Featured 5-14-2014: ReMarkable

 

ReMarkable is a free iPad app that offers students an easy way to submit digital documents in many formats to teachers and professors for marking. 

 

The concept of ReMarkble is functional and practical for both students and teachers. Upon signing up, teachers get a unique email address that will be used by students to submit all work directly to the app. All assignments go directly into ReMarkable where educators mark all the work within the app.

 

ReMarkable accepts many document types including .docx, .pptx, .xls, .jpg, .gif, .pdf, and more.

 

The annotation tools are very intuitive and were designed with the needs of teachers marking student documents in mind.  The features of ReMarkable were reviewed by a panel of educators.

A customizable folder system gives teachers the ability to control and organize submitted files. Move, copy, and upload all files to various folders or to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.

 

 Watch ReMarkable’s Kickstarter video

 

ReMarkable gives teachers the convenience of accepting and marking papers anytime from anywhere.  Teachers will no longer have to carry home loads of papers to mark, all that's needed is an iPad running iOS 6.0+.

 

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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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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: 10-30-2013 eHighlighter

eHighlighter for iOS can be your personal research assistant bringing eBook benefits to paper sources using your device's camera.

Using eHighlighter you can prepare organized, searchable, copy-and-pastable excerpts and notes from hardcopy books, journals, and magazines. Easily access these notes on your iOS device or any other web-enabled device.

Other eHighlighter featres:

• Create, manage, and export MLA, Chicago, or APA styled bibliographies. Instantly add citation information by scanning a book's barcode or searching by title/author.
• Keep information organized with notes and tags. Sort and search highlights by tag or keyword.
• Instantly share notes with other eHighLighter users or export to email, Evernote, and Dropbox.

eHighLighter is $1.99 (US) on the iTunes store. It requires iOS 7.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

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Featured: 10-21-2013 ShareLaTeX

ShareLaTeX is an online editor that enables smooth collaboration among users. Everyone with an Internet connection can access and edit the latest versions of the same LaTeX documents.

ShareLaTeX documents are always available online. You and your collaborators can even work on the document at the same time with this real-time editor. Built-in chat lets all editors communicate while you're editing.

ShareLaTeX is designed to be easy to use, even if you’ve never used LaTeX before. ShareLaTeX highlights any errors in the LaTeX log to make debugging as simple as possible.

More features of ShareLaTeX:

• There's no installation needed.
• Example projects are ready to be compiled with one click. 
• Download your projects to work offline any time you like.
• Upload existing documents to get your work onto ShareLaTeX quickly.

Dropbox sync, available with paid plans, keeps all of your LaTeX projects synced to your Dropbox folder. You can make changes inside the Dropbox folder then see them sync back to ShareLaTeX.

 See an overview of ShareLaTeX

The ShareLaTeX free personal plan provides unlimited projects for you and one free user per project. You also get unlimited compiles, but with a low compiling priority.

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Featured: 8-22-2013 Kid in Story Book Maker

Create visual stories in support of learning, social modeling, and early literacy with Kid in Story Book Maker.

Place your student’s picture on every page of the story using Kid in Story Book Maker’s templates. It's easy and fun to make any child the star character. You can also write your own custom story or modify any of the templates.

Kid in Story Book Maker was specifically designed to benefit children who use visual narratives to complement auditory directions, model task analysis and expected social behavior, reinforce routines and to engage struggling readers.

The free Kid in Story Reader allows teachers and parents to share stories they create with students, friends, and family via email or Dropbox.

 Watch the Kid in Story Demo

Kid in Story Book Maker is available from the iTunes App Store for $6.99 (USD). It is compatible with iPad and requires iOS 5.1 or later.

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Featured: 8-19-2013 Slides

Slides is designed to allow anyone with a web browser to create and share beautiful presentations for free.

The Slides editor is available in your browser. All of your work is stored securely on their servers and accessible wherever you have an Internet connection. Decks(presentations) are stored as HTML documents, so you can always edit the markup and customize to your needs.

 

 

You are the only one who can see your Slides presentations unless you choose to publish your work, which makes it available to everyone. You can embed your decks anywhere you'd like.

 

Slides presentations can be viewed in any modern browser, including on most mobile devices. Presentations are optimized for touch devices.

 

A free Slides account allows only for public decks and provides 250 MB of storage. The $7 (USD) per month Pro account gives you 2 GB of storage, private decks, Dropbox sync, PDF export, and more.

 

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Featured: 8-13-2013 Flowboard

Flowboard is a free iPad app that lets you create side-scrolling presentations with text, images, video, and links.

 

 

 

Create each screen of a Flowboard using simple touch gestures. Add buttons, videos, and galleries for interactivity. Present your Flowboard and let others explore, using the interactive features, on your iPad, online, or offline.

 

Create Flowboards with content on your iPad or from the cloud. Add photos and videos from Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive; pictures from Facebook or Instagram; and use Google Image Search, as well.

 

Flowboard automatically saves your presentations locally as you make changes, and you can save drafts to the cloud, so your presentation is always safe.

 

 

Present straight from your iPad, connect to a projector, or mirror using AirPlay. You can share your Flowboard to other iPad users and the web by a URL that can be posted anywhere.

 

 Watch a Flowboarddemo from TechCrunch

 

Flowboard is free to download and use (Requires iOS 6.0 or later). Premium increases your monthly upload quota to 1GB, with bigger file upload sizes, and the ability to upload PDF files. Currently, a subscription for Flowboard Premium is $5(USD) per month. 

 

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Featured: 8-1-2013 Sensor Tools

Sideric Sensor Tools lets students perform classroom physics experiments using their own smartphones.

Sensor Tools uses built-in sensors and Internet connectivity to turn the phone into a personal instrument for physics experiments, collaboration, and learning.

Version 1.2 of Sensor Tools includes two modules:

• Motion Tracking - for capturing, analyzing, and plotting the motion of a falling ball or a glider on an air cushion track, for example. 
• Light Refraction - for analyzing the refraction of light from one medium to another and determining the index of refraction.

All data, graphs, and video/photo material can be easily exported to Dropbox and/or shared via email.

Sensor Tools is $2.99(USD) in the Apple iTunes Store. The app is compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad with iOS 5.0 or later.

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Things I Like: Google Books Downloader

Earlier today, I discovered a handy little app, Google Book Downloader.

Google Books Downloader is a very barebones tool. Enter the URL or ID of a Google Book and it will create and download a PDF of that book, including books that have full or limited previews. Google Book Downloader can only download the portion you can read on Google Books.

Download a book to Dropbox, Skydrive, Google Drive, or another cloud storage service and your book will be available on any device capable of viewing a PDF.

You can download Google Books Downloaderfree from CNET's Download.com.

Note: Google Book Downloader is not connected in any way with with Google.

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Featured: 3/11/2013 Natural Reader [Text-to-Speech]

NaturalReader is a free iOS text-to-speech app that converts entered text, PDF files, MSWord documents, e-books websites and more into spoken words.

With NaturalReader, you can have any text read to you in one of over 30 natural-sounding voices. NaturalReader can be a great help to students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties. By listening to text rather than reading, some students may be better able to comprehend reading materials or detect errors in their work.



Since NaturalReader can help pick out mistakes in your work, as well as giving you a sense of the natural flow of what you have written, it is also an efficient proofreading tool.

NaturalReader features:

• Works with Word documents, PDF files, web pages, eBooks, and many other formats.
• Provides over 30 natural sounding voices in 5 languages.
• Increase or decrease the speed of the voice reader.
• Input text via keypad, copy/paste, or from the application’s built-in browser.
• Load files from Dropbox, email attachments, computers via iTunes

Simply tap a sentence, and NaturalReader begins reading aloud from that point, and follow along with written text. Text automatically scrolls up the screen as it is being read.



NaturalReader Is free from the iTunes App Store. It is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd, 4th, and 5th generations), and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later.

Note: NaturalReader requires a Wi-Fi Internet connection in order to transfer text and audio from cloud spaces.

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COD - 10/31/2012 Educreations [iPad Whiteboard]

A special series of posts this week is featuring four iPad apps that can help you use your iPad effectively with an interactive whiteboard. Today's featured app is Educreations.

Educreations turns your iPad into a recordable whiteboard with voice recording, realistic digital ink, photos and text, and simple sharing.

Simply touch, tap, and talk to create an engaging video tutorial. You might use Educreations to explain a math formula, create an animated biology lesson, add commentary to historical photos, or diagram a basketball play. If you’re a “flipped classroom” teacher, you can put your lessons on the web so students can watch them before and after class. You can tutor a student who can’t be in your classroom. Embed your Educreations lessons on your blog or website, or they can easily be shared through email, Facebook, or Twitter, so you can broadcast your ideas from anywhere to anywhere.  Students can view the videos on their own devices, or they can be easily presented on an interactive whiteboard.

Features of Educreations:

• Record and replay your voice, handwriting, and drawings 
• Create multiple whiteboard pages
• Choose from 10 different ink colors
• Add text to any page 
• Add photos from the iPad camera, Photo Albums, Dropbox, or the Web 
• Animate images by dragging them around while recording  
• Choose who can view your lessons (with an account) 

Watch a video demo of Educreations


Create a free account and share your knowledge with the world by posting your video tutorials on educreations.com. The Educreations app is free. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

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COD - 9/24/2012 - CloudOn [Documents]

CloudOn is a free tablet app that lets you work directly in Microsoft Office, edit & store your information online, and share files with your colleagues.

As well as being able to format text, change fonts, and correct  typos, CloudOn enables you to track changes while editing Word documents, use pivot tables and insert formulas in Excel,  present your PowerPoint slides complete with transitions, and more.

Key features of CloudOn:

• You work in the real Microsoft Office.
• CloudOn delivers your Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive files to one place.
• Open email attachments directly in the workspace or send files to anyone, even if they don’t have a CloudOn account.
• Use the file viewer to open and view PDF, PNG, EPS, or virtually any file type.
• CloudOn automatically saves any change you make.Watch a video introduction to CloudOn

CloudOn is available for iPad from the iTunes App Store and from Google Play for Android tablets.

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Life in the Cloud Gets Even Better

Lots of news in the world of cloud storage today!

Microsoft released a new SkyDrive app for both Mac and PC, as well as an update for their previously released mobile apps. The Windows and Mac versions are both available for free. The desk/laptop version of the app appears to work very similarly to the desk/laptop version of Dropbox. You can add files to the SkyDrive folder and they will be uploaded the cloud.

SkyDrive's free storage limit is changing to 7GB, but if you are an existing SkyDrive user you can keep the 25GB you currently have, if you act now.

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Google today launched Google Drive, a cloud service that lets you create, share and store your documents online. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC to upload videos, photographs, Google docs and more to Google's cloud, and you can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. A Drive app for iOS devices is in the works.

 

Google Drive includes 5 GB of free storage, and upgrade to 25 GB for less than $2.50 a month. The service will launch with support for Windows and Mac desk/laptops as well as Android devices. An iOS client is in the works.

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Less dramatic, but still significant, you can now send a link to any of the files or folders in your Dropbox. Once you’ve saved a file to Dropbox, just make a link to send to anyone you want to share with and they can simply view (but not edit)  most file types online — no download required. But just in case they want to save that file for later, they can choose to either download it or save it straight to their Dropbox.

 

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COD - 9/24/2012 - CloudOn [Tablet]

CloudOn is a free tablet app that lets you work directly in Microsoft Office, edit & store your information online, and share files with your colleagues.

As well as being able to format text, change fonts, and correct  typos, CloudOn enables you to track changes while editing Word documents, use pivot tables and insert formulas in Excel,  present your PowerPoint slides complete with transitions, and more.

Key features of CloudOn:

• You work in the real Microsoft Office.
• CloudOn delivers your Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive files to one place.
• Open email attachments directly in the workspace or send files to anyone, even if they don’t have a CloudOn account.
• Use the file viewer to open and view PDF, PNG, EPS, or virtually any file type.
• CloudOn automatically saves any change you make.Watch a video introduction to CloudOn

CloudOn is available for iPad from the iTunes App Store and from Google Play for Android tablets.

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