by Philip Lop

Created on: October 11, 2010

Apple’s amazing iPad has a host of features and capabilities that lend themselves perfectly to the classroom. As well as enhancing and customizing study material for students, the iPad can help teachers better manage their time and provides a host of reference material, tools and applications to maximize their effectiveness. Here is a rundown of some of the most useful apps.

♦  Lessons for iPad (Phoxware LLC)  - $4.99  ♦

Lessons for iPad is a versatile application that can be adopted by a wide range of professions. In simple terms, with Lessons, you create and save practice tests that can be written back to a central server and then downloaded by other users. This is a useful tool for teachers looking to supplement course work with customized tests for their students. With Lessons, you can create tests in different formats (multiple choice, free form text etc) or study material for the lessons themselves. The ability to upload pictures and photos enables a distinct personal touch.

♦  Numbers (Apple Inc) - $12.99  ♦

As the iPad replaces paper and pen, the tablet becomes an invaluable means of maintaining records and data at school, at home and everywhere in between. ‘Numbers’ is the Apple equivalent of Microsoft’s Excel. With Numbers, teachers can maintain detailed records of pretty much everything they need to. Grades and marks for coursework can easily be retained, analyzed and shared with others. You can upload and integrate photos and images with charts and tables to better present data to your students and the best thing is, everything is to hand wherever you are.

♦  Dropbox (Dropbox) – Free  ♦

One of the problems faced by many professions is the need to be able to access documents from a variety of locations. With Dropbox, you can easily synchronise and share your documents, images and other files between your home computer, a school network and your iPad. By marking certain files as ‘Favorites’ you can access them offline quickly and easily, allowing you to quickly access files that were edited in preparation for the classroom at home the night before.

♦  Frog Dissection (Emantras Inc) - $4.99  ♦

Frog Dissection is a superb example of how the iPad can replace and enhance existing teaching methods. Via frog dissection, you can re-enact the entire process for your students without the hassle of actually dissecting the creature. Superb graphics, instructions and annotations take you through every step of the process in a way that can easily be presented to the classroom without the risk of upsetting more delicate sensibilities.

♦  MobileTeacher (3P Learning) – Free  ♦

MobileTeacher is an application that complements the Mathletics web site. Mathletics is used by more than 7000 schools worldwide and allows teachers to customize tutorials and guidance according to the progress and skill of individual students. The product takes away much of the administration of teaching and with the iPad application now available, teachers can monitor and update progress in real-time.

♦  TeacherPal (ITWorx) – Free  ♦

This is a great personal organizer targeted at teachers that helps them manage performance and attendance of their classes. Teachers can make notes and comments about students and then retain them securely to be reviewed and/or shared at a later date. The application is extremely easy and intuitive to navigate and makes good use of the iPad’s large, high definition interface.

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