Top 5 Free iPad Education Apps

I know we regularly take a look at great educational apps at Edgalaxy but the vast majority of those apps do come at some expense. Se here is our list of the top 5 free educational apps. These apps may be particularly helpful for those pursue a degree

1.   Google Earth:  Hold the world in the palm of your hand. With Google Earth for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, you can fly to far corners of the planet with just the swipe of a finger. Explore the same global satellite and aerial imagery available in the desktop version of Google Earth, including high-resolution imagery for over half of the world's population and a third of the world's land mass.

2.  iBooks:  iBooks is an amazing way to download and read books. iBooks includes the iBookstore, where you can download the latest bestselling books or your favorite classics – day or night. Browse your library on a beautiful bookshelf, tap a book to open it, flip through pages with a swipe or a tap, and bookmark or add notes to your favorite passages.

3.  Image Searcher: (Free)  Image Searcher is a Google/Bing Image searching tool for iPad. Simply type in any keywords and you will see the thumbnails of images. You can view the original images, save them to your Photo Albums, email them to your friends, or open the original web pages.

4.  National Film Board:  As featured in a nation-wide marketing campaign by Apple, the NFB Films app allows you to watch over 2000 movies - documentaries, animations and feature films - free on your iPad.

5:  ToonTastic:  Toontastic teaches key storytelling principles that help to promote Creativity at a young age. Its drawing tools bring kids’ wildest ideas to life alongside virtual playsets chock full of pirates, princesses, far away galaxies, and many other characters and settings to spark the imagination. Cartoons can be shared online via ToonTube, Toontastic’s Global Storytelling Network, to help children connect to friends and family and learn about other cultures, customs, and lifestyles through stories created by their peers around the world.

Top 5 Sites to improve students typing skills

There are two schools of thought that think of typing as an actual skill that needs to be taught and refined and those that believe it is just something that evolves as your computer skills develop in general.  I am not so phased with typing as I probably should be but I have come across a few worthwhile sites that I will direct my students to have a play on to hopefully increase their skills on the keyboard in their own time.  Enjoy and I'd love to hear of any others you know of.

Bubbles Typing Game: 
Push your typing skills to their limits by playing the popular Bubbles typing game. In the game your goal is to burst the bubbles by pressing the corresponding key.

Free Typing Game:  A mix of typing games students will enjoy

Keybr.com - A great little flash based tutorial site for the more advanced typer.

10 Finger Breakout:  10 Finger BreakOut is a REAL arcade game, in which you are escaping from invaders, shooting and trying to hit balls. This is no fake - you are playing BreakOut. (You are not just typing characters). With this free typing game you will have fun, but don't worry, by playing 10 Finger BreakOut you sure will be learning to type. Improve your typing skills with this free typing tutor - typing game.( you will need to download and install )

BBC Dance Mat Typing:  Meet the gang and learn to type.  Make your way through all 12 stages and you can be a top typist.

My top 5 e-Learning Blogs

I have recently just added a blogroll to my site in the right column to include my top 5 elearning sites.  I know there are plenty more out there but these are the ones I always come back to regularly

Teaching Ideas

iLearn Technology

Free Technology for Teachers

Jane's Elearning Pick of the Day

NCS-Tech

Be sure to check them out and I would love to hear your favourites.