There are hundreds of apps to use for teachers and students. The problem is that many are either of poor quality or, let’s be honest, too pricey or pointless. I have compiled a brief list of excellent apps that work in the classroom and/or as independent tools for teachers, presenters and other professionals. This post builds on another review of mine about iPhone apps that enhance productivity.

1. Air Mouse Pro

There are free apps that will turn your iPhone, iPad or iTouch into a remote but they are not as powerful and simple to use as Air Mouse Pro. Perhaps the most effective feature for me is the ability to just move the phone to move the virtual mouse on the screen – great for Interactive Whiteboards. The features of this app is too long to list but here’s a quick video to demonstrate what you get:

As mentioned above, the best feature is the possibility of controlling the Interactive Whiteboard from the back of the classroom and allow students to add content to the board from iPod Touches. Air Mouse Pro is worth the £1.19 (!) and you won’t regret buying it.

2. Audio Note

This is one of the best apps for note-taking and recording that I have come across recently. By synchronizing notes and audio, AudioNote automatically indexes meetings, lectures, talks or study sessions.

It is simple to use and whilst you record you can quickly add text and annotations (drawings, diagrams and the like) all of which are added next to the time of the recording. Sharing is possible either via WiFi or email – great resource for both teachers, students as well as people who need a dedicated tool to document meetings, talks and so on.

If you want share the recording over a WiFi connection you will be provided with the address where you can download an HTML file with drawings, text file, PDF or an audio file.

3. Cram

This creative tool provides the teacher or student with the opportunity to create Flash-Cards and Multiple-Choice questions which can be saved on the iPhone/iTouch or synced with the  Mac (separate software). The strongest feature of Cram is the possibility of adding images to your activities as well as keeping scores of past tests. There are other free alternatives available to download on the AppStore but this one gives the teacher or student the power to customise tasks to suit your class or exam – simple and fun.

4. iVocabulary

Create your own content for language lessons with this simple tool. You are provided with a wide range of activities (constantly growing but last count: 2500 tests!) for different languages but you can also create your own text-based tests, Flash-Cards or Multiple-Choice with the typical iPhone buttons, sliders and menus. There is also a free software to download and use to create activities for the iPhone, though you’d need to buy the app (£3.49) for them to work. The beauty of this app is the ability for teachers to create straight-forward tasks that are customised for their students and the added bonus of using the free software to do so from your laptop.

5. iStudiez

This handy little app gives students the possibility of organising themselves using a suite of useful features including:

Timetable: colourful built-in planner lets you input and easy manage all types of schedules including classic, alternating (A & B weeks), rotating and block schedule. Different classes or courses can be colour-coded.

Homework and assignments: iStudiez Pro uses Push Notifications which allows students to set general alarm time for classes and separate alarms for each of their assignments and homework.

Today View: provides a summary of upcoming classes and homeworks.

Back-up: a handy little feature which allows students to email themselves a copy of the timetable at the click of a button.

6. Air Sharing Pro

This is one of the most powerful apps I have come across. It uses your WiFi connection to open up a gateway between your iPhone and Mac or PC. Accordingly, as a teacher you can then transfer documents or other files between your work laptop and home computer, amongst other uses. See the video below for more ideas.

“Air Sharing Pro makes using the iPhone as an external drive easy as can be. Any iPhone user who needs to view and move files on the go should download this app.” — AppReview

Check out this video on using Air Sharing Pro (note: not advertising).

I hope you also found these apps useful and exciting to use in the classroom. If you have come across other ones do leave me a comment : ) . Please also see another post of mine on iPhone apps to enhance productivity.

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• Ideas for Learning and Creativity: simplicity

This is the first in a series of posts about ideas for learning and creativity that I have come across. I hope these posts will provide helpful advice about online resources and creative ideas that may help the delivery of lessons and encourage and challenge students to learn and think creatively.

Creativity and Innovation

Oblique Strategies

This is a set of 100 cards each which will offer suggestions to a course of action or thinking to help break deadlocks or open up your creative thinking. One of my favourite Oblique Strategies:

- Take a Break
- Make an exhaustive list of things you want to do and do the last one on the list
- What is the simplest solution?
- Where is the edge?

Ideas in abundance

From the introduction to the 2001 edition:

These cards evolved from separate observations of the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognised in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack, or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear… (Wiki Entry)

I have found these cards to be invaluable in assisting in moving creative discussions forward, particularly when writing.

The cards are a little tricky to get hold of unless you buy them from the authors website and there are two sellers on Amazon that provide copies as well (same price as authors).

Danielpink.com

This is one of my favourite blogs/websites which I read weekly. It is owned and run by Dan Pink, author of the superb A Whole New Mind (see review here) and most recently Drive – the surprising truth about what motivates us. Dan Pink is exceptionally good at finding those interesting, thoughtful and, at times, quirky stories which make you think. In short, a very creative blog and his books echo his desire to discover and reflect on his experiences.

Here’s an interesting photo: emotioanlly intelligent signage - something I found on Pink’s blog:

The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers – LXD

Whether you have become wrapped up in the latest Street Dance craze or not do watch this brief video from TED 2010 because it goes beyond ordinary dance and raises interesting questions about taking creativity to a different level by using technology and social media. Jon Chu, speaking at TED 2010, introduces the dance troupe and the power of technology very succinctly:

…with online video and Social Networking dancers have created a whole global laboratory online: kids in Japan are taking moves from YouTube videos created in Detroit, building on it and within days releasing a new video while teenagers in California are…remixing it to create a whole new dance and style in itself.

The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers also have a good website with more performances and interviews: The LXD.com

Here’s the video from TED.com

ICT and E-Learning

Prezi

Prezi has become a popular presentation tool for many. I came across this creative presentation about using Prezi, well worth a look even if you are already familiar with Prezi:

ZinePal.com

Does what it says on the tin: creates PDF files from any online content so if you want your students to get a copy of the latest updates from your Learning Platform’s teacher’s blog then this tool is great. Similarly, if you want to send out regular activities, updates, or just want to give readers to opportunity to download your archived articles ZinePal is the tool for you. I love it. Here’s an example:

Blog Posts using ZinePal.com

If you liked that, you'll like these:

• Ideas for Learning and Creativity: simplicity
• Top iPhone Apps for Teachers and Students (and others)
• Ideas for Learning and Creativity #4

How often do you use PowerPoint in your lessons? How do you make presentations useful without information overload… Here follows a brief list of tools that I use regularly to make my messages stick (a little bit longer…).

ZohoShow: create the presentation on-line or upload a PowerPoint file from your local computer. The site gives you a range of tools to make the presentation sleek and professional. A Great tool indeed.

ToonDoo.com: Create graphics and cartoon strips to highlight a key issue or significant point see French Revolution for an example

PicLens plug-in for PowerPoint 2007: This is a real gem and transforms your PowerPoint 2007 slide shows to powerful and animated presentations.

Rich Chart Live: Although this is more complex and a bit technical, you will get used to this tool quickly after a few attempts. I like this flash-generated chart tool as it makes somewhat dull looking statistics look great!

Glogster: Glogster is in many respects a simple ‘poster’ tool, but you can create effective, purposeful displays with students or to use within your own presentations as they can be stored online and include music, videos and hyperlinks. Glogster is ridiculously easy to use and will benefit your presentations well particularly when it comes to emphasizing key issues or give concrete examples of a concept or idea. See what you think.