Top iPad & iPhone Apps for Teachers in 2012

It has been a little while since we did a comprehensive round-up for our iOS users seeking great teaching apps to help them in and out of the classroom.  So here are 16 apps that will really make a difference to your productivity for 2012.

Please note that we have not included prices on these apps any more as they change so frequently it is almost impossible to keep up with.  If you click on the links you will find the latest pricing direct from iTunes.

Classroom Management

TeacherPal - TeacherPal is a personal organizer for the teacher. It enables the teacher to organize classes, and students. Its simple and intuitive interface enables teachers to track the attendance, grades and behavior of students.

Cam Scanner + - CamScanner is a must-have application for your iPhone. With CamScanner, your iPhone is actually a portable scanner, with which all your paper documents, receipts, notes, whiteboard discussions can be archived anywhere at anytime. Our Smart Image cropping and Image enhancement algorithm ensures the scanned images perfectly clear and recognizable. With OCR technology, text within PDF files will be searchable.

Wunderlist - The Wunderlist mobile app for iPhone and iPod Touch will boost your productivity. Organize your to-do lists on the go and synchronize them with your free Wunderlist account. View and modify your tasks on Windows, Mac, Linux,iPad, Android and the Web. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide use Wunderlist everyday. Wunderlist - your tasks anywhere, anytime.

Curricula Support

School A to Z - Do you struggle to understand your child's homework? Does your child need to practise their spelling and times tables? Are you looking for inspiration for projects and assignments?

The School A to Z app is an essential tool for every parent of school-aged children. Produced by the NSW Department of Education and Communities, the School A to Z app brings together a wealth of resources to help parents to understand and support their child's homework.

Brainpop Featured Movie App - Bring learning to your fingertips™ with the BrainPOP® Featured Movie app for the iPad®, iPhone®, and iPod touch®. Watch a different animated movie every day, then test your new knowledge with an interactive quiz – free!

For even more access to BrainPOP’s award-winning content, choose an optional in-app subscription and enable kids to explore more than 750 Science, Math, Social Studies, English, Engineering & Tech, Arts & Music, and Health subjects right on their mobile devices. All movies are close captioned, so it’s easy for them to read along.

Pictello - Pictello is a simple way to create talking photo albums and talking books. Each page in a Pictello Story can contain a picture, up to five lines of text, and a recorded sound or text-to-speech using high-quality voices. Stories can be shared using iTunes File Sharing or via WiFi with other Pictello users through a free account on the Pictello Sharing Server. Stories can be shared with non-Pictello users as PDF files through email or iTunes File Sharing.

Is developed for all ages and skill levels, so it is easy to use and requires no reading skills to locate and read stories. Pictello offers an easy visual story creation wizard so everyone can use pictures and sound to share important moments in their lives. An advanced editor gives full control of the editing capabilities.

Flashcards - Flashcardlet is a free, easy-to-use studying application with material for any class or standardized test. You can also create and share your own. It is the best way to study on any iOS device.

Other flashcard apps can't handle large decks, deck sharing, images, intuitive gestures, or even manage to show nice looking cards. Flashcardlet feels like a real deck of flashcards and does not get in your way.

Collaboratively creating and sharing study material does not get easier than Flashcardlet. You can email your flashcard decks or share them using Dropbox.

Flashcardlet allows you to search for, study, and make local edits to Quizlet.com flashcards. Any subject you can think of already has a Quizlet flashcard set that is perfect for studying.

From grade school to law school, Flashcardlet is the perfect studying tool for any subject.

Instructional Tools

Mindnode - MindNode is a very easy and intuitive application for collecting, organizing and
outlining your thoughts and ideas as mind maps.

Mind maps can be used for many different tasks (e.g. to-do lists, brainstorming, holiday planning, research, writing, project management...)
and in many different environments (e.g. school, meetings, working place...).

MindNode makes creating mind maps on the iPhone and iPod touch extremely easy. You create new nodes directly on the canvas by dragging them out of the node well which appears as a plus sign next to a selected node.

Posterous - Posterous Spaces is the easiest way to share photos, video and ideas safely with family, friends and groups.

★ Easily control who you share with, every time.
★ Post anything – combine photos, video and text in seconds.
★ Follow friends and favorites, keeping up on their posts while commenting, liking and more on-the-go.
★ Create as many Spaces as you want (make them private or public.)
★ Automatically broadcast your public posts to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.
★ Create a Space for your group in minutes, letting everyone involved contribute.

Stick Pick - Pick a student at random just by giving your device a shake or tapping the screen -- but that’s just the beginning. Stick Pick suggests question starters for learners at different levels and also records how well students respond during classroom discussions. If a student is consistently scoring near the top or bottom, simply change the level so students aren't bored or frustrated. Depending on students' levels of English proficiency, they might be asked simple yes-or-no questions or to elaborate in longer sentences.

Personal Organisation

Evernote - Evernote is an easy-to-use, free app that helps you remember everything across all of the devices you use. Stay organized, save your ideas and improve productivity. Evernote lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders--and makes these notes completely searchable, whether you are at home, at work, or on the go.

DropBox - Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPhone and iPad and even the Dropbox website! With the Dropbox app, you can take everything that matters to you on the go.

Read your docs or flip through your albums when you're out and about. Save photos or videos to your Dropbox and share them with friends in just a couple taps. Even if you accidentally leave your iPhone in a taxi, your stuff is always safe on Dropbox.

Features:
● Always have your stuff with you, no matter where you are.
● Add files to "Favorites" for fast, offline viewing.
● Easily save photos and videos to your Dropbox.
● Share your photos and docs with family and friends.
● Save email attachments straight to your Dropbox.

Go Docs for Google Docs - Use this app for both devises and I love it! It's my favorite app because with it I'm working with all my documents: I view all my spreadsheets, documents, PDFs images, video and audio files. All these files are stored on my devise so I can use it mush faster! And with this update app has folders support and it's great. Thanks for your work. And it's working so good - fast, without bugs. My conclusion - useful and extremely amazing app for everyone."

Reference

Articles -  Articles is a beautiful Wikipedia reader for your iPhone and iPod touch.

Articles makes it easy to read about whatever happens to be on your mind. With the integrated map feature, you can also learn about interesting places and historic events nearby with a single tap.

ELEGANT AND INTUITIVE INTERFACE
Articles’ award-winning design presents Wikipedia articles perfectly optimized for reading on your iPhone or iPod touch. A single tap in the search bar lets you find the article you need and start reading.

Wolfram Alpha - Remember the Star Trek computer? It's finally happening--with Wolfram|Alpha. Building on 25 years of development led by Stephen Wolfram, Wolfram|Alpha has rapidly become the world's definitive source for instant expert knowledge and computation.

Across thousands of domains--with more continually added--Wolfram|Alpha uses its vast collection of algorithms and data to compute answers and generate reports for you.

Parts of Wolfram|Alpha are used in the Apple Siri Assistant; this app gives you access to the full power of the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine. Domains covered by Wolfram|Alpha include:

2012 World Factbook - The World Factbook is the reliable and extremely popular source of information on all the nations of the world.
It provides up-to-date, valuable data for more than 250 countries and territories in a concise, well-organized format whenever and wherever you want.
The World Factbook also provides interesting chapters for our changing planet, oceans and parts of the world whose status has not yet been resolved (e.g., West Bank, Spratly Islands).
Topics addressed include natural resources, industries, GDP, religion, ethnic groups, legal system and much more. Key data are grouped under the headings of introduction/background, geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, transnational issues.
The World Factbook is a must-have application for those who possess a curiosity or concern about the rapidly changing world in which we live.

TOP 5 Educational iPad and iPhone Games

IGN the undisputed king of online gaming content recently published its top 25 iPad, iPhone games and it is well worth the read if you own an apple device and enjoy a good game. As an avid gamer and educator I have taken this a little further by identifying the top 5 educational gaming experiences on the iPhone and iPad.  Now I am not interested in times table challenge games or blatant learning games I am talking about games that require you to think outside of the square in across a range of curriculum areas without even really knowing that you're participating in a learning experience.  These are the games that will improve our memory, number facts and knowledge of the world and get us addicted through fun and challenging elements which keep us coming back for more.  Take a look at my list an would love to hear your thoughts.

 Civilization Revolution - Build. Discover. Conquer. Rule the World! Price: $6.99

You can't takeover the world without an understanding of philosophy, economics, appreciating the value of technology and science, effective strategy protocols and how to bargain with your friends and enemies rule the world. Civilization encompasses this all in one game and those who value and understand history will have much to learn and build upon to succeed in this game.  Yes it has been dumbed down a little for the iPhone but anyone who has played the complete PC version of this brilliant game will appreciate the chunks of you life that have been stolen from you and you don't need that on your phone.

IGN Says:  "Outside of SimCity, no game defines the strategy genre like Sid Meier's Civilization. This inventive, clever, and deep sim hands over the keys to the kingdom, letting you chisel that fate of your empire out of the twin stones of destiny and chance. Civilization remains one of the top PC of all time, but last year, 2K Games boldly attempted to fashion a console-friendly edition of the blockbuster Civilization IV. It was called Civilization Revolution and it was a surprising success. Streamlined but not stripped down, Civilization Revolution offers the same grand arc of guiding a society from stone age to space age. Now, 2K has released an iPhone edition of the game built on that formula but with touch screen controls and scaled back visuals."

The Oregon Trail:  Price $1.19 

The Oregon Trail is a unique strategy and educational game relating the first pioneers' journey to Western America. It is based on a resource management formula already proven in the U.S., where the game is an actual icon for adults and kids.

IGN SAYS:  "If you're as old as some of us around here, you likely remember The Oregon Trail as the pioneering edutainment game on every Apple IIe and Commodore 64 in your school's computer lab. Usually, when a game promises to "make learning fun," it's a lie – but in the case of the Oregon Trail, it really was a gas. Between resource management and avoiding death by dysentery, you really did absorb lessons about actual Oregon Trail. Gameloft's iPhone edition does not spoil your nostalgia at all. Instead, it only streamlines some of the resource management so you can have more fun with storming the trail itself, watching out for danger, and soaking up the sights. And I'll be damned if the historical facts you get for reaching checkpoints weren't cool rewards."

 

iBlast Moki Price $3.99

Do you love bombs, creating contraptions and solving physics puzzles?
iBlast Moki is an original physics puzzle game where you blast cute little Mokis with the help of bombs and other crazy items.

IGN SAYS:  "The general rule with iPhone gaming is that the absolute best games on the iPhone are those that are made specifically for the platform. (There are exceptions, like GTA: Chinatown Wars.) iBlast Moki is one of those "only on iPhone" action-puzzle games that is not just a true showpiece for the iDevices, but also just a damn fine videogame. You drag bombs around hundreds upon hundreds of stages (many created by a vibrant online community) to blast the little Mokis into exits. As the game progresses, new elements are rolled out such as ropes and balloons. But at all times, the physics remain reliable and consistent; it's never unfair. Bundle the great challenge with smart controls and an attractive cartoon look that pops off the iPhone screen, and you have a game that every single iPhone gamer should own."

ZenBound 2:  Price $3.99

Zen Bound 2 is a meditative puzzle game of wrapping rope around wooden sculptures. It is a tactile game, with a focus on making rope, wood and stone look and feel real and believable.

What IGN Says:  " Just as the iPhone 4 hit the market, so too did Zen Bound 2, the sequel to one of the best puzzle games on the market at the time. It not only leveraged the Retina display to deliver some of the best visuals available on the platform, but Zen Bound 2 also brought several gameplay additions to the table for those who were looking for more than simply improved graphics. Zen Bound 2 successfully brings the spirit of the first game to the next level while also innovating the style of play."

 

Drop 7:  Price $3.99

- Test your smarts with this deceptively simple abstract puzzle game.  Master the unique gameplay twist in seconds but fine-tune your strategies forever.
- Choose from three modes of play: the more relaxed Normal Mode, the fast- paced Hardcore Mode, or the mysterious Sequence Mode.
- Zone out to the hypnotic numerical spell of Drop7 – you may become a master without even trying!

What IGN Says:  "Drop7 has the two most important things that make for a great puzzle game: It's simple and you can always do better. If you added up all the time I've dedicated to Drop7, I've spent probably a month of my life trying to best my last score. On one end, Drop7 rewards mathematical acumen. If you are smart about numbers, where you let them stay on the board and how you set up for big chains, you can rack up massive points. On the other end, Drop7 requires a lot of luck. Even the best laid plans can blow up in your face if a bunch of hidden tiles turn out to be a series of 1s strung together. Just writing about Drop7 makes me want to play right now. G'bye.

AudioOwl - Thousands of free classic Audiobooks for your classroom

It is said that you get nothing for nothing but Audioowl is a clear exception to this rule.  Audio Owl offere a huge variety of classic books and children's literature for you to download. 

All books are public domain and contain no form of advertising within them.  they are great to pop on during a literacy session or if you are simply looking for some peace and quiet during lunch times. 

Mission
AudioOwl makes the world's public domain audio books available for browsing in a visual and entertaining way.

Uses
If you don't know what book you want to listen to next, it can be tedious trawlling through hundreds of lines of text results looking for a fun book. AudioOwl puts the fun back into browsing for audio books. For those who listen to audio books because reading does not come easily to them, the last thing these people would want to do is read through pages of text to find something to listen to. AudioOwl provides a primarily visual browsing experience so you don't have to read tedious amounts to find listening material. The AudioOwl.com website is also screen reader friendly making its resources accessible to people with vision disabilities.

Free
All audio books on AudioOwl.com are in the public domain. This means that no one holds a copy right on these books and therefore anyone including AudioOwl.com is free to distribute them. Enjoy these free audio books and use the share button on AudioOwl.com to tell your friends about all these great public domain audio books.

Source
Books that have entered the public domain are digitized and recorded by volunteers that coordinate themselves through a variety of websites. The majority of public domain books, however, are digitized by Gutenberg.org and recorded by Librivox.org. AudioOwl draws on these public domain sources to deliver free audio books to you in an engaging and fun way. Enjoy the browsing experience on our website and be sure to bookmark us and return when you're ready for you're next audio book!

Check it out here - There is something for Everyone.