Educational Apps

I've had several people (some teachers, some parents) question me lately about educational apps. There are many great resources out there for educational apps so I thought I'd share a few of them. All of the following sites provide a directory of apps, often sorted by age and/or subject level. I've included the Twitter name for the blogs when I could find them. Twitter is a great way to keep up-to-date with new posts from these blogs.

Best Apps for Kids (@bestappsforkids) - This is a great site that sorts apps by age/grade and by device. They also post "Free App Friday" each week where you can see apps that are free for a limited time or are offered in partnership with the next site in the list...

Moms with Apps (@momswithapps)- I learned of this site from @dkapuler. It is updated on a pretty regular basis and the purpose of the site is to "promote quality apps for kids and families".

SNApps4Kids (@SNApps4Kids)- This is a wonderful site who's purpose is to "...explore practical, useful, and educationally sound ways to use the iPad and similar devices with children of all ages and ability levels". SNApps4Kids stands for Special Needs Apps for Kids.

Appitic - I learned of Appitic from the Future Education Tech blog. It provides over 1,300 apps for education. What I really like about this site is that the apps here are broken down by topic and when selected give you a review of the app along with screenshots.

Best Kids Apps - I love the tagline on this site, "We play all the iPhone, iPad, and Android apps so you don't have to". The apps are given a grade, age rating, and the price is displayed.

Apps 4 iKids (@Apps4iKids)- This site was created to share apps that a mother has found for her son. Lists are included from various perspectives including her son's (5 yrs old) top 10 picks.

Braineos...Online Flashcards & Games

Braineos.com is a place for online flashcards and games that use the flashcards. One of the best things about the site is that many sets of these flashcards have already been created by others and you can easily search the library of existing flashcards on the homepage of the site. If you don't find what you're looking for, just create your own.

To create your own set of flashcards, just click "Go" from the homepage, or if you've conducted your search and don't see what you're looking for click "Login and create your own flashcards!". From here you can login using your account from a variety of sites including Google and Facebook.

Once you're logged in, enter a deck name and then a description and tags if you want. Click "Create" and you're well on your way! You can enter your questions or vocabulary one at a time, or from a list. It's super easy!

Once your list is created or if you're using flashcards that have been created by another user, you can choose which game you want to use with them then click "Play".http://www.braineos.com

Scholastic Study Jams...for Math & Science

Scholastic has a site with some pretty cool, and brief, math and science videos. Click on "Math" or "Science" from the menu to view all of the topics for that subject. Click the topic that you want to view to see more options. It's easy to get started just go to http://studyjams.scholastic.com/. I learned about this site from Kelly Tenkley and her iLearn Technology blog.

Sheppard Software

Sheppard Software offers one online stop for many learning games and activites in the content areas of Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies.

Many of the activities are very brief and offer a great way to reinforce a concept. In addition to the games there are also quizzes over the topic areas of Chemistry, Health, History, Nutrition, and Seasons.

There are quite a few Geography activities/quizzes that can be found on the site by clicking on World Geography Games or US Geography Games at the top of the page. The games are all based upon the idea of locating a requested area/country/city on a map.

In the Science section of the site you will find activities on the topics of dinosaurs, seasons, life cycles, cells, endangered animals, and deep sea science. Several different life cycles can be re-enacted on the Sheppard Software site. The life cycles of the butterfly, frog, and bird are all accessible and operated by the user placing the stages of the life cycle in the correct order.

In the Math section of Sheppard Software there are activities on basic operations, mixed operations, fractions, place value, time, money, early childhood math, and pre-algebra.

Language Arts activities that are found through the site primarily pertain to various parts of speech and vocabulary (all the way up to SAT and GRE vocabulary prep).

Take a look at Sheppard Software and see what activities would be helpful to your students. With the "game-like" environment of some of the activities, some students may even find this site as a fun place to spend a little time this summer on a rainy day =)

As always, please feel free to leave a comment and let us all know how you are using this resource in your classroom.