Tag: "Education"

iPad has Positive Impact on Academics in Oklahoma

By Jillian | May 4, 2011 | No comment yet

Oklahoma State University just released the results of their pilot program from the Fall 2010 semester in which the iPad was used by students and faculty alike, in support of every aspect of two courses, across five sections, two colleges and two campuses.

The goal of this project was total integration and the results were overwhelmingly positive.

When the program began, careful consideration was given to ensure that the courses were modified such that use of the iPad was not limited and that the full impact of the change could be properly evaluated.

By Cristi | April 9, 2011 | No comment yet

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Do you have young children at home learning the alphabet? If so, Letter Buddies AlphaBooks for the iPad is a great educational app to add to your collection.

Created to help two to six year-olds prepare for school by learning letters, developing vocabulary and practicing basic reading skills, Letter Buddies entertains and teaches with its collection of 24 books.

By Cristi | December 21, 2010 | No comment yet

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Today’s iPad App Giveaway features the entertaining Astro Kids ABC Color HD. It’s been a month since I first reviewed Astro Kids ABC Color HD by Model Rocket Solutions and they’ve just released an update with new features. Get ready for the holidays and join the space adventure with Ray, Dawn and Cosmo by coloring pictures and collecting Astro Badges and ribbons along the way. New features include the addition of a Happy Holidays book with four new coloring pages and Astro Badges, a selection of background music, larger marker stars, support for iOS 4.2 and more.

Your kids will love the “out of this world” coloring experience in Astro Kids ABC Color HD, so tweet to win right now! We have 5 app codes to give away and entering our contest is easy. Just follow the steps after the break to win a copy of Astro Kids ABC Color HD.

PadGadget has partnered with top iPad app developers to bring our readers some of the latest iPad apps for free during the holidays. Check back on a regular basis because you don’t want to miss out!

Enter the contest after the break »

iPad App Giveaway – Kids Edutainment

By Cristi | November 27, 2010 | No comment yet

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This Black Friday / Cyber Monday Weekend App Contest features codes for four kids apps. Kids will learn and have fun doing it with this collection of educational apps. Improve math skills with Math Flash Cards HD, practice sight words with SightWords HD, learn colors and numbers with Astro Kids ABC Color HD and play in the park with Blue Bear while practicing math fundamentals.

We have 4 app bundles to give away and each one includes the four apps listed below. Entering our contest is easy, just follow the steps after the break and try your luck!

Math Flash Cards HD from MacSpots
SightWords HD from MacSpots
Astro Kids ABC Color HD from Model Rocket Solutions
Park Math HD from Duck Duck Moose

PadGadget has partnered with top iPad app developers to bring our readers some of the latest iPad apps for free during this holiday weekend. Be sure to check back on a regular basis through Monday. We’ve got lots of contests planned and you don’t want to miss out!

Enter the contest after the break »

Astro Kids ABC Color HD – App Review

By Cristi | November 22, 2010 | 1 comment

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Children’s iPad apps are among the most popular in the App Store and Astro Kids ABC Color HD is an edutainment choice sure to keep your kids busy for hours.

Kids begin the coloring adventure with Dawn, Ray and their dog Cosmo as they travel in a rocket ship from the planet of Aquablue to Earth. Once they arrive, the Astro Kids have lots of fun camping, skiing, surfing and more. Your kids can join the adventure by coloring pictures and collecting Astro Badges and ribbons.

By Cristi | November 19, 2010 | 1 comment

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Park Math HD is the latest and greatest iPad app release from award winning developer Duck Duck Moose. With its recent iLounge “2010 Best Kids’ iPhone/iPod App of the Year Award,” Duck Duck Moose is poised to have another great iPad hit on their hands.

Designed for preschoolers, kindergarteners and first graders, Park Math HD teaches early math concepts through repetition and play. Kids will learn counting, addition, subtraction, sorting and more while playing with Blue Bear and his friends on the playground.

By Cristi | November 8, 2010 | No comment yet

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Stack the States for the iPad is a great way for elementary kids to learn about US geography. The object of this universal app is to stack enough states to reach the checkered line on the screen while learning geography in the process.

Kids must select the correct state in response to questions asked about capitals, abbreviations, shapes, locations and more. If they answer correctly, they’re able to maneuver the state into position and stack each one on top of the next until they reach the checkered line. Answer incorrectly and they’ll receive the correct answer to the question but will not be able to stack the state.

By Cristi | November 3, 2010 | No comment yet

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Friday spelling tests take place in schools around the country every week and if you’re looking for a way to get your child engaged in their words, This Week’s Words from developer Justin Billingsley, is worth a look. This space themed iPad and iPhone/iPod app is designed to help elementary age kids learn their spelling words through interactive fun and play.

Kids follow a space penguin from planet to planet in this app and practice the words included in their weekly spelling list in the process. They’ll visit the red “Add Words” planet first, where they enter their word list. Travel on to the next stop, which is the orange “Learn Words” planet, and start practicing with a series of games.

By Cristi | October 21, 2010 | No comment yet

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A few weeks ago we released eight Painted Lady butterflies in our backyard after watching them change from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. My kids love to observe and learn about nature, and now “There’s an app for that” too. A Life Cycle App for the iPad from Nth Fusion was created by a group of Texas high school students, parents and educators to teach kids about many of the natural cycles kids learn in school.

Detailed descriptions, colorful illustrations and narrations provide students with a great tool to learn about cycles in nature. Kids learn different stages of each cycle, as well as scientific terms like photosynthesis, mitosis, condensation and more.

By Bill | August 24, 2010 | No comment yet

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Three years ago Apple began offering colleges and universities free access to the iTunes platform to distribute their educational content in a program called iTunes U. The program has proven quite successful with over 300 million downloads of audio and video classes in the past three years.

The program now has over 800 universities from across the globe and offers users access to over 350,000 audio and video files. iTunes U continues to grow with Apple recently adding new content from universities in China, Singapore, Japan, Mexico and Hong Kong.

“iTunes U makes it easy for people to discover and learn with content from many of the world’s top institutions,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “With such a wide selection of educational material, we’re providing iTunes users with an incredible way to learn on their computer, iPhone, iPod or iPad.”

Users are able to download audio and video content directly from iTunes to their iPad, iPhone or computer and best of all, access is free. With the growing number of colleges and universities including iPads in their curriculum, we expect to see Apple’s iTunes U program grow significantly in the coming years.

Technology and the Future of Education

By Cristi | August 7, 2010 | 2 comments

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With the 2010-2011 school year just around the corner, I’m busy preparing my kids with all the back-to-school necessities. While checking out my standard list of websites this evening, I ran across a post on TechCrunch about Bill Gates and the future of higher education. I found Gates’ theory about the future of higher education interesting and I started thinking, what will the college experience be like when my kids get to that age? Are significant changes on the horizon for education and universities as we know them?

According to Gates, educational institutions for K-12 will still be vital future but “place-based college educations will be five times less important than they are today.” Gates believes students will be less likely to go to one place to receive their education and should receive credit for knowledge regardless of how they came about it.

With the continuous increase of content available online and the introduction of the iPad, eReaders and other tablet devices, technology will play an even larger role in education in the future than it does today. “Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world,” Gates said at the Techonomyconference in Lake Tahoe, CA today. “It will be better than any single university,” he continued.

By Bill | July 29, 2010 | No comment yet

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Shortly after the iPad was launched this past April, Rutgers University announced they would be integrating the iPad into their upcoming “Mini MBA” series. The series kicked off this summer with the Digital Marketing Executive Certificate Program and integrated the iPad into the course work to enhance the executive education program.

Rutgers had three goals for incorporating the iPad into its new program:

Familiarize the students with the iPad and its impact on how people consume digital content
Allow for easy delivery and reading of course material
New communications tool to stay in-touch and exchange ideas with classmates and teachers

The first Summer series just wrapped up and based on the results, it looks like Rutgers will continue to push the iPad in the classroom as a new e-learning and communications tool.

Math Flash Cards HD for iPad – App Review

By Cristi | June 24, 2010 | 7 comments

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Now that the 2010-2011 school year is a memory and Summer Break is in full swing, many parents are asking themselves “How do I help my kids remember the skills they learned during the past year?” Maybe your iPad can help! The App Store has so many kid friendly iPad apps that are entertaining, educational or both. Math Flash Cards HD is a great educational app designed to help kids master their addition, subtraction, multiplication and division math facts.

Developed by a dad to help his 2nd grade son improve in math, this app is exactly what parents want. It’s easy to use and offers lots of customizable options. I’ve purchased several math apps in the App Store and none have been this good. Math Flash Cards HD lets me add multiple students and customize each profile for their level. In settings, parents are able to select the type of math problem (add, subtract, multiply, divide) and the number of problems asked during each “test”. If you child is struggling with specific numbers, you can select only those numbers to appear in the problems. For example, if your child is just starting out with multiplication and you only want them to work on the 0′s, 1′s and 2′s tables, you can easily select the numbers you want them to practice. Parents may also select whether or not they want:

By Cristi | June 24, 2010 | No comment yet

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Yesterday I reviewed Wheels on the Bus from Duck Duck Moose and today I’ve got another great app from them, that’s been featured in “New and Noteworthy” and “Staff Favorites” in the App Store. Fish School HD is an educational app with an underwater twist that helps toddlers and preschoolers learn letters, numbers, shapes, colors and more, all while having fun.

Kids dive into Fish School HD quickly and will want to spend hours playing its eight fun educational activities. They’re able to learn letters, numbers and shapes as they watch fish swim on and off the screen and take form. They easily move forward or backward through the screens with the swipe of their finger.

When they’re tired of “school work”, they can have a little fun with all the colorful fish during the play time and colors activities. Touch and hold a fish to watch it grow larger during Playtime or select your favorite fish in Colors and all the fish in that same color swim onto the screen. Differences and Matching will challenge your preschoolers when they’re asked to identify the fish that doesn’t belong or play memory matching with fish.

Regardless of the activity they choose, your toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy learning in this fun fish-filled school!

By Cristi | June 23, 2010 | 3 comments

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Our friend Steve Glinberg, developer of great educational apps for the iPad and iPhone like 123 World Geography HD and KidCalc Math Fun, has just announced a recycling program for iPhones, iPod Touches and even iPads. With the introduction of new iPhones tomorrow and the continued popularity of the iPad, many old iPhones and iPod Touches are left sitting around to collect dust when their owners upgrade to bigger and better devices.

Steve has been working with teachers to gather valuable feedback about his educational apps for nearly nine months and quickly realized the value of iPods in the classroom. Many schools around the globe currently use mobile device technologies to enhance the learning experiences of their students as teachers integrate devices like iPods into the curriculum; however, they are also often limited in their ability to provide such devices because of a lack of funding and shrinking budgets. The needs of schools and teachers, combined with the potential impact these devices would have in the hands of students, ultimately led Steve to begin his program.

“I have heard first hand from teachers and parents for nearly a year just how valuable a role iPhones and iPod touches have come to serve in classrooms,” said education software developer, Steve Glinberg. “We need to get used iPhones and iPod touches into classrooms, where price is the primary barrier precluding their introduction into the curriculum. That is what I aim to accomplish with my recycling program.”