Through our “App of the Week” feature, every Monday we pick an Android or Apple app to highlight online and in our newsletters. Check out these four new educational apps we chose in March.
Do you have any suggestions for educational apps that you’d like to share with readers? Tell us about them in the comments section below.
Name: Vernier Video Physics
What is it? A 2012 CODiE Awards Finalist for “Best Educational Use of a Mobile Device,” Video Physics brings physics video analysis to iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Users can take a video of an object in motion, mark its position frame by frame, and set up the scale using a known distance. Video Physics then draws trajectory, position, and velocity graphs for the object.
Share video, graphs, and data via the Camera Roll, eMail, and iTunes. Perform on-the-go analysis of interesting motions. Measure the velocity of a child’s swing, a roller-coaster, or a car. Or, take a video of a basketball free throw shot. Video Physics will display the path of the ball and provide graphs of Y vs. X, as well as the X and Y position and velocity as a function of time.
Best for: Students and physics instructors.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.
Price: $4.99
Rated: 4+
Features: Capture a new video using the built-in camera, choose a video from your photo library, or use one of the sample videos provided; mark the position of one object, frame by frame; set the scale of the video using an object of known size; optionally set coordinate system location and rotation; view graphs of trajectory, and x/y position and velocity; export the marked video to your Photo Library; graphs are appended to video; eMail the video and data for further analysis in Vernier’s Logger Pro software for OS X and Windows; open data files directly in Vernier Graphical Analysis for iPad; open data files in Dropbox or Google Drive to upload to the cloud.
Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vernier-video-physics/id389784247
Name: Drawp
What is it? The first iPad app that enables children to create drawings and then share them with a single swipe; no eMail, phone number, or screen name are necessary. Using advanced technology to create dynamic paints, like Cotton Candy, Furry Flurry, or Mega Pixels, combined with the ability for children ages 3-11 to independently share their drawings with a parent-approved network, this is definitely not your average children’s app. It builds children’s creativity by removing the limitations of pen and paints and teaches children how to safely share information via technology. It was recently launched by Ana Albir, an MIT physicist and Stanford MBA, and Kunal Jham, Michigan alum and former Amazon Web Services engineer.
Best for: Children ages 3-11
Price: Free
Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later.
Rated: 4+
Features: Kids can safely share with members of the parent-approved network using SimpleShare technology; parents can showcase kids’ drawings on Facebook; allows online and offline accessibility, and multiple children’s profiles; ability to delete friends; dismiss button to clear everything from the screen but the canvas.
Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drawp-draw-drop-people-you/id571816406?mt=8
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Name: RabbleBrowser for iPad; Sandbox for iOS
What is it? RabbleBrowser is a curated, collaborative web browser specifically for iPads in classrooms, board rooms, or any meeting room. One person can lead a session, sharing URLs with a limitless number of participants. The others can share URLs back to the leader for reciprocal browsing.
Sandbox is a web browsing app available for all iOS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad) that restricts users to a predefined list of websites. Unlike traditional privacy applications that block specified websites, Sandbox allows users to access only a preapproved list of sites, or “white list.” Using Sandbox, a teacher can ensure students remain on track during a class project, accessing only material that the teacher has already selected. Administrators looking to configure multiple devices can use an easy-to-use property list file. Both browsers are from Float Mobile Learning.
Best for: High school students; teachers. Users must be 17 years old to download these apps.
Price: RabbleBrowser, $2.99; Sandbox, $2.99. Both are eligible for Apple Volume Purchase program customers as well.
Requirements: RabbleBrowser: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later. Sandbox: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation), and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.
Rated: Both are rated 4
Features: RabbleBrowser: Content sharing via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and eMail; Dropbox integration for file sharing; leader controls such as the ability to lock sessions; participant and leader voting; share files from your Photo library or sideload documents via iTunes; and more. Sandbox: Lock configuration settings with a passcode to prevent other users from changing settings; add bookmarks for approved websites; customize the appearance of user interface items; configure all settings through a property list file; and more.
Link:
RabbleBrowser: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rabblebrowser/id432616026?mt=8&ls=1
Sandbox: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sandbox-web-browser/id562054411?ls=1&mt=8
Name: Net Texts
What is it? Net Texts allows students to replace their textbooks with customized multimedia courses delivered to their iPad, Android tablet, or laptop. Teachers can use the Content Management website to select existing courses or to create new courses by mixing and matching items from the library with their own educational material. Students can use the iPad or Android app to download and use these courses, filled with videos, slideshows, eBooks, PDFs, text, audiobooks, and web links.
Best for: High school students
Price: Free
Requirements: iPad version requires iOS 4.3 or later. Android version requires Android 4.0 and up.
Rated: 4+
Features: Net Texts researchers have built courses using open educational resources covering math, science, language arts, social studies, foreign languages, and more. Courses contain teacher-created material, as well as Creative Commons-licensed material and other OERs from the web. The app allows for enabled background playback of video and audio items, and users can continue viewing items, navigating courses and units, and taking notes while an audio or video item plays. Net Texts also has school-specific collection pages. Schools can add courses used in their classes, so students can find and download their course material.
Links:
[For Apple] https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/net-texts/id448949309?mt=8
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[For Android] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nettext.activity
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