OpenEd: Deliver Content and Instruction to Your Students Through iPad

OpenEd, the world's largest K-12 education resource catalog that, according to their web site, contains over "million Common Core aligned videos, games, and assessments," just released their student iPad app in the iTunes App Store.

With OpenED, educators can create a course for free. Each course is assigned a unique code which then can be shared with students. Students then enter the code into their OpenEd iPad app to access the course. OpenEd now includes over 1 million education resources that includes content from PBS,BrightStorm,  EdCite, and BrainGenie. Best of all, OpenEd is Free to Use!

Here's the link to OpenEd.

Check out the OpenEd app in the iTunes App Store here.

OpenEd's iPad Interface

Need an Inexpensive Outliner App for Your iPad or iPhone? Try Cloud Outliner

As a former English teacher, I have often believed in the power of outlining as a means to organize thoughts for a project and a presentation, and now, as an administrator there are still many times I use the strategy to organize thoughts or ideas for a school-wide project. Obviously, users could use just about any word-processing app to create outlines, but with the advent of mobile devices, being able to create an outline easily on my iPad or iPhone is a must, and word-processing apps are just a bit too complicated for this activity.

There are, of course, many outliner apps available for mobile device users, but some are as costly as $29.99 and others, while free or less expensive, do not offer all the features one would want in an iOS app. Recently, I downloaded and tried an outliner app called Cloud Outliner, and it has proven to be an inexpensive solution for creating outlines on iOS mobile devices. It basically offers users these advantages:

• Inexpensive: At just $2.99 it is obviously not as expensive as some of the other outline apps available such as OmniOutliner, which currently sells for $29.99. Understand, though, it does not have all the features of the more expensive outliner apps, but it is a fully functional option for the price.
• Syncs with cloud accounts: Currently, users can sync their outlines with both Dropbox and Google Docs.
• Email Outlines: Users can email their outlines to others as well.
• Simple Interface: Cloud Outliner's simple interface is easy to learn and use. It has just the right amount of features for creating effective outlines.
• Evernote integration: This is one of the best features for me. You can create an outline and sync it to an Evernote notebook. That makes it just one more app that expands the functionality of Evernote.

Cloud Outliner for iOS

Creating outlines as an educator and school leader is still an excellent tried and true way to organize school projects and ideas. Cloud Outliner offers users looking for an economical choice an iOS outlining application that is simple to use. For more information, check out "Cloud Outliner in the iTunes Store."

Calendars and Calendars+ by Readdle: Excellent Google Calendar App for the iPad

I have never been completely happy with the calendar app I have been using on my iPad. I have been using the Google Search app for both my email and my calendar, and it has worked fine for email, but the calendars feature has a great deal of quirks causes quite a bit of frustration. Since our school district uses Google Apps, being able to sync multiple Google calendars is a must with any calendar app I use on my tablet. With those needs in mind, I think I have found an excellent calendar app that meets all my needs: it is Calendars or Calendars+ by Readdle. Calendars is simply the free version of Calendars+, both by Readdle.

While there appears to be a bit of a learning curve with this app, Calendars+ by Readdle has these features that make it a much better way to manage my calendars than Google Search.

• The Calendars app has a much more pleasing and intuitive interface, which more closely mirrors Google Calendar on the desktop.
• Users can drag and drop events.
• Syncs with all of you Google Calendars so you can access them all on your iPad or iPhone.
• Manage all your Calendars. This is especially useful for me since I have multiple district calendars to work with. However, according to the web site, this feature is available only with Calendars+, the paid version of the app.

Calendars by Readdle (the Free version of the app) and Calendars+ by Readdle are an excellent choice if you are looking for a versatile app that syncs and works with all your Google Calendars. For more information about the free app Calendars check it out here. For Calendars+ (the paid version of this app), check here.

Calendars and Calendars+ by Readdle

Evernote Journal App for iPad: Excellent Way to Take Meeting Notes and Keep Logs

I NO LONGER RECOMMEND EVERNOTE TO PERSONAL USERS. THE PRODUCT IS NO LONGER VIABLE IN MY OPINION FOR PERSONAL USERS.

There are quite a few Evernote apps that extend the note taking program’s functionality, and I have used quite a few of them. Recently, I  found  Evernote's Journal iPad app. This app makes it possible to keep a journal right in my Evernote application. Being able to do this makes keeping a log or meeting notes even simpler because this app allows you to create those notes with automatic dates right within an Evernote note.

Journal for Evernote has the following features of capabilities:

• Creates a stack in your Evernote account called “My Journal” and stores your notes by date within yearly notebooks.
• Notes can be saved and uploaded automatically.
• Date and time is automatically added to the top of your note.
• Each entry in the Journal app is recorded as a separate note.
• Easy to use interface makes entering notes quite simple.

Evernote users looking for a simple way to take meeting notes or keep logs may want to add Journal for Evernote to their iOS device immediately. 

Journal's iPad App Interface

MindMapper for iOS: (Currently) Free and Easy to Use Mindmapping App

If you are looking for a mindmapping app for your iPad or iPhone, currently SimTech Systems has their MindMapper app for iOS available for free in the Appstore. With MindMapper, you have all the usual capabilities of mindmapping software, and you can save an image file of your maps to your Dropbox account. While you do not have access to editing maps on your desktop like you do with the Inspiration app I reviewed earlier ("Inspiration Maps: Excellent Mapping Solution for iPad"), this app is a fully functional alternative for the iPad. (Besides, the Inspiration app is not free.) The desktop app is available for purchase at Academic pricing from www.mindmapper.com. Though it isn’t clear what that price is.

MindMapper app for the iOS is an excellent fully functional mindmapping application. The fact that it is currently Free makes it even better.

MindMapper iOS App

For more information about MindMapper, check it out in iTunes. (MindMapper in iTunes) Also, check out the SimTech Mindmapper web site for information about their desktop application.

iOS Kindle App Improvements: 3 New Features for the Power Reader

As an avid user of the Kindle app on my iPad, it is always exciting when Amazon releases new versions of their Kindle app with new and improved features. I currently use Kindle for the iPad more than any other app because my reading habits. Recently Amazon released a newer version of their iOS Kindle app with three new features that clearly improve the app's functionality.

Multi-Color Highlight Feature

Users of the iOS Kindle app can now highlight their favorite passages with four different colors. This makes categorizing highlights possible, and these highlights do sync across devices. For those educators using Kindle e-books in their classrooms and for graduate school, this feature makes highlighting much more useful as an active reading strategy.

Multi-Color Highlight Selection Bar

X-Ray for Books

When Amazon updated the Kindle app to 3.5, it included a feature called X-Ray for text books. This feature captures and defines the most important terms found in a book uing Shelfari and Wikipedia. In a word, it provides an instant glossary of key concepts at the click of a button. With this Kindle app upgrade, non-text books in English are now included in the X-Ray feature.

X-Ray Page in Kindle App

Book End Feature

This feature page pops up when you have read the last page of the Kindle book. It allows you to review with book rating, type book review text and share your review on Twitter and Facebook. Those who like to write reviews of their books no longer have to log in to their web browser to write those reviews. It's a great way to start a conversation about the books you read.

Book End Page in Kindle iOS App

The new version of the Kindle iOS app adds more functionality with this latest update.

Using Google Forms to Create a Walkthrough-Observation App for the iPad

In response to my "Top iPad Apps for Administrators," a few readers have emailed me asking for “observation” or “walk-through” apps for their iPad. There are some options out there, but I chose not to use them for three reasons. First of all, most of the apps I researched, while free, have what I consider expensive subscription costs (You can't beat free). All of the apps I explored and that had potential, just required more money than I was willing to pay. Secondly, most of the observation and walk-through apps I reviewed do not allow for the level of customization I want. When I conduct walk-through observations, I want the flexibility to change the “look-fors” according to our current focus and emphasis. Many iPad walk-through apps do not give you this freedom. Finally, there’s a free alternative. You can create a Google Form in your Google Drive account, and set it up as an iPad observation app right on your iPad. That's a free option which is difficult to beat.

For the sake of this article, I will not describe how to set up a form on Google Drive. There are other resources for that. Let's assume you already have your Google Walk-through form set up, and you want to be able to access to that form on your iPad. Here's how you get that access.

Setting Up Access to Your Google Walk-Through Form on Your iPad

1. Open your Safari browser, and log in to your Google Drive account through your browser. It may ask you to install Google Drive App, but for now, close that out by clicking on the “X” in the corner.

2. Once you are logged in to your Google Drive account, you should be able to locate the spreadsheet attached to the form you have created. Once you have found your form spreadsheet, select it.

3. Once the spreadsheet is loaded, you need to convert it from mobile view to desktop view. To do that, just click on the “Go to Spreadsheet View” link at the top of the page. This will bring up another Google page, giving you two options: “Continue to desktop version” or “Return to mobile version.” Select “Continue to Desktop Version.”

How to Change to Spreadsheet View

Selecting Desktop View in Safari

4. After the spreadsheet loads, you will see the familiar desktop layout. Like you would on your desktop, go to the “Form” drop down menu, and select “Go Live Form.” This will bring up the actual form in your browser. Now you’re ready to set up your Icon access on your iPad.

5. Go to the Share button on browser bar, just next to the URL indicator, and select “Add to Home Screen.” This action will create an icon on your iPad Home Screen for your form. From this point on, you can easily access your Google form walk-through through this icon.

Select "Add to Homescreen"

The ease with which you can create Google forms to capture those “look-fors” in walk-throughs makes spending hundreds of dollars purchasing walk-through apps and walk-through data collection systems for your school or district a bad idea. You can easily create your own “Walk-through Observation System” by using just Google Forms, and then use these simple steps to get access on your iPad.

Inspiration Maps for iPad: Excellent Mapping Solution for the iPad

Inspiration is an excellent choice for concept mapping because its features make it useful as a classroom tool and as a tool for anyone who uses mindmapping techniques. Now, Inspiration is available for the iPad with its Inspiration Maps for iPad app. (Inspiration Maps for iPad)

Some of the features of the iPad app version of Inspiration include:

• Create maps or outlines. Convert a map to an outline or an outline to a map.
• Start from a template or a blank map when using Inspiration for iPad.
• Navigate around your map by sliding your finger.
• Add concept bubbles by tapping a simple button, and to add text within that bubble, simply double-tap.
• Print your maps or outlines.
• Email them.
• Save them to photos.
• Send it as a PDF or PNG.
• Send to Dropbox or iTunes.

Two more interesting features of Inspiration Maps for iPad app include:

1) taking your own photos to insert in your maps
2) using your own photo collection on your iPad 

These two features offer a great deal of possibilities to the classroom teacher regarding the use of concept maps as classroom projects or assignments. Students can take photos to represent or symbolize things in their maps. These are then inserted right in their maps. The former English teacher in me loves this feature because the possibilities for mindmaps as projects is endless.

Inspiration Maps for iPad Main Screen

One final feature of the Inspiration Map for iPad app is the ability to customize your map shapes, lines, background colors, link shapes, etc.

Mapping with the Inspiration Maps for iPad App

The Inspiration Maps for iPad app is a bit pricey when compared to other apps in general, but when compared to some of the other mindmapping apps on the iPad it is comparable at $9.99. From their website, I understand they offer some deals tied to their desktop software license purchases too.

For the price, it is a fully functioning mindmapping solution for the iPad, and for those who use the desktop software, you can bring your maps down to your iPad. It offers great potential for students in the classroom.

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Notability: Simple and Easy Way to Take Handwritten Notes on the iPad

Notability is an iPad app for taking typewritten and handwritten notes. It has a simple interface, with only the minimal features that support these tasks. Here are some of its most prominent features.

• Take or write handwritten notes. You can use multiple colors, and even move your handwritten notes about the page.
• Record and attach audio notes to your documents.
• Send and store your notes in the cloud. You can send them to applications like Dropbox, Google Drive, or even iTunes.
• Simple and easy use.
• Highlight notes in your document.
• Create and organize your notes by categorizing them.

Notability App Interface

Overall, Notability is an excellent app for its current price of $1.99. For those who rely on being able to take handwritten notes on their iPad, Notability is a solid, economical choice.

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