iPads in Education
The iPad is the first tablet that Apple created. It is a flat, rectangular computer with a large touchscreen. It comes in six models that include 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB, which come with or without 3G connection. All of these models offer Wi-Fi connection and applications that can be downloaded through the App Store. This device has brought many changes to the classroom. The iPad is a hands-on learning device that cannot be found in any other education tool. This device is something that students are excited about and really want to use. This iPad includes applications in the App Store that can be downloaded and used in a classroom or at home. The iPad can also be used to teach an entire class. Using video mirroring the teacher can share their lesson in the classroom.
Math Applications:
- Math Bingo is a fun way for children to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The students have to answer the correct math problem to fill their bingo card. This app combines practicing their math skills with an old-fashion game that children can be excited to play bingo. The child can customize the game by choosing the math skill and level of difficulty the child would like to play. The child can choose from three different levels of difficulty that include easy, medium, and hard. This app can be used from the ages of five and up.
- Times Table is app where children can practice and tested on times tables of two’s through to twelve’s. The app has timed quizzes, high scores, and multiple difficulty levels. This is a way children can learn the multiplication tables in a fun way. After each test the children are given receives a score and how long it took them to complete the timetables. The children can also see how they have progressed on a number of times tables they can do fast. This can be fun for the children to compete with their family members and friends. This can be a fun way to practice their timetables without making it boring and repetitive.
Social Studies Applications:
- History: Maps of World is a fun education app that has a various historical maps. This is a way children can keep up with their history and maybe learn something new about history that they never knew. It had hundreds of fully illustrated maps, which can be searched by location or even the era in which they were made.
- World Book-This Day in History for iPad is an interactive multimedia calendar that shows historical events for the current day or any selected day. This also includes connected photos, illustrations, music, and speeches. The student can also listen to national anthems of countries on the day they became a nation.
Science Applications:
- Frog Dissection is a great app that allows teachers to teach their classroom about dissection without cutting an animal open. This app is an appropriate for middle- school students who are learning about organs and the organ system as part of their life science curriculum. Students can dissect a virtual specimen that comes with the real procedure without cutting a real animal. The app comes with all the dissection tools that the student can use to cut open the virtual animal. It has vivid 3D images that can help students visualize the internal organs very effectively. The app has voice over step-by-step instructions that the student can get through. It also has information on different types of frogs and the life cycle in comparison to the human life cycle.
- The Elements: A Visual Exploration is hands-on way to learn about the periodic table. The app has enormous descriptions of each element with a lot of details and information. The apps opens with visual representations of all 118 elements. The student can tap on an element they wish to choose and can be viewed through a full screen. Each element has various photographed images in high detail with 500 in total across the 118 elements. The student can use their finger to spin the object around to see the element in every angle.
Communication Applications:
- Proloquo2Go is an alternative communication device that can use on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. This device is mostly used for people who have difficulty speaking or cannot speak at all. This app can be used by a broad variety of users with varying literacy levels. It has natural sounding voices that when tapping buttons with symbols or typing using the on-screen keyboard. This app also has ways to customize the pictures on the buttons the person chooses. The person can easily navigate and create their own folders to what they might want or need to say throughout the day. Each folder has different words or saying the person might need to say. Proloquo2Go is a very powerful, cost effective communication solution for children and adults who can navigate easily and can be customized to meet the needs of the individual. This is an app that is not complicated to use and it can be run on any Apple devices.
- Artipix is an engaging articulation app that has flashcard and matching activities for children with speech sound delays. Children can flick through pictured flashcards and match each of their pairs. The app also benefits from recorded audio, voice recording, and scoring. Children can listen to their speech and decide if the way they pronounced what they said was right or wrong. Children can even play together by up to 4 children at a time. This app helps students to practice the sounds in words and sentences. The app comes with 24 decks with 40 cards in each deck. The decks can be combined and shuffled to help students practice every type of letter sounds.
Resources:
Apple - Education - iPad makes the perfect learning companion. (n.d.). Apple. Retrieved November 20, 2012, from http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/
iPads in Special Education. (n.d.). Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Retrieved November 22, 2012, from www.ipadsforeducation.vic.edu.au/userfiles/files/DEECD%20iPad%20support%20booklet%20for%20special%20education.pdf
Apple - Education - iPad makes the perfect learning companion. (n.d.). Apple. Retrieved November 20, 2012, from http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/#app
Apple - Education - iPad makes the perfect learning companion. (n.d.). Apple. Retrieved November 20, 2012, from http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/
iPads in Special Education. (n.d.). Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Retrieved November 22, 2012, from www.ipadsforeducation.vic.edu.au/userfiles/files/DEECD%20iPad%20support%20booklet%20for%20special%20education.pdf
Apple - Education - iPad makes the perfect learning companion. (n.d.). Apple. Retrieved November 20, 2012, from http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/#app