iPad Apps to Get You Started

Once you have set up your iPad, the best thing to do is to spend some time browsing the internet using Safari – your iPad’s internet browser; taking and sharing pictures; and perhaps even reading ,composing and sending some emails to get used to its intuitive swipe and tap interface.

After that you may feel ready to start installing your own apps, in addition to those that the School will install through the Mobile Device Management tool on your iPad. A few things to bear in mind before you read on are:

• Apps can be organised in groups – as in the illustration, above. This is achieved if you tap and hold an app until it starts jiggling on the screen. You can then move it around and, if you move ii “into” another app, a group is automatically created. This group can be then named or renamed as you wish.
• Your most used apps can be placed on the dock – the section on the bottom of your screen – using the same procedure.
• What you see here is my preferred organisation. Please feel free to add apps and organise them as you see fit. It’s your iPad!
• Many apps are free but some others need to be purchased. A small number of the apps featured below need to be purchased, please ensure you have your budget holder’s approval before you purchase any paid apps.
• All the apps are linked directly to the AppStore. If you are viewing this page on your iPad (recommended) you can simply tap the link to download the app.
• Always remember that your iPad’s screen can be mirrored on your Interactive Whiteboard if you wish. This becomes particularly significant when you consider the numerous Interactive Whiteboard apps that are available.

General Apps

• Zite is an intelligent magazine that helps you discover interesting things to read. It learns what you like and gets smarter as you use it. Zite analyses millions of articles each day and brings you the best of your favourite magazines, newspapers, authors, blogs, and videos. Great to help you to discover content that you won’t find elsewhere.
• iBooks is a way to download and read books. iBooks includes the iBooks Store, where you can download any book that is available, from best-sellers, to classics and even text-books. Browse and organise your library on the bookshelf, tap a book to open it, flip through pages with a swipe or a tap, and bookmark or add notes to your favourite passages.
• Pocket allows you to save content you find while browsing the Internet for later reading, even off-line.
• Flipboard is a personalised magazine. Similar to Zite, above. It is a very popular way to catch up on the news, read stories from around the world and browse the articles, videos and photos friends are sharing. To begin, pick a few interests and tap any of the tiles to begin flipping through your personal magazine.
• Currents is another personalised news delivery app brought to you by Google.
• iTunes U is an app that gives you (and your students) access to complete courses from leading universities and other institutions — plus the world’s largest digital catalogue of free education content. Whether you’re studying molecular biology or learning Spanish at school or just interested in European history, you now have a valuable tool to help you learn anytime, anywhere. The School is looking to create our own iTunes U channel.

• Adobe Reader allows you to save, open and annotate .pdf files.
• Kindle – if you already have a Kindle, you can also read all your Kindle books and .pdf files on your iPad. Any future books you buy on your Kindle will also be available on your iPad at no extra cost.

• Penultimate – linked to Evernote, see below – allows you use your iPad as a notebook where you can write on. Take notes in class or a meeting, journal your thoughts, or outline your next big idea – in the office, on the go, or at home on the sofa.
• GoodReader allows to read virtually any kind of file on your iPad: word documents, books, films, maps, pictures… It’s also a fantastic way to manage your files that are stored locally on your iPad. If they are stored on the School network, then see SecureLink, below.
• Popplet‘s simple interface allows you to capture your ideas, sort them visually in mind map or diagram, and collaborate with others in realtime. Can be used in the classroom just as well.
• WordPress allows you to manage your department’s Digital Learning Spaces from your tablet. You can moderate comments, create or edit posts and pages, view stats, and add images or videos with ease. Having said this, you can also do this by logging in on the internet as normal.
• Notability is a powerful note-taker on iPad: sketch ideas, annotate documents, plan lessons, complete worksheets, keep a journal, record a lesson, jot notes, or teach a class. With iCloud support, your notes always travel with you.
• Book Creator allows you to create your own beautiful iBooks, right on the iPad. They can then be read in iBooks, sent them to your students and colleagues, or even be submitted to the iBooks Store. Ideal for creating bespoke textbooks or, if the students have it as well, for the submission of work.

• Skitch allows you to save and annotate screen shots of your iPad. Very useful for explaining things in a visual way. This app is linked to Evernote, see below.
• Snapseed is a photo editing app.
• PuppetPals HD allows you or your students to create your own unique shows with animation and audio in real time. Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later.
• Morfo allows you to animate photographs or paintings of people so that they speak. I recently saw one in which Shakespeare talked about his sonnets, voiced by a student.
• YAKiT Kids makes any photo talk.
• Thinglink allows you to add video, notes, or even music from YouTube to sections of your photographs, adding extra an extra dimension to what is depicted in them.
• Animoto allows you or your students to create stunning slideshows with your iPads’s photos and videos.

• YouTube allows you to create and manage playlists as well as to view videos. It can be really useful in the classroom.
• Vimeo is similar to YouTube. A smaller canon of video material but often of higher quality. It also allows you to create and share your own videos.
• iPlayer allows you to watch or listen to BBC  TV and radio broadcasts and even download them to be watched off-line.
• Khan Academy has a vast library of lessons and explanations. Great to be used in the classroom or by your students as revision.
• TED allows you access to the entire library of TEDTalks with subtitles in over 90 languages directly on your device through their new video player, or use AirPlay to watch them on your interactive whiteboard. You can curate your own subject specific playlists and download full videos to watch them when you’re off-line.

• Google Drive lets you create, share and keep all your stuff in one place. Upload all your files – even the big ones – and you can access them anywhere, even on your iPhone or iPad. You get started with 5 GB free. It could mean the end of having to carry a memory stick with you.
• Dropbox is similar to Google Drive. It allows you to save your documents on the cloud for access anywhere, anytime. Dropbox is the reason why I stopped using memory sticks.
• SecureLink should be on your iPad already, as it is one of the apps our Mobile Device Management system pushes to you automatically. It allows you access to all our network files (instructions here) from your iPad. If SecureLink is not already installed on your iPad, you can download it from here.

• Reminders, Contacts and Notes are already installed on your iPad. They link with iCloud and can be synchronised across devices.
• Calendar can be synchronised with your School’s Outlook calendar, if you use it.
• Evernote is an easy-to-use, free app that helps you remember everything across all of the devices you use. Stay organised, save your ideas and improve your productivity. Evernote lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders – and makes these notes searchable (even hand written notes or text in photographs you save on Evernote also become searchable). It links with both Penultimate and Skitch, above.
• Clear makes to-do lists.
• Wunderlist is another app that allows you to manage to-do lists.

• Microsoft Office Tools are available as apps but currently only work if you have your own personal subscription to Microsoft Office 365. The School is looking to activate this service for staff and students as from September 2014.

The next three apps are really important and we recommend you download them as soon as you are able. They will allow you to open, edit and save Microsoft Office documents from Word, PowerPoint and Excel respectively. They are free to new iPad users. This means you will not have to pay for them if you install them though your new School iPad.

• Pages is Apple’s answer to Word.
• Keynote is Apple’s version of PowerPoint.
• Numbers is the equivalent of Excel.

All the documents that you open and save using Pages, Keynote and Numbers can be accessed and edited using iCloud, even on your desktop computer. Log in to your iCloud account using the same username and password you used to set up your iPad and give it a go here. This means you can start documents on your computer and then automatically have them available on your iPad, or vice-versa. 

• iMovie is Apple’s powerful film editor on the iPad.
• iStopMotion allows you and your students to create stop motion animations. It comes with a companion app that acts as a remote camera.
• vjay is directly integrated with the media libraries on your iPad and it allows you to mix and scratch your favorite music videos from iTunes or combine songs from your music library with personal video footage into an interactive audio visual experience. You can even use the built-in camera on your device to add your very own clips to the mix with added special effects.
• Videolicious allows you to weave together interviews, videos, photos, music and more into a sophisticated video production—in seconds. Just talk and tap—or watch and tap—to make the perfect video. Already an essential app for journalists at the world’s biggest newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, as well as educators and students.
• iMotion HD is time-lapse and stop-motion video editor. It also has a companion camera app, iMotion R, that allows another iPad to be the camera.

There is an increasing number of subject specific apps that you can browse and download directly from the AppStore. Below are just a few that are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more can be downloaded from the AppStore’s Education Collections.

• Spanish Verbs conjugator and synonyms perhaps more useful for students – available for other languages too.
• Word Reference is a handy multilingual dictionary. Essential in every languages classroom.
• Newspapers like El Mundo or El Pais – Newspapers are available in a variety of languages.
• Basic German is a great way to build vocabulary. Apps like this are available in other languages too.
• Duolingo makes language learning fun, leveling up and competing with friends. You have the opportunity to translate real-world texts in the language you are learning, and in doing so, help us translate the Web into other languages.
• Himmelscheibe – challenges users to solve a mystery in German.

• Phoster is an app that allows you or your students to create stylish posters and cards.
• Over is the app for adding text and artwork to your photos.
• iPhoto is Apple’s photo organiser, editor and slide-show creator. It should be free if downloaded form new iPads.
• Paper is the easiest and most beautiful way to create on iPad. Capture your ideas as sketches, diagrams, illustrations, notes or drawings and share them across the web.
• Phonto is an app that allows you to add text to pictures.
• Doodly allows you to decorate your pictures with doodles, text, effects and filters.
• PS Express brings you basic photo editing form the makers of Adobe Photoshop.
• Moldiv lets you combine and edit multiple photos to make amazing collages.
• Adobe Ideas gives you the ability to draw freeform vector illustration and to replace your pen and paper with a huge virtual canvas, customizable brushes, and pressure sensitive stylus support.
• PopAGraph allows you to edit photos and add 3D effects.

• 3D Brain helps you discover how each brain region functions, what happens when it is injured, and how it is involved in mental illness. Each detailed structure comes with information on functions, disorders, brain damage, case studies, and links to modern research.
• Molecules is an application for viewing three-dimensional renderings of molecules and manipulating them using your fingers. You can rotate the molecules by moving your finger across the display, zoom in or out by using two-finger pinch gestures, or pan the molecule by moving two fingers across the screen at once.
• GCSE Biology questions – other subjects available
• iCell gives students, teachers, and anyone interested in biology a 3D view inside a cell. Included are examples of three types of cells: animal, plant, and bacteria.
• ForceEffect is an app that helps engineers design stuff.
• ForceEffect Motion helps engineers develop mechanisms and moving parts.
• VideoScience offers s growing library of over 80 hands-on Science lessons that are great for home and the classroom. These short videos demonstrate inexpensive and easy to recreate experiments that are designed to inspire and excite kids of all ages.
• Galaxies allows you tour the Milky Way, travel through galaxy clusters, and engage in hands-on activities, such as making your own constellation and working a high-tech telescope.
• Nova Elements allows you to explore an interactive periodic table.

• World Maps invites students and teachers to go on a travel around the world on beautifully designed maps. Its quizzes are easy to get started for everyone, but the higher difficulty levels are a challenge even for experts
• Barefoot Atlas allows students to explore an interactive 3D globe.
• Flags and Countries is a quiz that tests your knowledge of the world countries’ flags. It gives you the opportunity to play an entertaining and catchy game while improving your memory.
• Google Earth allows you to fly around the planet and explore places by zooming in.
• iGeology is an interactive geological map of the UK.
• History Maps allows you to explore the world through interactive maps illustrating geopolitical and geographic shifts over time.
• Globe is an app which shows the countries of the world on a 3D globe – you can manipulate the globe with the normal iPad gestures — drag your finger or use a rotate gesture to rotate the globe; pinch to zoom in and out.

• MyScript Calculator allows you and your students to perform mathematical operations naturally using handwriting on the screen.
• Mathletics allows subscribers to the Mathletics website to access the exercises on the iPad.
• myBlee Math gives children a personalised classroom where they can enjoy learning maths at their own pace.
• Beluga Maths takes you on a journey through the whole of mathematics.
• GeoGebra is dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package.
• Isosceles is a geometry drawing tool.
• Desmos is a graphing calculator.
• Long Division allows students to learn the mechanics of long division with a touch interface. Drag digits down, slide the decimal into the correct position, and tap to identify repeating decimals.
• MyScript MathPad is not a calculator! It allows you and your students to hand-write mathematical expressions on screen and have them rendered into a digital equivalent for easy sharing. You can choose from an image or LaTeX or MathML string for easy integration into your documents.

• Math 6 provides games to practise maths.
• OhNoFractions allows students to practice and explore fractions.
• Pick-a-Path is an useful app by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
• Protractor 1st is a digital protractor that coverts degrees to radian automatically.
• Slide 1000 is a multiplayer game helping children understand hundreds, tens and ones; numbers up to a thousand. Players learn by sliding tiles into the center to match an answer, equation or image.
• Rounding is an app designed to help the user improve their rounding skills. It is a great brain quiz game for adults or anyone else looking to improve their skills at rounding numbers
• Quick Graph is a graphic calculator.
• zMathGrade3 is desgned to help learners improve their number sense and place value skills.

• Famous Poetry allows you to read over famous 200 poems from 15 of the best poets including Robert Frost, Yeats, Wordsworth, Longfellow, etc.
• Poetry gives you access to thousands of classic and contemporary poems.
• Spelling Free allows students to create lists of words they need to practice and checks whether they can spell them.
• WordSalad is a word cloud generator.
• Phrasal Verbs helps you lear how to use phrasal vera in English – especially useful to non-native speakers.
• Grammar is an interactive grammar practice app by the British Council.

• Hopscotch teaches students to code using simple, intuitive building blocks. They can create games, animations and other programs in this colorful, interactive environment.
• Hakitzu allows students to learn the basics of coding playing a game.
• Codeacademy teaches you programming.
• AppFurnace Player is a utility app for playing AppFurnace creations made using AppFurnace.com.
• Treehouse teaches you to build websites and mobile devices apps.
• Cargobot allows students to learn about coding and recursion while playing a game.
• ScratchJr is an introductory programming language that enables young children (ages 5-7) to create their own interactive stories and games.

• 123D Creature allows you to design a creature, then sculpt detailed features and paint on skin, fur, feathers, or whatever you imagine. Export your finished creature as an image or 3D model, or have it 3D printed into a real sculpture.
• 123D Sculpt lets you choose a shape from the library of creatures, humans, vehicles, and more. Then push, pull and paint to make the sculpture your own. When you are done, take snapshots in the camera room or create animated QuickTime turntable movies on your iPad.
• 123D Design allows you to created #D printable designs.
• 123D Catch lets you use the iPad’s camera to capture the people, places and things around you as amazingly realistic 3D experiences. Capture objects, sculptures, buildings or anything else you can photograph and automatically transform them into interactive 3D models.
• Clinometer HD is a bubble level and slope finder.

• Virtuoso turns your iPad into a piano keyboard.
• GarageBand turns your iPad into a collection of Touch Instruments and a fully featured recording studio.
• Spreaker transforms your iPad into a full-featured radio station, allowing you to mix your voice with your iTunes music library and sound effects to create your own personal radio shows or podcasts.
• Spotify lets you bring music into your classroom.
• Music is already on your iPad. With it you can build your own music collection.

History

There aren’t that many free History apps, but here is a good selection of paid apps.

PE

• Ubersense can be used to to improve sports technique through slow motion video analysis and get instant slow motion feedback during your practice, race or game. Examples include analyzing your batting in super slow motion, comparing your tennis serve side-by-side to a pro athlete or checking your long-jump technique in precise frame-by-frame.
• CMV Free is another video analysis tool.

RS

There is a vast selection of apps for all major religious texts. Simply search for Bible, Torah or Quran in the AppStore to give you a flavour of what is available.

MDM

Our Mobile Device Management (MDM) will install apps and links to school resources periodically. Unfortunately, every time our MDM pushes an update to your iPad, it will undo any grouping or organisation of these apps and links, so it is, for now, more practical not to group them and instead move them to another page.

Social Media

Many departments have a Twitter account. Installing the Twitter app on your iPad will make sending updates, posting photos and sharing links really quick and easy. Ask your Head of Department for the username and password.

Finally, if you are ready for even more apps, click here.

Apps for teaching and learning

• iDoceo is a powerful and easy to use grade book and teacher planner for the iPad. Its spreadsheet engine will calculate averages in real time as you put information in.
• TeacherKit is another digital grade book enables teachers to organize classes, and students. Its simple and intuitive interface allows teachers to track the attendance, grades and behavior of students.
• ClassDojo helps teachers improve behavior in their classrooms quickly and easily. It captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with students, parents and colleagues. Teachers can use this app to give their students positive behavior feedback and manage their classes. Beautiful reports and easy classroom management are all built in – and everything syncs across all of your devices! Ask colleagues in the English Department for a demo.
• Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere.
• Showbie makes it easy to assign, collect and review student work on your iPad.
• Socrative brings smart clickers, student response and ease of use to a whole new level. Engage the entire classroom with educational exercises and games while capturing student results in real-time. It comes with teacher and student versions.
• Ask3 allows pupils and teachers to collaborate on lessons in and outside of the classroom. By turning your iPad into a recordable whiteboard, lessons can be posted into an Ask3 classroom where others can add text and video comments, questions and answers.
• Edmodo makes a teacher’s daily life easier by providing a safe and easy way for teachers and students to interact anytime, anywhere. It allows teachers to set and grade assignments (records are kept) and students to hand them in electronically.
• Zondle allows students to play games anywhere to support their learning, to help them remember what they’ve learned in class and to prepare for tests and exams. Teachers create and set topics on the Zondle website for students. Teachers can also use the zondle website to manage their zondle classes and view progress (with the zondle Gradebook).

• Nearpod enables teachers to use their iPads to manage content on students’ iPads. It combines presentation, collaboration, and real-time assessment tools into one integrated solution.
• ShowMe turns your iPad into an interactive whiteboard. ShowMe also allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials.
• Prezi allows you to create and present panning and zooming presentations on your iPad. Prezi’s nature lends itself very nicely to the iPad’s tapping, pinching and swiping interface.
• Haiku Deck is a simple new way to create and share presentations. You can use it to present topics in the classroom or your students can use it to submit work to you.
• TouchCast allows you to create videos that are fully browsable, responsive, and alive. Webpages, images, and an assembly of video Apps (vApps) can be tapped for a two-way video experience.
• Grafio Lite allows you to sketch, draw and drag objects onto a canvas.
• BaiBoard HD is another interactive whiteboard app for the iPad. It has collaborative capabilities.
• Zamurai is another interactive whiteboard tool for the iPad.
• Explain a Website is an iPad screencasting tool that allows to record your interaction with a website and enables users to add explanations to the content of a website as voice-overs.
• Stick Around allows you to design sorting and labelling puzzles. It comes with an assortment of puzzles, including ordering decimals and classifying rocks. It’s the player’s job to drag the stickers from the tray to their correct spots on the background before time runs out.

• FIG (Fiction Ideas Generator) – was free when I downloaded it but doesn’t appear to be now (hopefully that will change!), but a good way of giving girls a bit of a spark of enthusiasm if they’re a bit stuck with creative writing.
• iBrainstorm – a very easy to use brainstorming app. You are allegedly able to collaboratively plan but I haven’t work out how to do that yet.
• Pinterest – if you don’t already use this, it’s a nice way to collate websites on a particular topic in a very visual way. Could be used for research or collecting ideas for a piece of writing.
• Notability – José mentioned this a while back here. It’s good as you can annotate over your writing with a pen tool. This is a bit clunky on the iPad, so I’ve been using ActivInspire or just copying images from the iPad with the snipping tool onto flipcharts and going from there.
• The Poetry Foundation app is quite fun.
• Word Mover is a bit like fridge magnet poetry. You can either download wordbanks or create your own. Might make a fun starter.
• InspireMe is similar to FIG but just puts up 3 words. Again, would make a good starter activity – either for creative writing or for literature – get the girls to use the words in a sentence about one of the characters from TKAM etc.
• Free Revision of GCSE texts. These aren’t particularly challenging but could make good starters or revision tools. There’s one for poetry; Mockingbird; and An Inspector Calls.
• Prezi have a nice, easy-to-use app.