Using iPads in the Classroom:The twelve apps of Christmas?!?

Created by: www.softeggucation.co.uk

App 1: Socrative

Practical Ideas: • Create a weekly tables quiz.• Assess knowledge at the start and end of a topic.• Ask your children to create a quiz about them.• Use as a way to assess emotional wellbeing at the start of a day.

The Socrative app allows your children easy, quick access to the quizzes that you

create online, it is self marking and

free!

App 2: Word Salad

Practical Ideas: • Assess the children’s vocabulary choices by pasting in their last

piece of work.• Give children interesting vocabulary lists.• Create a visual poem through careful word choice.

The Word Salad app allows you to create

word clouds from pasted or written

text. You can choose how to format and then save it as an

image.

App 3: iMovie

Practical Ideas: • Instead of creating a newspaper, film a news report.• Convert a class book into a film trailer.• Plan a conversation between characters and then get into role

and film it.• Become a scientist and explain a concept using a whiteboard.

iMovie allows you to shoot, edit and

enhance films only using the iPad. It is simple to use, but

has a wide ranging functionality.

App 4: Dragon Dictation

Practical Ideas: • Give a writer with low confidence the chance to see their

writing come to life.• Get the children in your class to add punctation verbally to a

paragraph without punctuation.• Write a paragraph in a pair, only speaking one word at a time.

Dragon Dictation automatically

scribes writing from your spoken words

App 5: Popplet

Practical Ideas: • Collect together photos from the web to create a mood board.• At the start of a topic, create a board of what you know and then

at the end, correct it with what you have learnt.• Map out a key concept by breaking it down into its smallest

parts.

Popplet allows you to create mood

boards with text, photos and drawings.

App 6: Inspiration Maps

Practical Ideas: • Choose different words to use instead of simplistic verbs by

mapping all the alternatives.• Plan a five part story by considering each part at a time.• Generate ideas for a DT project by mapping out your ideas as

quickly as possible.

This is a mind mapping

application, which allows you to organise your

thoughts using text, image and links.

App 7: Foldify

Practical Ideas: • Use the character net to map out a character from your class

text.• See how many properties the children can label on 3D shapes

that they have made.• Create a Minecraft style object from cuboids.

This application gives the user nets

for 3D shapes, which can be decorated, printed and then

created in real life.

App 8: Halftone 2

Practical Ideas: • Create a story map of a recently read text, by photographing

hand drawings and then adding them to a comic strip.• Create a five part non chronological text using creative

commons photos from Flickr.• Shoot a story by freeze framing the action on the camera and

adding the text.

This is a comic strip creator, which

allows you to simply and easily create comic strips from

photos.

App 9: Book Creator

Practical Ideas: • Write a story, but deliver each part in a different medium.• Re-write a story using the photos from the text.• Explain the most recent maths method that you learnt, using

text and image.• Throughout a school year encourage the children to create a

book of their best work, which can then be printed and taken home.

This app allows you to create beautiful

ibooks from photos, text, audio and

video.

App 10: Garageband

Practical Ideas: • Use the digital drum machine to create a times table rap.• Record, edit and publish a podcast of your school’s news.• Capture the sounds of learning in a soundscape.

This is the most complex, yet simple to use digital music

creation tool we have ever used.

App 11: Soundcloud

Practical Ideas: • Improve writing by asking the children to record their writing.

As the record they should correct and embellish their work.• Share learning with others in school by creating a song about

what you have learnt.• Record a class podcast, explaining a complex subject or topic.

This application allows you to record, edit and share audio

recording on the web.

App 12: Slingnote

Practical Ideas: • Find out information about a topic and note it down by stealing

the key information.• Create a mood board for a new product, by looking at similar

existing products.• Look at example websites, before creating your own using the

same features.

This application allows you to

browse the web and then clip ideas,

images and texts from what you read.