Apps, Ideas, & Advice for Using Tablets (Android or iPad)

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Scott Habeeb on June 17, 2011 at 8:38pm

Awesome - Jon.  Thanks.  I hope the Math teacher on our committee will check those out.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Entous on June 17, 2011 at 8:42pm

Just to warn you, I am making no claims that the games at the link I just gave are any good at all. I was trying to make a point mostly about the availability of a ton of educational content (both good and bad) through a flash enabled web browser.

The gist of what I am trying to get at is that you can find more valuable educational content available online through html5 and flash than you can currently in the App Store on the iPad. This is doubly (or more) true for apps geared toward middle and high school students.

I will try to find some good examples and post them as links in this thread.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Habeeb on June 17, 2011 at 8:44pm

I really appreciate your input.  Very valuable.  I think we'll be focusing on Android tablets for our trial instead of iPads due to the flash issue as well as cost.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Entous on June 17, 2011 at 8:51pm

I only wish there was a way for tablets to run native JAVA apps as there many great online apps for math instruction at places like the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.

http://nlvm.usu.edu/

I have done some investigating, and sadly there is no easy way to get these things to run on Android. There is a way to make it happen since JAVA is the language upon which the entire Android OS is based. It would simply require a programmer to write a plug-in for JAVA apps which could run inside the web browser. I wish I was capable of doing that.

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Permalink Reply by Alisa Burns on June 24, 2011 at 1:58pm

A lot of these were great - I'm at the beach with my extended family and am very tempted to "force" my elementary and middle school aged cousins to play with me.  So far, however, I am not seeing many apps (and I need to do some more exploring on my own) that would really ADD to my or my high school math teacher colleagues' classrooms.  Students would love to play these games, and many of them do need to practice basic math skills.  It would be great if they used these to supplement their school learning experiences.  They should be playing them at home (instead of video games?), during down time at school, etc.  But, I am wondering if there is anything out there that will actually complement the required objectives of an algebra, statistics, or calculus course.  I am very hesitant to add technology for the sake of adding technology.  I hope I find some things, though, because I know students (and teachers) love it when learning feelings like playing!   

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Permalink Reply by Mark A. Corey on June 18, 2011 at 4:37am

Since my school is committed to the iPad I am focused on that technology anyway but as far as the flash issue is concerned videos and games for learning will likely be more homework based anyway. If there is a video that you need for the whole class you will show that on your projector screen to save bandwidth. 25 kids all accessing the Internet to play a flash based game or watch a video will likely cause problems if the rest of the school are using wireless devices as well. I like to take into consideration what innovation really means. Apple innovates, they have overtaken Microsoft as the dominant technology company in the world and they of course rule over the tablet market. As an economics teacher the simple law of demand and supply will take over and my guess is that those who innovate will create products more geared toward this technology than other tablet technology simply because that is where the money is at. Don't get too down on Apple and iPad because it is highly likely they will eventually be the only competitor standing in the tablet market when it is all said and done. As painful as that might be for some to hear, and I already can hear the wheels of debate spinning, I retort with only with one word...Zune. You can follow my quest to make iPads work in the class this year at my blog, myipadadventure.wordpress.com where I promise to give you the good, bad, and ugly of a 1:1 iPad initiative. I am in the initial stages of running this blog but in a couple weeks it should be tight.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Entous on June 18, 2011 at 11:10am

Like you I do not wish to enter into a debate about which is better the iPad or others.  I can see good points on both sides.  My point was to show that for middle and high school students it might be good to know that having flash will allow students and teachers to have access to free tools which they might not otherwise have if they went to the iPad.

 

In my opinion, the best things for students in middle and high school to be using computers, tablets, etc. for is to allow them to create content and engage in the world of Web 2.0.  While I think games are fun and they can go a long way to motivating students who would otherwise be disengaged, they are not getting to the point of having technology in the classroom (if the point of using a learning game is to motivate to study then I think that's fine).  Likewise I think apps which focus on providing reference material are a waste as well.  Using the web browser to find out information is just as effective as an app, is often more up to date, and is free.  Sadly the vast majority of apps made both for iOS and Android fit into the description I mentioned above.  I think it will continue to be that way until there is more money in making apps for an education focused audience.

 

To give you an example of some web apps which I think are what we should be encouraging students in the middle and high school to be using are:

 

http://prezi.com/  This website allows students to create a new kind of presentation which has many interesting features which are useful for school.  It allows people to use scale, grouping and dynamic organization to display relationships between concepts.  It uses flash as its primary tool, although there is an iPad app which will allow you to view (not create) the final products that the students create.

 

http://www.bitstrips.com/landing  This website helps kids make comic strips or comic books with premade and flexible characters with a level of detail that I have never seen even with commercial programs like ComicLife.  It also runs on flash.

 

http://www.aviary.com/#sectionadvanced  This website is a collection of web-apps which are a creative suite similar to the Adobe creative suite (in some ways).  The level of complexity is amazing and it even links up with Google Education accounts for seemless saving.  Its tools are based off a mix of flash and html5.

 

There are a dozen other examples I could name, and if I have some time later I will post them here.  My school has been doing some investigation about using iPads and tablets in a 1:1 program.  The tech committee I was part of eventually decided that laptops or netbooks would be a more useful alternative than iPads at the present time.  It might not always be that way.  Now that we have a goal, we just need to find a way to fund the 1:1 program given the lack of funding and the utter financial distress in our state.

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Permalink Reply by Mark A. Corey on June 18, 2011 at 4:56pm

You and I almost totally agree and thank you so much for the links. I am very curious about the comic strip one. Mark

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Permalink Reply by Beth Cook on June 22, 2011 at 7:46pm

I tried my hand at finding Chemistry apps. I looked for apps on both iPad and Android platforms. Many apps are out there, but most do the same thing. For example, there were about 10 different periodic table apps, but all gave you only basic element information. Some of the apps were free, but many had a fee required. 

 

Some iPad apps are: 
Molecules http://itunes.apple.com/app/molecules/id284943090?mt=8
ChemJuice http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chemjuice/id342895394?mt=8
ChemMobi http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chemmobi/id320681328?mt=8
MMDS http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/mobile-molecular-datasheet/id3836618...
iKinase  http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ikinase/id348603129?mt=8
ACS Mobile http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/acs-mobile/id355382930?mt=8
Mobile Reagents http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mobilereagents/id395953310?mt=8

Chemistry for iPad http://www.topappreviews101.com/chemistry-ipad-app-4302.html 

 

Some Android apps are: 

Chemistry News http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/education/chemistry...

Chemistry Terms http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/books_and_reference...

Periodic Table https://market.android.com/details?id=com.socratica.mobile.chemistry

ExamsTutor Chemistry https://market.android.com/details?id=com.examstutor.ChemistryLogin... 

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Permalink Reply by Scott Habeeb on June 22, 2011 at 7:52pm

Thanks, Beth - this is exactly what we need teachers on our committee doing.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Entous on June 22, 2011 at 9:06pm

For the chemistry stuff, I found one site below.  All I can say is that after looking at the apps on your list, the level of high school chemistry must have moved light years beyond what I had in high school.

 

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/index.shtml  Check out the simulations and the construction kits.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Beth Cook on June 22, 2011 at 9:37pm

Yes, I use this site for simulations of freezing point depression! : ) The kids really says it helps them understand.

 

I think this is an application I could use better in a WebQuest with a netbook where students type a response to questions about a simulation, rather than use a tablet. I think the freezing point thing I use from this site would be incredibly small on an iPod or kindle. 

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