of a quiz question master or game show host, with the students taking on the role of the contestants.

Students are divided into two teams and are presented with quizzes and questions that the teacher has already entered into the Classroom Quiz Master app. The teams compete against each other. A quiz can consist of up to 10 questions and quizzes can be added or deleted at any time (the lite version of the app is limited to 3 quizzes).

The contestants scores are recorded graphically on the scoreboard in the app. Background music, sound effects, and animation all enhance the game show atmosphere.

Classroom Quiz Master Pro is $1.99 (US) and the lite version is free. Both versions are compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch running iOS 5.0 or later.

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