Free Apps
Animoto (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, & Android devices)
Turns photos into professional-quality videos complete with music and text. Choose pictures, video clips, music, and video style. Users can easily share their creations.
Features:
Multiple video styles, a vast music library, and the ability to add text to your video.
Preview and edit your video before producing it.
View videos within the app and on Animoto’s site.
Easily share your videos via email, text, Facebook, and Twitter or save to your Camera Roll.
Upgrade to unlimited full-length videos within the app.
ASVAB Test Prep (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, & Android devices)
Study anywhere with the Med Preps ASVAB Exam Review app. Take practice tests with questions that mimic the style and cover the content of real ASVAB questions.
Features:
Multiple-choice Practice Questions Cover (850+ practice questions):
-Arithmetic Reasoning
-Assembling Objects
-Auto & Shop
-Electronics Info
-General Science
-Mathematics Knowledge
-Mechanical Comprehension
-Paragraph Comprehension
-Word Knowledge
Content is continually monitored and updated to reflect current armed services standards.
Study anywhere, anytime, even without a connection.
Destiny Quest (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android devices)
Students can search and access library resources in a way like never before--from their iOS or Android mobile devices. Which means they can now find learning resources they need anytime, even after the school day ends. Plus it gives media specialists, and teachers access to navigate the library and plan lessons, assignments and activities. Students can even view books they have checked out and outstanding fines.
Features:
Search for resources in your library.
Checkout Follett eBooks to phone.
Discover the Top 10 Most Popular titles and New Books at your library.
Students can easily maintain lists of books they are Now Reading, Want to Read, and Have Read.
Dropbox (available for iPhone, iPad, & Android devices)
This app allows you to save, access, and share photos, documents, and videos digitally on a variety of mobile devices.
Tip: Dropbox is a great tool for students to use during collaborative projects; it is private and can sync with accounts on both mobile devices and online.
EasyBib (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, & Android devices)
Citations can be the bane of existence for some. The EasyBib app provides students and teachers with a tool allowing them to create correctly formatted MLA, APA, and Chicago style citations. Users can build, organize, and manage their works cited by merely scanning the barcode on a book or typing in the title. The agony of remembering where that comma or period goes is finally over. Hooray!
Tip: Build a list of books you have read or want to read by scanning the barcode.
Educreations (available for iPad)
"Teach what you know. Learn what you don't." is the motto of Educreations. Turn your iPad into a recordable whiteboard to teach concepts across all areas of the curriculum. Lessons can be saved and shared via multiple platforms after they have been created using the iPad app or your browser. Lessons that other educators and students have created are available as well.
Tip: Engage students in your content by having them explain concepts using the Educreations whiteboard. They can teach one another, review concepts, and create book talks using this interactive app.
Links:[Apple]
Evernote (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, & Android devices)
If the organization is not your or your student’s strongest characteristic, the Evernote app is the solution. The app helps students stay organized by quickly adding notes, creating to-do lists, and reminders. The app also can capture photographs and voice recordings. Evernote is fully integrated with the most popular social media tools, including Facebook, Dropbox, Pinterest, Skype, and even LinkedIn, making sharing resources simple.
Tip: Tag your notes for easy search and discoverability.
GarageBand (available for iPhone, iPad, & iPod Touch) $4.99
Using GarageBand, your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch turn into a recording studio with a variety of touch instruments, including pianos, organs, drums, guitars, and basses. This app also allows the user to record a performance and then mix the tracks to create and share songs.
Tip: Have students create a musical podcast with GarageBand using these simple instructions.
Links:[Apple]
HMH FUSE Algebra 1 (available for iPad)
HMH Fuse Algebra 1 Common Core Edition gives every student a personalized learning experience using video tutorials, MathMotion step-by-step examples, homework help, quizzes, tips, hints, and many other integrated features to teach, review, and assess all concepts. Winner of the “Distinguished Achievement” Award in the category of Mobile Device Application honoring “outstanding resources for teaching and learning” presented by the Association of Educational Publishers.
Features:
The ability for students to show their scratch pad work for individual questions on the assessments, student response system (clickers), and Graph It! examples
An all-in-one app with built-in tools including Algebra Tiles, Linear Explorer, Quadratic Explorer, a graphing calculator, text and audio note-taking, scratchpad, and a student response system for instant learner feedback.
Teachers can access all assessment results in an online Teacher Resource Center and prescribe remediation or intervention as needed.
Links:[Apple]
Kidblog (available for iPhone, iPad, & iPod Touch)
Kidblog is designed for K-12 teachers who want to provide each student with an individual blog. Students publish posts and participate in academic discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Students can write for an authentic audience in a safe environment. The interface is easy to use and student-friendly with a choice of themes. Posts can be kept private within the "class" or made public. This blogging platform allows teachers to monitor all publishing activity within the classroom blogging community.
Tip: Students become authors with Kidblog. They can share content, communicate with one another, and work cooperatively to publish their ideas.
Links:[Apple]
MyCongress (available for iPad)
This app provides in-depth information about Congress. It allows students to research the latest issues in Congress or follow Congress members through Twitter feeds, news articles, and YouTube videos. It links to each member's website, contact information, and Open Congress, a resource for following the voting patterns of Congressmen.
Tip: Use the auto-locate feature to find your congressional representative easily.
Links:[Apple]
NASA (available for iPhone, iPad, & Android devices)
Students dream of exploring space and the NASA app helps make that a reality! Users can travel through the universe and gain an in-depth understanding of NASA's role in space exploration. Users can browse through current news and feature stories, view over 157,000 images, watch on-demand NASA videos, read up on current NASA mission information, explore NASA TV, listen to Third Rock Radio, and follow NASA's Twitter feed.
Tip: Be sure to check out NASA TV and videos and Tweets from astronauts.
News-O-Matic: Daily for Kids (available for iPad)
This news app provides images, videos, and maps to accompany five daily news stories. An interactive map with quirky facts, puzzles, games, and the NewsRoom are all features that engage students in current events. Articles are reviewed by child psychologists before publication to ensure content is age-appropriate.
Tip: Expose students to current events; help them develop critical thinking skills, understand the point of view, and provide opportunities to read a variety of informational text…all features of the Common Core State Standards.
Links:[Apple]
POETRY from the Poetry Foundation (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android devices)
Nominated for a WEBBY award, this universal iOS app allows users to take thousands of poems by classic and contemporary poets on the go. From William Shakespeare to César Vallejo to Heather McHugh, the Poetry Foundation’s app turns your phone, iPod Touch, or iPad into a mobile poetry library.
Features:
Search for old favorites with memorable lines.
Give your device a shake to discover new poems to fit any mood.
Save your favorite poems to read and share later—through Facebook, Twitter, or email.
Read poems by T.S. Eliot, Pablo Neruda, Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, and many others.
School Fuel (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, & Android Devices)
School Fuel Apps is a mobile learning platform that allows teachers and school leaders to connect with students in class and on the go. School Fuel Apps provides customized app libraries aligned to Common Core Standards, helping schools deliver the right apps to the right students at the right time on any device.
Features:
Web-based teacher admin.
App libraries based on subject areas, grade level, Common Core standards, and mobile OS type.
Delivery of libraries on nearly any device, including Android Phones / Tablets, iPhones / iPads, and Windows mobile devices.
Schoology (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, & Android devices)
The Schoology app allows teachers and students to stay connected 24/7 to their learning management system. Assignments can be assigned, submitted, graded, and returned on the go. Also, teachers can create messages, and task lists, and keep everyone informed.
Tip: Students can view assignments, collaborate with their peers, and get assistance on a variety of mobile devices.
Science 360 (available for iPad)
Science 360 is a science and engineering news app designed to engage the user in visual explorations through photos, videos, and text. New content is added weekly by scientists, engineers, and the National Science Foundation. Teachers can email images and videos to save for the classroom. A built-in news feed keeps students and teachers up to date with the latest scientific discoveries. It provides the most recent science videos from scientists, colleges and universities, science and engineering centers, the National Science Foundation, and more. The pictures, graphics, and videos are of very high quality. All information is very well organized, easy to find, and easy to use.
Tip: Click the icon with three dots to see related videos. Use a two-finger touch to start a keyword search.
Links:[Apple]
Socrative (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, & Android devices)
The Socrative app turns devices into student response clickers providing an engaging way for students to participate and interact in the learning experience. Socrative provides teachers with real-time feedback and allows the assessment to be an integral and immediate part of the instructional experience.
Tip: Teachers can use the Socrative app to collect assessment data that can be sent to them as a Google spreadsheet or an Excel file.
Tinkerbox (available for iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch)
If you can imagine it, you can build it with TinkerBox. TinkerBox is a free, fun, educational engineering and physics puzzle game. It is full of interesting science facts and teaches basic engineering concepts. In Puzzle mode, players are given a task to complete. In Invent mode, students use trial and error to arrange and re-arrange elements until they design a successful solution. Students are encouraged to explore their creativity and imagination to build outrageous machines (think Rube Goldberg) and share them with friends. Students can also email their inventions to the developer to be included on the game's website. This is a very engaging app that stimulates creative problem-solving.
Tip: To get familiar with how it works, master the puzzles mode.
Links:[Apple]
Videolicious (available for iPhone, iPad, & iPod Touch)
This easy-to-use video editing app allows users to easily create a polished video in three steps, Choose content [photos or video clips from your camera roll], record your own narrative to elaborate on the images/video, select music from the Videolicious copyright-free library and the software will automatically trim, layer, and mix your shots into a professional-looking video.
Tip: High-resolution, horizontal photos work
Links:[Apple]
YALSA'S Teen Book Finder (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch & Android devices)
Find the best books and media for teens, as selected by library staff and educators across the United States! The Teen Book Finder, generously funded by a grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, offers easy access to the titles honored each year by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. The Teen Book Finder allows users to search for books by title, author, genre, award, or list; create a reading list with the favorites button; share what you’re reading on Facebook and Twitter; and find a copy of the book in your local library, all from one screen! Not sure where to start? YALSA offers three different book titles as hot picks on the homepage each day.
Bookshare - Free source for many free e-books. Must register for an account to use.
Firefly App - Upload and read or choose from over 2000 classic literature documents.
Gutenberg - Over 42,000 free e-books. Choose between Epub or Kindle, or read them online.
Quizlet - Study using custom flashcards with ease or browse many pre-made flashcards.
UDLTechToolKit - Many text-to-speech and voice recognition software for PC usage.
Fee-Based Apps
Al Gore – Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis (available for iPhone & iPad) $4.99
Al Gore's Our Choice is a vibrant, multimedia app that examines the climate crisis. It will engage both teens and adults alike. Gore published "Our Choice: How We Can Solve the Climate Crisis" in 2009 as a young readers’ edition of "An Inconvenient Truth" (2007). This app, released in September 2011, updates the content of the book, incorporating a variety of compelling information. School librarians will want to use this app as they explore Common Core State Standards persuasive nonfiction.
Tip: In-depth material on the climate crisis provides a high point of view exercises in Common Core State Standards-aligned instruction. Pair this app with a fictional piece on climate crisis such as "The State of Fear" by Michael Crichton, as well as other nonfiction on the subject matter.
Links:[Apple]
Ansel & Clair’s Adventures in Africa (available for iPad) $4.99
This game-based app takes players on an African adventure. Led by intergalactic explorers Ansel and Clair, participants explore the Sahara, Serengeti, and Nile Valley regions. While on a mission to take pictures and locate pieces of their broken spaceship, Marley, the team learns about the geography, ecosystems, history, science, and animals of Africa.
Tip: Explore the ecosystems in the daytime and nighttime to experience different animal encounters.
Links:[Apple]
Barefoot World Atlas (available for iPhone, iPad, & iPod Touch) $4.99
This app is based on the book of the same name, allows users to explore the globe and learn interesting facts about various countries. In a colorful cartoon-like globe with attractive animated icons, students can use pinch and swipe motions to zero in on select parts of the world. As they zero in on specific countries, regional music begins to play. Users can access country statistics and other information, such as the current time and weather, currency conversion, and distance from one's location. Languages: English, Catalan, French, Japanese, Spanish Rated: 4+
Tip: This app can be used with different grade levels, depending on the depth of necessary information.
Links:[Apple]
Britannica Kids: Ancient Egypt (available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, & Android devices) $4.99 – Apple $1.99 - Android
This app combines reference information about ancient Egypt with engaging learning activities. Topics include information about the everyday life of ancient Egyptians, their beliefs in religion and the afterlife, the importance of the Nile River to their culture, hieroglyphic writing, and the Dynasties of Egypt. Gamification elements include interactive jigsaw puzzles, maps, memory games, brush-off guessing games, and Magic Square mixed-up images.
Tip: Check out the entire set of science and social science apps in the Britannica Kids suite of apps.
Links: [Apple]