Cool Games on the iPad for Learning Maths

Maths is one of the most fundamental skills that any child needs to succeed at school and life in general. Make the learning less of a chore by implementing gaming elements into the learning process. Lots of kids chose to play these games even knowing that they are maths based. That says something about the concept on which these types of games have been developed. See if any might be suitable for your class or perhaps just for one or two struggling students.


Maths Evolve: FREE and $1.99 AU
Do you want your kids to have fun while they learn? Math Evolve is the best math game on the App Store for practicing multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. This revolutionary app provides a fun and engaging way for kids to improve their math fluency, number sense, and mental math skills. Math Evolve is for kids ages 6+, but is challenging and fun even for adults.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/math-evolve/id482475948?mt=8


Operation Math: $4.49 AU
Dr. Odd is on a global quest to eliminate the world’s even numbers. And it’s your job to stop him, by seeking out his secret bases and making the world a safer place for math. Designed for children ages 5 to 12, the faster they work the further they’ll go in a game designed to take your novice mathematician from the pyramids of Egypt to a seat at the head of the class. This is a cool game with great graphics. and a scenario that will easily motivate.

Splash Maths: FREE BUT Beware - in app purchases.
Splash Math is a fun and innovative way to practice math. Covering over 200 math concepts and an endless supply of problems it is by far the most comprehensive workbook in the app store. All of the included problems are aligned with state standards for 3rd grade. 2 chapters are in this free version and rest all can be bought through in-app purchases. Emails parents work completed.

NineGaps: $0.99 AU
 NineGaps is a highly addictive and tricky puzzle game. The goal of the game is really simple. You have to use your wits to place numbers from 1 to 9 in the missing gaps, while matching the operations presented in the puzzle. It's just like sudoku, but different! FEATURES: simple and unique puzzle-based gameplay, cute graphics, 5 difficulty levels, unlimited brain burning puzzles

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ninegaps/id317223443?mt=8



Bubbling Maths: $1.99 AU
Your child will love to do math tasks - because this is a game - complete with levels, goals, nice graphics and music. Your child can practice all the elementary math operations, and you, as a parent, can set what task to practice. Parents section - with detailed results - you will know how many tasks your child has finished and you can even view which tasks your child finished incorrectly



Motion Math: Hungry Fish: FREE BUT Beware - in app purchases.
Your fish is hungry for numbers. You can make delicious sums by pinching two numbers together – instant addition! Keep feeding your fish to win a level and unlock new colors and fins. The app is free to try, with In-App purchase for an addition level and two subtraction and negative levels. (Plus purchase anything and you'll get bonus fish colors and fins.)

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/motion-math-hungry-fish/id483049169?mt=8



Rocket Math: $0.99 AU
Math can be fun! Build your very own rockets and fly them to the stars with Rocket Math! Play one of the 56 different math missions. Each mission has touchable objects floating in space, including stars, coins, clocks, 3D shapes and even pizzas! Earn a medal or try to beat your high score. Missions range in difficulty from even/odd numbers all the way to square roots. Hours of fun!

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/rocket-math/id393989284?mt=8



Alien Equation: $0.99 AU
Math proficiency is a skill that takes practice. People who are good have spent a lot of time doing it, the best one’s because they enjoy it. Alien Equation provides an environment for kids to experiment, instantly rewarding them for success, allowing math to be fun and fluid. Alien Equation is a great way for kids to build fluency in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/alien-equation/id355771326?mt=8



Numvaders: $1.99 AU
Numvaders, a series of time attack challenges that involve basic Math operations. The goal of the game is to answer as many mathematical questions as fast as you can. As your level progresses, the intensity of the pressure and the number of questions also increase. You may then get additional bonus lives to help you stay on the game. There are 10 worlds that needs to be unlocked as you level up

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/numvaders/id411709992?mt=8



Factor Samurai: FREE 
Factor samurai is a great way to learn times tables. Hard to get your head around initially it gets more addictive the more you play. You are the samurai whose duty it is to cut the numbers down to their prime factors. You will be thrown one number after the next, cut them up if they can be factored into smaller ones.  One, two, three, five, seven, and eleven are all examples of prime numbers. 15 is not.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/factor-samurai/id441919897?mt=8


MathGirl Garden: $1.99 AU
Number Garden makes every girl a MathGirl. A 4-year-old can tackle the first of 12 levels. For girls learning addition and multiplication, Number Garden fills in the steps too often missed in school. For adults it’s a challenging mental exercise. ” Number Garden wins Creative Child Magazine 2010 Award of Excellence. Not sure why or how this is just for girls (apart from the name) but it is a good app.

Lemonade Stand: $0.99 AU
Lemonade Stand is a simple tycoon style game. You need to juggle pricing, recipe, advertising, and amount of lemonade to make each day. You have 30 days to see how much money you can make, but keep an eye on the weather forecast - a thunderstorm blowing in could ruin an entire day but a heat wave could send your sales soaring!

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/lemonade-stand/id294861983?mt=8



Maths Ninja: FREE and $1.99
Use your math skills to defend your treehouse against a hungry tomato and his robotic army! Choose between ninja stars, smoke bombs, or ninja magic - and choose your upgrades wisely! Action-packed strategy in the castle defense genre! You'll have so much fun you won't even realize you're learning Math! Humorous story starring the hungry Tomato-San, who istrying to steal your math treasure!








iPads changing the game for learning at Longfield

John Merlin over at MJO - learning, teaching, technology has written an excellent article on the introduction of iPads at one of England's most conservative school institutions - Longfield Academy. The School recently won a national ICT award for its ground breaking iPad scheme at the recent Education Business Awards held on 10th November 2011. Merlin has written concisely about the decision to introduce both Apple hardware and software. It was a finanically viable and sustainable approach to technology integration not decided by the school but rather through consultation with the staff, the students and the importantly the parents.

Merlin goes on to discuss the academic benefits of the 1:1 program as well as discussing the redefinition of the relationships between the students and staff - they are now a community of learners. This change in the relationship is most obvious in the cultural acceptance of "risk taking" for learning.

Read the full article:

iPads changing the game for learning at Longfield
MONDAY, 09 JANUARY 2012 00:00 MERLIN JOHN

Longfield Academy takes schools ICT to a new level, and the implications for other schools are important.


Longfield Academy
Longfield Academy: game-changing ICT
Longfield, in Kent, gets its first official mention in records in the Domesday Book and in Saxon Charters more than a thousand years ago. But in 2011 it has been setting new standards for learning and teaching with technologies.
The Longfield Academy for Arts and Sciences is thought to be the first school to offer iPads to all its learners and staff – and, even more unusual, there's no Microsoft. And the decision wasn’t made by Apple-oriented ICT advisers. It was based on consulting the school community – learners, staff and parents.




Go Back in Time with 12 World History Apps

History is one of those subjects where it is easy to get your students engaged once they have connected with the narrative. Here are a couple of Apps that will help your students jump right into the era that you are studying. Obviously we can't cover every area of historical study but these apps give you an idea of some of the tools available on the iPad. Some of the more interactive apps like War World 11 or Virtual History: Roma lend themselves to individual research projects or even students negotiated activities, other could be used just as starters or as warm up activities. However you use them, these apps give you a set of tools that you can now use in your iPad classroom.

Back in Time: $8.49 AU
I loved this as a website, now it is an app. Visually stunning! What were the defining moments in history? Back in Time is an interactive multimedia journey through those moments. An imaginary clock will guide you, proposing a simple analogy: the Universe started 24 hours ago. The Big Bang is the first event in the journey at 0:00 hours. Today, 13.7 billion years later, the clock says midnight.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/back-in-time/id450345693?mt=8


Timeline Eons: FREE
Scrollable timeline supposedly longer than the Earth's circumference. Zoomable timeline that can display dates and times down to a fraction of a second. Wide-ranging events from the Big Bang and evolution, to historical events and future projections. Concise and fun facts includes Natural History, World History, U.S. History, Science and Technology, Art and Architecture, and Sports.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/timeline-eons-free/id433352152?mt=8


HD Stone Age: $0.99 AU
The Stone Age is the period roughly between 2.5 million and 3000 years BC., and its main characteristic is the human learning techniques for the development of hunting tools and stone tools. Inside this Encyclopedia: You can copy full text and full HD pictures, to paste and send by eMail or to paste to any document inside your device to share or study later. Great for history research tasks.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/hd-stone-age/id392193453?mt=8


Egyptian Heiroglyphics Decoder: $0.99 AU
Egyptian Hieroglyphics Decoder allows you to go to a museum, or even look at Egyptian columns with Hieroglyphics and actually translate the Hieroglyphics into letters that you can understand! Now you can just look at the Hieroglyphics and start tapping the same Hieroglyphics images and see what letters they are translated too and even make sentences. Students can write their own messages.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/egyptian-decoder/id332591888?mt=8


Ancient History Trivia Quiz: $1.99 AU
Ancient History Trivia Quiz is a visually stunning history game, with 250 multiple choice questions, including 50 bonus general knowledge questions. Ancient History Trivia Quiz features 9 game modes, in both single and multiplayer mode. All Quizicals' games have been professionally developed, with high quality graphics, exciting sound effects and smooth gameplay.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ancient-history-trivia-quiz/id330774231?mt=8


Virtual History Roma: $10.49 AU
Mondadori presents a fantastic voyage to Ancient Rome, the capital of the largest empire in the ancient world, which has been reconstructed in virtual form and which you can explore in a “full-immersion” panoramic experience. The format provides the viewer with an astonishing insight into Roman civilization, using innovative functions and multimedia content. This is a beautifully crafted app.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/virtual-history-roma/id410358487?mt=8


Ancient Greek Mythology: $1.99 AU
Ancient Greek Mythology is a concise guide to the major Gods, creatures and mortals appearing in Greek Mythology. The app also contains a quiz which can be played in single or multiplayer modes. There are over 750 entries in a searchable database. The app is based on the famous work (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology) by William Smith in 1861 but with a cool user interface.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ancient-greek-mythology/id367867116?mt=8


History Tools: $0.99 AU
HistoryTools is an app that lists all the famous and infamous people who were born or died on each day of the year, major news events that occurred on each day, plus feast days of saints and holidays and celebrations around the world. HistoryTools helps kick-start ideas and is a great help to students who wish to convince their teachers that they are among the smartest in the class.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/historytools/id385522233?mt=8


Thematic Maps of the World: $5.49 AU
Thematic Maps of World is a very educational application that lets you know our world through a variety thematic maps. (Climate, Energy, Ethnography/Religion, Industry/Economy, Land Use, Military and Population.) Features include display 500 thematic maps about our world, landscape view mode and zooming with your finger as well as descriptions about each map. Great for visual learners.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/thematic-maps-of-world/id324831513?mt=8


World War 11 Interactive: $5.49 AU
World War II Interactive covers the biggest conflict in history with stunning photos, videos and speeches and amazing design. A rich interactive experience with text, audio, video and photos. Read about the major battles and the events of WW2 in detail. Swipe through the timelines for every month of the war. Watch rare video clips. Listen to famous speeches. See amazing photographs.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/world-war-ii-interactive/id437200190?mt=8


Black HistoryPad: $5.49 AU
HistoryPad provides an informative look into the lives of 100 people in history. .  In addition, many of the screens for the people we cover have a connection to online video or music to bring you closer to the person in history. On the IPad this is a very enjoyable experience, as one can watch the video on the person in history or listen to their music while reading the full biography.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/black-historypad/id372389883?mt=8


HistoryPin: FREE
Discover windows into the past by seeing and interacting with the history all around you. Historypin reveals photos near your current location and allows you to view them layered over the modern scene in front of you. You can also explore Collections of some of the best old photos from around the world. You can add your own piece of history and pin it to the map, too, by using your device.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/historypin/id455228207?mt=8




10 iPad Apps for Web Curation

Curation vs. Aggregation? Curation is such a necessity these days. The overwhelming wave of information we are exposed to is drowning us in facts and opinion. Not only do we need to be curating the information that we are consuming but we need to be insisting that our students have the skills and necessary tools in which to curate their own world. I have listed a number of capable curation apps that can help to do just that.

I tend to use more than one of these and in fact there are days that I would use three or four. Have a look at the ones that might feel right for you. I have a soft spot for Flipboard but only because it was the tool that first opened my eyes to the potential of the iPad in a classroom - I used it as a twitter fed "further reading" text for a senior art class. Enjoy!

Pearltrees: FREE
Pearltrees is a place to collect, organize, discover everything you like on the web. The unique visual interface lets you keep everything you like at hand so you can organize it your way. Collect web pages and turn them into pearls. Organize your pearls into pearltrees based on your interests. Share all of this and start to cultivate your interests with Pearltrees.


http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/pearltrees/id463462134?mt=8


Flipboard: FREE
Flipboard creates a personalized magazine out of everything being shared with you, from Instagram photos and Facebook updates to Tumblr posts and articles from your favorite publications. Connect Flipboard to all your social networks, and you'll have a single place to enjoy, browse, comment on and share all the news, photos and updates that matter to you.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/flipboard/id358801284?mt=8


Zite: FREE
Zite is a free personalized magazine for your iPad that automatically learns what you like and gets smarter every time you use it. Zite delivers all the great news, articles, blogs, and videos you want – and helps you discover new stuff that you'll love. Get a head start on finding amazing content tailored just for you by automatically syncing Zite with your Twitter and Google Reader accounts.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/zite-personalized-magazine/id419752338?mt=8


Scoop.it: FREE
Scoop.it lets you easily publish online magazines by curating content on your favorite topic. Curate on the go with the Scoop.it iDevice App. Select, edit and publish posts in the same engaging visual format as from the Web site. Review your suggestion list or add posts from Safari mobile then share on all your connected Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr... accounts.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/scoop.it/id487321972?mt=8


HitPad: FREE
Hitpad delivers bite-size information snippets about the most important and worth-knowing topics of the day, highlighting why they are important and may be of interest, so you become current in no time and with very little effort. As you use Hitpad, it learns your interests in order to deliver you the most important information snippets in the areas that you care about.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/hitpad-see-whats-up/id422564565?mt=8


Feedly: FREE
Feed your mind. Get the best content from your favorite websites delivered to your iPhone and iPad. Powered by Google Reader, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instapaper and Read it later. If you are an existing Google Reader user, you can think of feedly as a fast/visual overlay with lots for sharing options and seamless 2-way integration.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/feedly/id396069556?mt=8


Pulse: FREE
Pulse takes your favorite websites and transforms them into a colorful and interactive mosaic. Tap on an article to see a clean and elegant view of the news story. Save stories for reading later across all platforms or sync them with Instapaper, Read it Later and Evernote. Sharing a story via Facebook, Twitter and email is as easy as two taps. Apple Design Award Winner 2011!

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/pulse-news-for-ipad/id371088673?mt=8


Flud: FREE
Beautiful design, simple user interface, and integrated social settings make Flud a great place to read your news. Customize Flud to your personal tastes. Follow all your favorite blogs and news sites, save stories to read when you have time or offline, connect with friends and other Fluders who share your interests.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/flud/id382544677?mt=8


Google Currents: FREE - Not currently available in Australia
Google Currents uses Google search technology to build editions tracking the five most recent trending stories in categories such as world, entertainment, sports, science, and more. Each story is presented through a fresh edition of articles, videos, and pictures.  Instantly, turn your Google Reader subscriptions, or any of your favorite blogs/feeds into a beautiful edition with a magazine feel.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-currents/id459182288?mt=8



News360: FREE
News360 for iPad aggregates more than 7000 different news sources around the web to bring you news stories in a concise and useful stream. The semantic analysis technology behind News360 allows you to get background information and dossiers about all the companies, people and locations that make the news, and to personalize the news based on your specific interests.