Educational Apps Part 8 – Science

Here are some great reference and interactive apps for science. As well as the apps I have on my iPad which are presented below I have added some links at the bottom of this post to other blogs discussing science related apps. Click on the app icon to view the app in the app store for more detail and to purchase.

 

Solar Walk ($2.99)

 

 

 

 

This is my favourite solar system app. There are lots of apps based around the solar system. This one has some stunning images and functions. There is also a great list of short videos explaining the phases of the moon, tidal phenomena, major circles of latitude, zodiacal constellations, solar eclipses, earth’s cycles and size comparisons of planets.

 

NASA (free)

 

 

 

 

Images, news, NASA TV, videos, featured topics and information about each of the planets in our solar system plus all the NASA deployed satellites.

 

GoSkyWatch (frre or $3.99) and Star Walk ($2.99)

 

 

 

 

 

Use these apps to find the positions of planets, constellations and stars in our solar system. Point up to the sky and follow the directions as the app points you towards the planet, constellation or star in the sky. You can use your current location and time in GoSkyWatch or change these to see how it affects where the planet, star or constellation will appear in relation to the world.

 

Living Earth ($1.99)

 

 

 

 

 

Look at current weather conditions around the globe. View cloud formations, storms, current temperatures, wind speeds and humidity around the world. Capture photos of what is on screen and import to the iPad photo album for use in student work.

 

Video Science (free)

 

 

 

 

 

A large range of science experiments/explanations for upper primary/secondary students including: colour wheel, heat sensitive materials, air canon, bending glass, hovercraft, pinhole viewer and many many more. A great resource.

 

Science 360 (free)

 

 

 

 

 

A large range of science based video.Produced by the National Science Foundation.

 

Nova Elements (free)

Explore the interactive periodic table and view & build essential elements. Unfortunately the video in the app cannot be viewed outside the USA due to copy right laws. If you are looking for a high quality app with over 500 HD images, the ability to rotate images plus 3D capabilities then try The Elements – A Visual Exploration, at $14.99 it should be good.

 

Life Cycles

 

 

 

 

 

A great resource that explains the life cycles of frogs, ladybugs, the butterfly, plants, rocks, water, plus  phases of the moon, pollination & fertilisation, photosynthesis, nitrogen cycle and oxygen cycle.

 

Newtons Three Laws ($0.99)

 

 

 

 

 

An app that helps to explain Newtons three laws of motion. Has some interactive examples within the app.

 

Physical Sciences Glossary (free)  and Science Glossary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science glossary provides scientific terms in alphabetical order with written explanations. Physical Sciences Glossary uses interactive explanations and videos to help explain Energy & Systems, Force & Motion, Electricity & Magnetism, Matter & Energy, Light & Optics and Sound & Waves.

 

3D Brain (free)

 

 

 

 

 

Learn about all areas of the brain and how the brain functions.

 

Skeletal 3D ($0.99)

 

 

 

 

 

View the human skeleton in 3D. The app also includes a skeletal encyclopedia.

 

Anatomy ($1.99)

 

 

 

 

 

An app for junior primary, primary and lower middle school. Topics include growing, skin, senses, hunger, breathing, heart, muscles, nerves and skeleton. A great interactive app.

 

Virtual Heart (free)

 

 

 

 

 

Learn about the heart. Set a heart rate and watch the heart respond. View the hearts interior, electrical system, valves, blood flow with or without labels.

 

Apps for science in primary education

Apps for science

Apps for science lovers

Science apps

Apps in education – science

Educational Apps Part 4 – Productivity and Design & Food Technology

Attendance (free)

 

 

 

 

Do you want to do away with your paper attendance rolls? This will not take the place of the DECD home group roll we take at PBAS but it will take the place of our secondary subject rolls. This is an exceptionally easy app to use. Once your students are entered you just follow the prompts to take the roll. The roll can be emailed so a paper version can be produced. The school requires a paper copy to be kept on file. I have used this app during term 4 and found it so much easier than the paper version. For a start I always take my iPad to my classes but did not always remember to take my paper version, hence it was never filled out very accurately. I will be using this app for attendance from now on.

 

iCabMobile ($1.99)

This app is a Web browser like Safari, Internet Explorer, FireFox or Google Chrome. The great thing about this app is that it allows you to download video from the Internet, store it in the browser then save it to your photo roll on your iPad. Other browsers do not do this. I use a lot of skills video in PE sourced from You Tube and previously have had to download it on my laptop, convert it to an mp4 file, place it in a folder that syncs with my ipad and then plug in my iPad so it syncs through iTunes. Watch the video below to see how easy you can download video to your ipad from iCabMobile. Once video is downloaded it can be used in any app that allows the importing of video i.e. iMovie or use it to view You Tube clips offline with your class.


Design and Food Technology

 

 

 

($0.99)

 

 

 

 

($0.99)

 

Both of these apps are for the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education). This is England’s equivalent of our SACE. These two apps are basically text books and provide a huge range of information that I could see being useful for our senior students (someone might tell me otherwise as both of these subjects are not in my field of expertise). Definitely worthy of a look. If you type design technology into the search bar of the app store you will also get apps called; Design and technology, iDT HD, Resistant materials, Systems and Control, Electronic Products and Design & Technology: Food.

 

 

 

Educational Apps Part 2 – Productivity

Here are some apps that allow you to access and view files from the Cloud. All of the Cloud based storage apps require an account to be set up online and then they can be placed on your PC desk top. Combined they give around 13G of free storage space in the Cloud. Each has an iPad app that allows you to then view/edit files on your iPad. The added benefit is that the information is also stored in the folder on your desktop and can be accessed offline. Any changes you make offline are automatically uploaded to the Cloud when you connect to the Internet. All can be accessed online so if you are somewhere where your computer is not you can access your files online.

Click on the app icons below to view or purchase the app from iTunes.

SkyDrive (free)

Create a Skydrive account and get 7GB of free storage. Then get the SkyDrive app on your iPad to access your Office files on the iPad. Viewing only capability no editing.

Dropbox (free)

Create a Dropbox account and get 2GB of free space. A valuable account to have as a lot of apps sync with Dropbox. Get the Dropbox app and access Office documents on your iPad. Viewing only no editing within the app. However you can sync to apps such as QuickOffice Pro and CloudOn to edit the documents.

Google Drive (free)

Create a Google Drive account and receive 5GB of free space. If you already have a Google account i.e. You Tube or Gmail you can already access Google Drive. Get the app to view only all your Office documents on your iPad. You can sync to apps such as QuickOffice Pro and CloudOn to edit the documents.

NOTE: All of the above can sit on your desktop and you can edit all documents fully on your PC which then upload to the cloud and sync with your iPad apps.

 

CloudOn (free)

An app for accessing your Office Documents from Dropbox, Google Drive and another cloud storage app called Box. It is a bit clunky and not as smooth as Quick Office Pro but its interface is very similar to Office which is an excellent feature that Quick Office Pro does not have. It saves any editing back to your cloud storage app.

Quick Office Pro ($10.49)

Edit and create new Office Documents in this app. Edit documents from Google Drive or Dropbox or create new documents within the app. Save documents within the app itself or  drag and drop them back into into Google Drive or Dropbox to be saved. There is also a function to email the documents off the iPad allowing you to then store the document where you like. The app contains ‘How to’ documents for Power Points and Word but not Excel although it gives you an example document to view. The interface is not the same as Office and requires some time to learn all the functions and how to access them. Once this is done however this is a powerful app.

DropVox ($1.99)

Want to record audio and upload it to the Cloud EASILY? Record a conversation with a student about their work for reference later, get students to record an oral presentation, ask a small group to present their group work by recording audio or share the audio file with parents, teachers, other students by email. This app, as the name suggests, links directly to Dropbox. The only functional button within the app is record/stop. Once stop is pressed the audio is automatically uploaded to Dropbox into a folder called DropVox. All the user has to do is press record and press stop, everything else is done for you. You can then access this audio wherever you can access your Dropbox account.

 

Educational Apps Part 1 – Productivity & PE/Games

As iPads begin to become more popular amongst staff and the potential for iPads to be available to students (at some point in 2013) I thought I would try and regularly post about useful apps for teachers and students. If you want to access these posts in the future just go to the Catagories heading in the right hand column of the blog and go down to iPad Apps. If you click on ‘iPad Apps’ you will find all of the posts on educational iPad apps.

To view/purchase the app in the app store click on the image.

First up are a range of apps that can assist with your productivity. Record personal training and development, assess students work including notes, photo, video or compile digital portfolios for your students. Great for collecting formative and summative assessments completed by your students. All three created by PE teacher Jarrod Robinson.

 

Easy PD

 

 

 

 

 

Easy PD is the professional development record tool for teachers. A mobile and powerful way to capture and record both the professional development you complete. Never again will you need to keep extensive and confusing paperwork.

 

Easy Assessment

 

 

 

 

 

Easy Assessment allows you to create rubrics, takes notes, add an image or piece of video all linked to the specific rubric. Enter your classes and record assessments on your iPad.

 

Easy Portfolio

Easy Portfolio allows you to collect your students work all in one place. Enter your classes and then under each individual student name store photos of their work, audio of conversations, video, notes, upload Office documents and add web links. Great when it comes to report writing, talking with parents and feeding back to students.

 

Next up are a range of apps that all do essentially the same thing, provide you with a range of games and physical activities to use in PE. Great if you want some new games to play with your students or let your students investigate and select a game they would like to teach the class.

 

PE Plus

 

 

 

 

 

PE Games

 

 

 

 

 

Group Games

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.E. Games

 

 

 

 

 

 

TGfU (Teaching Games for Understanding) – This app is based on a pedagogical approach used by PE teachers that teaches skills and strategies through small games as opposed to teaching skills in an isolated way.

 

Minecraft in the classroom

Minecraft is a down loadable game from the Internet that costs around $40 for one license for a PC, there is a free iPad app (very basic, can’t save but good for learning on) or a $7.49 app for iPad (Phoebe assures me it is not as good as the online version but not bad).

What is Minecraft? Wikipedia explains Minecraft as an open world game that has no specific goals for the player to accomplish, allowing players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. The game world is essentially composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes—that are arranged in a fixed grid pattern and represent different materials, such as dirt, stone, various ores, water, and tree trunks. Players can gather these material blocks and place them elsewhere, thus allowing for various constructions. The game primarily consists of two game modes: survival and creative. Unlike in survival mode, in creative mode, players have access to unlimited blocks, regenerate health when damaged, and can fly freely around the world.

I’ve actually never played Minecraft but we do have an account that Phoebe and Lucy use. The more I watch the girls build and create worlds the more potential I see for use with students. Without any personal experience using the game my first thought is to use it to engage students to design and build historical locations, buildings, statues and artifacts. It would be a brilliant tool for this purpose. Click here to visit a teachers example of how he used it in an Ancient Greece unit (see photos of the student’s structures). Another use could be to design scale models. As everything in Minecraft is built with blocks students could convert measurements into blocks and replicate an object i.e. a building (Phoebe worked out to scale the height, width, lengths of arms and legs etc of one of her dolls in blocks to recreate it in minecraft).

If you where looking to engage students in learning I think this would be an ideal tool. Of course their are many blockers to using something like Minecraft to engage students and the list probably looks something like this:

  • It costs money.
  • I don’t know how to use it.
  • It will be too much extra work to organise it.
  • I don’t have time to learn something new at the moment.
  • It looks great but it is not for me.
  • and so on …..

But also consider:

  • There will be a child in your class who can show others how to use Minecraft (give students leadership). Jump in and learn as you go, you don’t have to know everything before you start.
  • It is a way to differentiate the curriculum and make it accessible to students who find watching a video or creating a poster dead boring.
  • It allows for higher order thinking skills to be used including Analyse – investigate, examine, Evaluate – decide, justify, Create – construct, design, invent

With the potential to save multiple worlds on one iPad ($7.49 app) it may be an engaging tool for teachers to use in the near future at PBAS.

Below I have added some video and images of creations built using Minecraft.

The video below is of a students work. He had to design a structure from medieval times and decided to do it in Minecraft instead of building a traditional project.

Here are some images of things people have created using Minecraft. It is amazing what you can build out of blocks!

Staying Relevant

When your computer goes down or the Internets not working you might ring a help desk for assistance. This video is a humorous take on what happens when someone can’t get their ‘new book’ working. They have been used to working with scrolls and this new technology has them confused!

When your viewing the video pretend the person learning to use this new book is a teacher. If he gives up because it is too hard/frustrating will he continue to be an effective teacher? The answer of course is no. Books will soon become common place and scrolls will disappear. He will no longer be able to communicate with his students effectively as schools will no doubt be using the new technology with students.

What is our understanding of how: 1. children use the following (in and out of school) and 2. how can we use the following for teaching and professional development?

  • The Internet beyond a google search (web 2.0 tools)
  • Programs beyond Microsoft Office
  • iPads and the thousands of apps available for education
  • Social media such as Facebook and Twitter (how do students use these? what are their pitfalls and benefits?)
  • Blogs (your own or professional reading)
  • Wikis
  • Gaming i.e. Minecraft, which by the way I think has great applications in the classroom
  • Smart phones
  • Creating a YouTube account
  • Being responsible for and maintaining our online footprint
  • BOYD programs (Bring Your Own Device)
  • Mobile Learning

Do we risk becoming obsolete over the next 5-10 years if we do not embrace and embed technology as part of our pedagogy beyond the twice a week visit to the computer suite? (note I said as ‘part of’, we should never throw out old still effective pedagogy just because something new comes along, we should however be adding to our pedagogical content knowledge).

 

While you ponder this question enjoy the video, it is very funny!

Could you use Khan Academy in your classroom?

I won’t explain the history of Khan Academy here other than to say that it is a series of video tutorials on maths, science and history that are free on the Khan Academy website and can be searched and viewed on You Tube. If you would like to learn more about Khan Academy click on the link below:

One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students: How Khan Academy Is Reinventing

If you teach maths, science or history at any level ask your self the question, can you use Khan Academy to help your students understand concepts? I don’t mean replacing your teaching with the use of Khan Academy videos but assisting your teaching. Below I have included 3 videos (math only) at different levels from basic addition (1 + 1) to higher level maths. Before viewing one or all of these videos consider that there is a khan Academy iPad app that would allow students (or the teacher) to access these videos on iPads or alternatively students access the videos in the computing suites or in the classroom on a laptop. The videos could be used individually (iPads, laptops, PC), pairs, small groups (on IWB). If you wanted to work with a small group of students you could do this while the rest of the class was accessing a video at an appropriate level on an iPad.

Basic Addition

Level 4 Subtraction

Level 1 Multiplying Expressions

Getting Started – Classroom ideas for learning with the ipad

Click on the link below and have a look at the digital book “Getting Started  – Classroom ideas for learning with the ipad”. This was put out by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Victoria) as one of the resources for an iPad trial in Victoria. Some good ideas about pedagogy and how ICT and iPads can be used. Click here to read the book “Getting Started  – Classroom ideas for learning with the iPad “.

 

iPad and Web 2.0 Presentation

This presentation shows some of the iPad and web tools that I have used in my teaching in the past 12 months. Click on the enlarge icon (bottom right) so that all images and text are visible when viewing slides. If you would like to see the notes that go with the slides click on the link below the presentation which will take you to the presentation on the Slideshare website. The notes are visible on the Slideshare site.

Create educational videos

 

 

 

One way of helping students learn content or to understand concepts is to create a screen cast of your lesson and upload it to your You Tube channel for them to view as part of their homework or as a revision tool. There are many screen capture tools on the web that are free. The one that I prefer is Screen O Matic. Once you have an account you have access to 15 minutes of free screen capture time per video. The tool allows you to capture whatever is happening on your computer screen or interactive white board as well as audio and then turns it into a video.

Capturing your lesson notes and explanations is just one way of using screen capture technology. You can use it to:

  • get your students to demonstrate their learning by creating their own videos with explanations of concepts or topics.
  • produce an instructional video on a topic that you can use when required as part of a topic. This could be useful to help differentiate the class. While working with one group the video can be assisting another. Build up a library of these on your You Tube channel to use when needed.
  • produce a video that helps explain a concept or topic to upload to You Tube that can be used for homework. The video can help parents assist their children.

Screen capture technology is not only restricted to the web. The iPad has a wide range of apps that do the same thing. The two I have used are Educreations and Show Me.

I have used this technology (Screen O Matic, Educreations and Show Me) this year to create videos for my Year 12’s in physical education. These videos were created prior to me needing them and are designed to be used by my students as another way to access curriculum  content or review topics. Ed has also used this technology (Screen O Matic) with his Year 9 maths class. Ed captures the explicit teaching parts of his maths classes live while presenting to the students (using Screen O Matic and the interactive whiteboard).  This is a really impressive use of this tool. Students can go home and do their required home work and access Ed’s video explanations at home. What a great resource for his students!

If you are interested in using this technology then ask Ed or myself for help. Yes that’s right I said ask Ed for help with technology – he has done an awesome job using technology to help his student’s learning.

 

Ed’s You Tube Channel

Nick’s You Tube Channel

Example of video made using Educreations app – this video is an example of using the iPad to capture a lesson ‘live’. In my Stage 1 PE class (mostly yr 10’s) I hooked up the iPad to the data projector and then wrote on the iPad which recorded the text and my audio. As there is no IWB in science lab 1 the iPad replaced the IWB as the presentation tool.

Example of video using Show Me app