Air Sketch

Format: iPad
Price: Free Version
Vendor: iTunes

Turn your iPad into a wireless whiteboard! Project live sketches to a local computer that is linked to your LCD projector and you can walk around the room and broadcast your sketches. You can also link to any computer (BYOD) that is logged onto the same URL broadcast from your iPad.

RH: I tested this app using my laptop and iPhone. It worked flawlessly on both. This means that a student with Internet connection may log into "your" broadcast that you are making from your iPad as you walk around the room. Great for math teachers. All you have to do is place the URL address, that your iPad shows you, into the browser of any device that is on the same network. I have not tested this at school yet. The device or your desktop computer will show the blank screen and any drawings you produce. The drawback is that the drawing that you produce is not real smooth but rather crude in the free version. The free version boasts 3/5 stars. The Pro version runs a salty $9.99 but allows you to put documents, pictures, and more on your iPad for you to mark up. If you would use this app daily, it would be worth it and has collected 4.5/5 stars in reviews. If you want to research more uses for this app check out this link: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/02/use-air-sketch-with-dropbox-for.html#.UFbkYKOuWAq

VideoScribe HD

Format: iPad
Price: $4.99
Vendor: iTunes

VideoScribe.tv is a completely unique way to create engaging animated videos quickly and easily. Often called Whiteboard animation or sometimes Fast Drawing, VideoScribe replicates the stop-motion capture style of drawing that's so popular on commercials at a fraction of the cost.

RH: If you have ever wanted to create a marker board style creation that you have seen on commercials and all sorts of professional presentations, this app is for you. It is a fee based app at $4.99 but it is a lot of fun and makes a rather impressive show. The sample I have included below was my first attempt and it has potential. It is voice over capable but I found the timing to be a bigger challenge than I wanted for a Friday night. I ended up just using the in-app provided background music and found it to be plenty cool. If you are still not sure what I mean this app allows you to make a video that shows a hand drawing text and images on a white board with voice over and or music in the background.

Format: Computer/iPad
Price: Free Resource
Vendor: iTunes


This ed site, which you can be a member or not, has provided a spreadsheet with 100+ must have iPad apps for education and personal use. All subjects are available and is in one place for easy scanning. The list includes free and fee based apps and are available in iTunes.

 RH: If you are like me and may be overwhelmed with the many resources available for the iPad. This spreadsheet may simplify your search for apps that you may want to try out for both your class room and personal use. You may have to either go "full screen" or resort to your desk top as you will have to move the slider at the bottom of the page to view the entire spreadsheet.

Good Notes Free

Format: iPad
Price: Free Lite (upgrade 3.99)
Vendor: iTunes


GoodNotes lets you take handwritten notes, sketch diagrams, mark-up PDFs and organize them on a beautiful bookshelf. Turn pages with a swipe, highlight or add notes to any page, and share your notes with anyone. GoodNotes will automatically save your notes and has full backup function to prevent data loss.

RH: This is the free version of GoodNotes. This app provides a number of templates including lined, blank, squares, and music note sheets. The free version limits you to two notebooks and the upgrade is a little pricey at 3.99. I really like the ability to enlarge your paper as you write and then shrink it back at will. You can also import images and be able to write all over them.

Educreations Interactive

Format: iPad
Price: Free
Vendor: iTunes


Educreations is a new iPad app that turns your iPad into a whiteboard. You can use the app to illustrate concepts and narrate what you're doing on the screen. You can draw images from scratch on the Educreations iPad app or you can upload images and draw on them. Your completed lesson can be shared directly to others or made public on the Educreations website.


RH: Educreations is very similar to Show Me and Screen Chomp iPad apps. All three of these free iPad apps could be used to deliver short lessons to students. You could also use these free iPad apps to have students develop and share short lessons with each other and you. I prefer ShowMe.

Evernote

Format: iOS, Windows OS, Droid OS
Price: Free
Vender: iTunes, Developer Homepage, Google Play

Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your everyday life using your computer, phone, tablet and the web.

James: I use Evernote on my PC at work and home, and on the iPad. On the PC, I have downloaded the Evernote clipper for Chrome browser and use it to clip nonfiction articles for use in class and professional articles for me. Because Evernote keeps everything up in the Cloud, what I clip at home, I can access at work, or on the iPad. In Evernote, I have made behavior logs for each class, parent contact logs and committee notes to track what was discussed from one meeting to the next. Evernote can work like a simple word processor, and notes then can be bundled into notebooks. A great app!

A+ Signature

Format: iPad, iPhone
Price: 1.99  (Lite Free)
Vendor: iTunes


This app gives you the power to annotate over any photo. You can simply make notes on them or even sign your name to forms.


RH: Everyone has favorites and for annotating over photos, this is mine. There is a "lite" version which is good but the fee version gives you the opportunity to write as many individual notes as you want. The writing is very smooth which is what I look for in a writing app. I can take a form from the office and import the image here and sign away as well as fill in boxes. Then, I can simply email it back to the office without leaving my desk. What I really like is that it makes my poor penmanship look pretty good.

Here are a couple of samples of photos annotated using A+ Signature. Wish I really visited Hawaii. 

You may import any photo such as a form, sign, and send it. (Using your iPad, snap a screen shot of the form, save it to your photos, then import it to A+ Signature.)

TurboCollage Pro

Format: iPad
Price: 2.99
Vendor: iTunes


As the name implies, this app is for making photo collages and the like. 




RH: This is the fee version of the entry level and "lite" versions. Unless you do a lot of work with any app, the free version will probably do fine. After you see what the free version limits are, you may want to upgrade. I have used this to make collages of my students and their work. It works very well for documentation and it is quick and easy. 

Pages

Format: iPad, iPhone, iPod
Price: 9.99
Vendor: iTunes

Nice word processing app which allows you to export in Pages, Word, or PDF format. You may import videos and run them as well. Pages works with iCloud so all your iOS devises will be up to date and will allow you to continue your work on the go.

RH: Pages is one the heavy hitters within the Apple lineup to compete with Microsoft word processing programs. This app can be compared to the word processing that is available on Mac machines. Reviews are not stellar for this app but it is probably one of the better word processing apps available for the iPad. I use a number of note pad type of apps including Pages. It is the most versatile and saves to iCloud.

Dropbox

Format: iPad, iPhone, Droid, PC, Mac
Price: Free up to 2GB storage
Vendor: Itunes, Google Play

This handy app is universal and it allows you to take your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. You set it up with like email addresses on every machine and it serves as a go between all devices. It uses cloud technology which makes it available for internet and wireless networks alike. You can move files or documents easily from machine to machine. You must make an account at Dropbox.com before being able to use this app.

RH:There are a number of free services similar to dropbox and they do more or less the same thing.

Penultimate

Format: iPad
Price: $0.99
Vendor: iTunes

Pretty good handwriting app for note taking or doodling. Handwriting is very smooth and there is a clipboard tool available for moving various words or diagrams around or to other pages. This app has line, grid, and blank pages available.


RH: There are a lot of free handwriting apps out there and you will use the one that becomes familiar to you. This was a few dollars but because of the smoothing out effect on handwriting is a good deal.

Evernote

Evernote
Format: iPad, Android
Price: Free
Vendor: Itunes, Google Play

Clip articles, pictures, and videos. Evernote will organize them for you and you can access them later.

KB: You can also take notes and they have a Google Chrome extension.

Pearltrees

Format: iPad, Droid, PC, Mac
Price: Free
Vender: iTunes, pearltrees.com

Web page aggregator and organizer – able to share with the web or individual email accounts. Able to search for related interests, borrow from anyone on the web, and share with anyone on the web. Internet-based with iPad app.


RH: This organization tool is one of many for iPad. The beauty is that you can use it on your iPad and it automatically pushes an update to your desktop and vise-versa.  You can also send an entire pearl tree or just one web site to anyone via email.