A Catalog of iPad Apps for Teachers and Students by Vicki Windman
Written by: 8/31/2011 10:16:00 AM
Fourteen of us–special education teachers, school psychologists, speech therapists, and other educators–recently spent six hours brainstorming with the goal of producing a starter iPad app catalogue for teachers and students in our district, and beyond.
Fourteen of us–special education teachers, school psychologists, speech therapists, and other educators–recently spent six hours brainstorming with the goal of producing a starter iPad app catalog for teachers and students in our district, and beyond. Thanks to my colleagues for helping the district pioneer through new territory!
All Grades:
Super Kids has been my go-to website for reinforcement dittos for years. Now they have a vocabulary app for grades 4-12 for $.99. The goal is to increase vocabulary on all grade levels.
Khan Academy Free - From algebra to basic arithmetic, YouTube videos that explain each topic.
Flashcardlet Free - Flashcardlet allows you to search for and study Quizlet.com flashcards. It also allows you to make personalized flashcards.
RFB&D audio $19.99 membership to Learning Ally Gain instant access to Learning Ally’s (formerly RFB&D) downloadable DAISY formatted books.
Elementary
UnderSea Adventures: Free - the $1.99 full version offers allows you to vary the levels. Learning Addition Visually - Answer questions to reveal a secret picture. Every correct answer is one step closer to seeing the picture.
iTouchandLearnNumbers $1.99 provides a perfect blend of curriculum based learning and animated game fun.
ABC Phonics Free - FLASHCARDS - SEE the spelling, HEAR the audio, and LEARN the word.
What are they thinking? $3.99 Choose to have the student listen to 180 entertaining “thoughts,” or have the student answer each “What are they thinking?” question. This App can track data for all correct and incorrect responses. It also collects data for one student at a time and allows you to view and email those results.
Elementary/Middle School
Shake a Phrase $1.99 A fun interactive app to learn the parts of speech with 1700+ age appropriate vocabulary words. Three modes- Shake It: creates a new random sentence every time you shake - great for discovering new words. Not sure what a word means? Just tap for definitions! Story Starter: shake up the beginning of a story and let your imagination take over. Quiz Me: test your skills with adjectives, verbs and nouns. Tap on the right words to get points.
Earth Science through Photographs $4.99 – geared for 8-11 year olds. The app includes earth science photographs containing three details with audio.
Living Safely $29.99 provides self-directed learning sessions for 27 important safety skills topics.
A Trip in the USA $.99 Using rhymes, this app tells the story of a trip to several US cities where you learn about the geography and history. Cities include New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Orlando, Seattle and Houston. One of the nicest things about this app is that you can personalize it with your child’s face – and gender – so the story becomes about them.
Middle School
Be Confident Who You Are By Electric Eggplant $3.99 Meet Mateo, Michelle and their friends—six teens trying to figure out what middle school’s all about. Follow their adventures and watch as they learn how to get along in middle school.
High School/Middle School
The Constitution Free - the Constitution as it was.
History: Maps of the World Free - A fun and educational collection of high-resolution historical maps.
Library of Congress Free - The Library of Congress is the world's largest library and the largest body of knowledge under a single roof. Whether you're onsite, at home, in a classroom or elsewhere, this app will give you a virtual tour that mirrors the Library of Congress.
Science 360 Free - fantastic visuals! The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Science360 for iPad provides easy access to engaging science and engineering images and video from around the globe.
Musee du Louvre Free - the next best way to see the Louvre without going there.
High School:
SpaceTime for the iPad $9.99 SpaceTime 4.0 is the most powerful mathematics app and graphing calculator ever developed for the iPad. This app has the ability to graph in 2D and 3D with beautiful and colorful graphics.
Monster.com Free - great for teaching students how to look for a job a skill all High School and College students need to know.
Resume Writing Secrets $.99 All High School students need to learn how to write a resume. This app gives you the hidden rules and secrets.
Expense Tablet $.99 A great app to teach students the concept of budgeting.
Fiske Interactive College Guide $19.99 Organize your college tour with built-in map function Locate critical school deadlines (such as application dates) Email admissions departments directly from the app . Browse each college website, explore schools that compete with one another (“overlap schools”).
Television and Broadcasting for High School Students
Clapper Board $19.99 a convenient, all-in-one digital slate, clapper board, shot log, and shot notepad— designed for use in film, TV, documentaries, music videos, and interviews.
Storyboard Composer $19.99 mobile storyboard and pre-visualization composer designed for Directors, Directors of Photography, Producers, Writers, Animators, Art Directors, film students and anyone who wants to be able to visualize their story.
ProPrompter $9.99 features professional settings for fonts, font sizes, background colors, scroll speeds, mirroring, looping, landscape, portrait and automatic orientation modes, adjustable countdown, cue points for fast re-cueing, support for international language fonts, editing, direct script creation, remote control and a complete help menu.
8mm HD $2.99 capture the beauty and magic of old school vintage movies. Dust & scratches, retro colors, flickering, light leaks, frame jitters - all can be instantly added with a single tap or swipe.
Scripts Pro $5.99 When writing in desktop screenplay programs, you forget about the program all together and are focused entirely on writing your story. The same thing is true with Scripts Pro because there is no cluttered interface or complex solutions to writing.
Autism
Social Skills Sampler HD Free - This company the Conover Company has a wide variety of “Life Skill” videos This particular one Is designed to teach and reinforce basic social skills critical for independent living.
EPIC WIN $2.99 It’s a streamlined to-do list, to quickly note down all your everyday tasks, but with a role-playing spin. So rather than just ticking off your chores and reminders, completing each one earns you XP to improve and develop your character.
IDIOM Dictionary $1.99 Can be used in all areas of curriculum but this concept is particularly difficult for children on the Spectrum.
Everyday Skills $39.99 provides self-directed learning sessions for 40 important skills necessary for living independently and accessing the community based on proven content developed by the Attainment Company.
iReward $3.99 When stars have been earned, your child can pick from the default list of suggested rewards, or you can setup your own custom rewards especially tailored for each of your children.
iPrompts XL $49.99 alllows you to create picture schedules, a countdown timer, choice prompts. It comes with an image library which includes hundreds of useful illustrations and digital pictures across many categories.
ABC Data 4.99 Created to assist professionals and students in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), ABC Data is an unobtrusive data collection tool for counting behaviors and recording session duration.
Practicing Pragmatics $5.99 - Student looks at an illustration and either reads the prompt or touches the screen to listen to the prompt. The student then gives a verbal response. After each answer, tap the green (correct) or red (incorrect) button to score the student’s verbal response.
Vicki Windman is a special education teacher at Clarkstown High School South.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
Eight Years of 1:1 Computing Research in Maine
Posted on November 15, 2011
Reaching the Tipping Point? Eight Years of MLTI Research
PC Computing Blueprints
by James Rosso
The latest report from the University of Southern Maine documents the impact of the nation's most comprehensive statewide 1:1 initiative.
A Middle School One-to-One Laptop Program: The Maine Experience, written by David L. Silvernail and other researchers at the Maine Education Policy Research Institute (MEPRI) of the University of Southern Maine, provides an overview of many years of research about Maine’s middle school one-to-one initiative. The Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI), which has provided all 7th and 8th grade students and their teachers with their own laptop computers for 24/7 use, was originally authorized in 1999 by then-governor Angus King. By the fall of the 2002-03 school year, MLTI entered its first phase, involving over 17,000 seventh grade students and their teachers in over 240 schools throughout the state. The program expanded to grade eight the next year and has continued providing laptops to all 7th and 8th graders, accompanied by professional development for faculty, ever since.
From the beginning, MTLI was committed to program evaluation. The Maine Commissioner of Education contracted with MEPRI to conduct ongoing research into the impact of the initiative using a variety of methods including online surveys, test data analysis, site visits, and observations. What follows is a summary of the key findings reported in MEPRI’s current research overview.
Section 1: Evidence on Laptop Use
The latest evidence comes from a survey of 1,690 middle school teachers conducted in the spring of 2010. The goal was to assess how often and in what ways the computers were being used. In middle schools where laptops have been readily available for so many years, has teacher use of technology reached what Malcolm Gladwell refers to as the tipping point—"the point where something that began as unique becomes common"? In some areas, the answer appears to be a cautious "yes." For example, over an 8-year period (2003 - 2010), teacher use of the laptops to communicate with parents, students, and colleagues and to manage student information has doubled, rising from approximately 40% to over 80%.
A closer look reveals the ways in which the laptops are most frequently used. After asking the teachers to classify their use on a 6-point scale ranging from "never" to "often during the day," the researchers identified the following as the most common uses (ie., rated as 4, 5, or 6):
To communicate with colleagues inside and outside the school (93%)
To look up quick facts to inform teaching (88%)
To manage student information (87%)
To develop instructional materials (83%)
To conduct research for lesson plans and curriculum design (78%)
To record grades (76%)
To communicate with parents and students (75%)
As a tool during instruction (75%)
To differentiate instruction (75%)
For summative assessment (60%)
For formative assessment (53%)
And what about student use? According to student surveys, instructional use was most common in language arts, social studies and science. In these three areas, approximately 40% of the students indicated they use their laptops four hours or more each week. In mathematics, on the other hand, only 14% of the students reported using the laptops 4 or more hours per week and only 10% of art and music classes used them that often. Types of uses reported by students as occurring at least a few times a week included:
Researching information (69%)
Editing papers (44%)
Taking notes (42%)
Organizing information (38%)
Writing first drafts (32%)
Creating presentations (26%)
Working on short-term assignments (26%)
Working with spreadsheets (17%)
Section 2: Factors Relating to Use Levels
It is hard to answer the question of why there are differences in adoption levels by different teachers involved in the same program. Computer use does not appear to be a product of age, gender, teaching experience, or education level. However, as indicated above, usage was more common in certain subject areas than in others. Beyond that, one of the main factors affecting teachers’ use of the computers is teaching philosophy.
Based on survey answers, researchers were able to classify teachers as either constructivist (student-centered) or traditional (teacher-centered) in their teaching philosophy. Among constructivist teachers, 57% used the laptop frequently with students, whereas for the traditional teachers laptop usage was at 32%. It also seems that the usage of the computer in the classroom is shifting some of the teachers from the traditional to the constructivist end of the spectrum; MLTI is helping teachers become more student-centered.
Section 3: Benefits of the Laptop Program
Survey data show that teachers feel that they benefit from working with laptops. Some of the main benefits they identified:
Ability to explore topics in greater depth (87%)
Ability to teach some types of content and skills more effectively (86%)
Ability to individualize curriculum to fit student needs (82%)
Ability to differentiate instruction more effectively (76%)
Ability to teach students to be critical thinkers (66%)
Teachers also reported being better able to complete administrative tasks quickly, cover more material, track student learning, and let student data inform their teaching. In addition, teachers believe that the laptops make their students better learners. With laptops, the majority of teachers say, students work harder at their assignments, learn some content faster, express ideas more effectively, and are generally more involved with their learning.
Likewise, students are aware of the benefits to them. In the survey, the students indicated that, when working with a laptop, they are more likely to edit their work, stay better organized, get more work done with a higher quality, understand the material better, and feel more involved.
Section 4: Impacts on Student Learning: A Summary of Findings
To determine gains in specific curriculum areas the MEPRI research team has conducted a series of reports over several years. In all four of these already-published studies, summarized in A Middle School One-to-One Laptop Program: The Maine Experience, students participating in the laptop program outscored a control group in significant ways:
Creating Better Writers
Using Laptops to Facilitate Middle School Science Learning: The Results of Hard Fun
Maine’s Impact Study of Technology in Mathematics
21st Century Skills
Section 5: Costs of the Laptop Program
This section of the report strives to answer one question: Is the Maine Learning Technology Initiative cost effective? For this research, the comparison was made with other 1:1 programs around the country. State costs include the laptops, software, network costs, and state level personnel costs as shown in the chart below.
2009-10 State MLTI Costs
Item
Units
Cost
Middle School Student
29,570 @ $242 per unit
$7,155,940
Middle School Staff
4,468 @ $242 per unit
$1,081,256
School Network Fee
225@ $7,817 per school
$1,758,825
MLTI Staff
Ten full and part-time staff
$471,905
Total Costs
$10,467,926
Cost per Unit
$308 per Unit
Local costs were also taken into consideration. The researchers found that the costs of the MLTI program sit in the average range when compared to similar programs or, as the authors reported: "Although much of the evidence in this area must be used cautiously, it appears Maine’s one-to-one laptop program costs are in line with the average costs found in other one-to- one laptop programs. Maine’s per unit costs were very similar to the average found in four other cost studies, and the incremental costs appear to be moderate."
Section 6: Summary and future Research
Teachers report benefits from the laptop program in both instruction and management while student achievement has definitely increased. As the writers of the report indicate: "The evidence presented in this report indicates that the MTLI program has had a significant impact on curriculum, instruction, and learning in Maine’s middle schools. In the areas of curriculum and instruction, the evidence indicates many teachers have reached the tipping point in the adoption and integration of the laptop into their teaching."
Further research is needed, however, to arrive at a better understanding of why certain advances have not been as fast or as great as program planners might have liked. In particular: Why do the teachers make so little use of the laptops to provide differentiated instruction or formative assessment? Why isn’t more time being devoted to using the laptops to develop 21st century skills?
Finally, the researchers are hoping to look more closely at the role of MLTI in the shift from teacher- to student-centered instruction. To what degree has it happened? And for whom? "Finding answers to these questions," say the MEPRI researchers, is important for identifying strategies for further promotion of this shift for more teachers."
Source: A Middle School One-to-One Laptop Program: The Maine Experience
Reaching the Tipping Point? Eight Years of MLTI Research
PC Computing Blueprints
by James Rosso
The latest report from the University of Southern Maine documents the impact of the nation's most comprehensive statewide 1:1 initiative.
A Middle School One-to-One Laptop Program: The Maine Experience, written by David L. Silvernail and other researchers at the Maine Education Policy Research Institute (MEPRI) of the University of Southern Maine, provides an overview of many years of research about Maine’s middle school one-to-one initiative. The Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI), which has provided all 7th and 8th grade students and their teachers with their own laptop computers for 24/7 use, was originally authorized in 1999 by then-governor Angus King. By the fall of the 2002-03 school year, MLTI entered its first phase, involving over 17,000 seventh grade students and their teachers in over 240 schools throughout the state. The program expanded to grade eight the next year and has continued providing laptops to all 7th and 8th graders, accompanied by professional development for faculty, ever since.
From the beginning, MTLI was committed to program evaluation. The Maine Commissioner of Education contracted with MEPRI to conduct ongoing research into the impact of the initiative using a variety of methods including online surveys, test data analysis, site visits, and observations. What follows is a summary of the key findings reported in MEPRI’s current research overview.
Section 1: Evidence on Laptop Use
The latest evidence comes from a survey of 1,690 middle school teachers conducted in the spring of 2010. The goal was to assess how often and in what ways the computers were being used. In middle schools where laptops have been readily available for so many years, has teacher use of technology reached what Malcolm Gladwell refers to as the tipping point—"the point where something that began as unique becomes common"? In some areas, the answer appears to be a cautious "yes." For example, over an 8-year period (2003 - 2010), teacher use of the laptops to communicate with parents, students, and colleagues and to manage student information has doubled, rising from approximately 40% to over 80%.
A closer look reveals the ways in which the laptops are most frequently used. After asking the teachers to classify their use on a 6-point scale ranging from "never" to "often during the day," the researchers identified the following as the most common uses (ie., rated as 4, 5, or 6):
To communicate with colleagues inside and outside the school (93%)
To look up quick facts to inform teaching (88%)
To manage student information (87%)
To develop instructional materials (83%)
To conduct research for lesson plans and curriculum design (78%)
To record grades (76%)
To communicate with parents and students (75%)
As a tool during instruction (75%)
To differentiate instruction (75%)
For summative assessment (60%)
For formative assessment (53%)
And what about student use? According to student surveys, instructional use was most common in language arts, social studies and science. In these three areas, approximately 40% of the students indicated they use their laptops four hours or more each week. In mathematics, on the other hand, only 14% of the students reported using the laptops 4 or more hours per week and only 10% of art and music classes used them that often. Types of uses reported by students as occurring at least a few times a week included:
Researching information (69%)
Editing papers (44%)
Taking notes (42%)
Organizing information (38%)
Writing first drafts (32%)
Creating presentations (26%)
Working on short-term assignments (26%)
Working with spreadsheets (17%)
Section 2: Factors Relating to Use Levels
It is hard to answer the question of why there are differences in adoption levels by different teachers involved in the same program. Computer use does not appear to be a product of age, gender, teaching experience, or education level. However, as indicated above, usage was more common in certain subject areas than in others. Beyond that, one of the main factors affecting teachers’ use of the computers is teaching philosophy.
Based on survey answers, researchers were able to classify teachers as either constructivist (student-centered) or traditional (teacher-centered) in their teaching philosophy. Among constructivist teachers, 57% used the laptop frequently with students, whereas for the traditional teachers laptop usage was at 32%. It also seems that the usage of the computer in the classroom is shifting some of the teachers from the traditional to the constructivist end of the spectrum; MLTI is helping teachers become more student-centered.
Section 3: Benefits of the Laptop Program
Survey data show that teachers feel that they benefit from working with laptops. Some of the main benefits they identified:
Ability to explore topics in greater depth (87%)
Ability to teach some types of content and skills more effectively (86%)
Ability to individualize curriculum to fit student needs (82%)
Ability to differentiate instruction more effectively (76%)
Ability to teach students to be critical thinkers (66%)
Teachers also reported being better able to complete administrative tasks quickly, cover more material, track student learning, and let student data inform their teaching. In addition, teachers believe that the laptops make their students better learners. With laptops, the majority of teachers say, students work harder at their assignments, learn some content faster, express ideas more effectively, and are generally more involved with their learning.
Likewise, students are aware of the benefits to them. In the survey, the students indicated that, when working with a laptop, they are more likely to edit their work, stay better organized, get more work done with a higher quality, understand the material better, and feel more involved.
Section 4: Impacts on Student Learning: A Summary of Findings
To determine gains in specific curriculum areas the MEPRI research team has conducted a series of reports over several years. In all four of these already-published studies, summarized in A Middle School One-to-One Laptop Program: The Maine Experience, students participating in the laptop program outscored a control group in significant ways:
Creating Better Writers
Using Laptops to Facilitate Middle School Science Learning: The Results of Hard Fun
Maine’s Impact Study of Technology in Mathematics
21st Century Skills
Section 5: Costs of the Laptop Program
This section of the report strives to answer one question: Is the Maine Learning Technology Initiative cost effective? For this research, the comparison was made with other 1:1 programs around the country. State costs include the laptops, software, network costs, and state level personnel costs as shown in the chart below.
2009-10 State MLTI Costs
Item
Units
Cost
Middle School Student
29,570 @ $242 per unit
$7,155,940
Middle School Staff
4,468 @ $242 per unit
$1,081,256
School Network Fee
225@ $7,817 per school
$1,758,825
MLTI Staff
Ten full and part-time staff
$471,905
Total Costs
$10,467,926
Cost per Unit
$308 per Unit
Local costs were also taken into consideration. The researchers found that the costs of the MLTI program sit in the average range when compared to similar programs or, as the authors reported: "Although much of the evidence in this area must be used cautiously, it appears Maine’s one-to-one laptop program costs are in line with the average costs found in other one-to- one laptop programs. Maine’s per unit costs were very similar to the average found in four other cost studies, and the incremental costs appear to be moderate."
Section 6: Summary and future Research
Teachers report benefits from the laptop program in both instruction and management while student achievement has definitely increased. As the writers of the report indicate: "The evidence presented in this report indicates that the MTLI program has had a significant impact on curriculum, instruction, and learning in Maine’s middle schools. In the areas of curriculum and instruction, the evidence indicates many teachers have reached the tipping point in the adoption and integration of the laptop into their teaching."
Further research is needed, however, to arrive at a better understanding of why certain advances have not been as fast or as great as program planners might have liked. In particular: Why do the teachers make so little use of the laptops to provide differentiated instruction or formative assessment? Why isn’t more time being devoted to using the laptops to develop 21st century skills?
Finally, the researchers are hoping to look more closely at the role of MLTI in the shift from teacher- to student-centered instruction. To what degree has it happened? And for whom? "Finding answers to these questions," say the MEPRI researchers, is important for identifying strategies for further promotion of this shift for more teachers."
Source: A Middle School One-to-One Laptop Program: The Maine Experience
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