More free iPad eduational apps

Five educational apps recently caught my attention. Three are by McGraw-Hill: Grammar Wonderland 1, Grammar Wonderland 2, and Word Wonderland. Two are from exploratoriaum.edu: Sound Uncovered and Color Uncovered. All five apps require students to read and interact with the app, and they should hold students' attention.
McGraw-Hill Wonderlands

Word Wonderland challenges players to match phonetic sounds with words (such as matching "shop" with short "o."). The title "Wonderland" refers to the maps students move along in different worlds. If you are teaching students phonetic spelling strategies by using a program like Reading Horizons, for example, this would be a fun review activity.

Word Wonderland

The Grammar Wonderlands are similar--players choose a character and world, and as they win each level, by flying a plane into plural nouns or feeding a polar bear the common noun, etc., they progress across a map. These games are obviously aimed at young readers, but with older students who struggle with reading and writing, this would be a fun review of basic grammar.

Exploratorium
The Exploratorium is "an interactive museum of science, art, and perception located in San Francisco." Their brilliant apps are educational for any age. One of my favorite Sound Uncovered interactive articles is "How Old are Your Ears," which allows students to measure their hearing on a sliding scale and then encourages them to read more about how loud music and age contribute to hearing loss. Color Uncovered also has several dazzling optical illusions and surprising facts.

Favorite Free iPad Educational Apps

It's been much longer than I had realized--about a year--since I posted my first review of free educational apps. Since then, I've sorted through dozens of others, mostly word games, that are entertaining enough to keep even my attention. I'm not even close to being what my students call a "gamer"; the only video game I could ever master was Nintendo 64 Mario Kart, which I still play on occasion. I think this is why I'm picky about which educational games I download. Some are inane or require such little brain activity it can't keep my attention for more than a minute. Also, I don't know if I'm not very savvy at searching online for educational apps, but I have yet to find a blog by a teacher with entertaining educational apps that are really free--I know about Evernote, Lino, etc. by now, thank you very much--can you tell me something new?
Each of these apps requires spelling, reading, or listening, and each has proven to hold my students' attention for at least half an hour. Here they are, from least to most popular with my students (according to their preferences, not mine).

#7: My personal favorite is Word Jewels! and all its variations (Word Jewels 2, Word Jewels Spin, Word Jewels Rally). Time is unlimited, so while it exercises your spelling power, it doesn't leave you stressed. Players may spell words of three or more letters by connecting adjacent letters. I classify this game as fairly addictive.

#6: Word Gems is similar, but as a timed game, it's not as enjoyable, in my opinion. Rows of letters scroll toward you while the timer counts down from three minutes.

#5: Jumbled Sentences, available in six versions, has the appearance and sound (tinkly music and a child-like narration) of a kindergartener's game, but it's actually more challenging than you might expect. For students whose sight word recognition is a little slower than average, this game will definitely keep them occupied. Words rotate in a circle while the timer pushes the player to choose the correct words and place them in a sensible order below. A narrator reads each word as the player places it in the boxes, and when the sentence is complete, she reads the entire sentence. Try this game out, and you'll be surprised at the level of concentration it requires. One note of caution: This is British English, so you'll find the games use vocabulary that necessitates some explanation, such as the British word for "eraser" in Jumbled Sentences 6.

#4: Bussuu language apps are so engaging and effective, I still can't understand why they're free. ELL students could use the English bussuu app, but when I allowed my Spanish-speaking students to try the Italian app, they loved it! They understood the connections between these two Latin-based languages, a lesson that lends itself to developing English vocabulary with Latin roots. Illustrations and audio prompt quick learning, while quizzes and exercises strengthen long-term memory.

#3: The Cambridge Phrasal Verb Machine is the strangest, most British app I've seen to date. Its short, highly stylized animations illustrate the meanings of phrases that are difficult for learners of English. These artistic animations and the sophisticated soundtrack make it entertaining for anyone, though. It's unlike any other app.

#2: I wish more apps were as interactive as Futaba. My students quickly tire of any app, no matter how engaging it is at first, because many apps don't capitalize on that quality essential for any educational activity targeting teens: competition. Futaba pits two (or three or four, with upgrade) players against each other in a race against the clock to be the first to identify the spinning image and select the corresponding word. It's challenging not only for readers with slow sight word recognition, but even for the fastest readers.

#1: My students' favorite word apps are those with four images or an image-reveal. Find at least half a dozen of these apps by typing "word picture" in the iStore. These include 4 Pic 1 Word, What the Word? and What's the Pic?

 Leave your comments about your favorite free educational apps!

Word Game Apps

One of the advantages, and disadvantages, of using the newest technology in the classroom is that I am only one step ahead of my student's knowledge--and sometimes a step behind. My students often enter class enthusiastically asking me to download a certain app onto our iPads, but oftentimes, the apps are not ones we could justifiably use during class time (Angry Birds and Temple Run come to mind as prime examples).  We teachers who are lucky enough to have iPads should not despair, however; plenty of free apps are both entertaining and educational, able to keep students engaged for an entire class period.


At first I was skeptical: Would the word game apps I downloaded really fulfill the objective--to help students focus on vocabulary and spelling? I was pleased to find that the games achieve both of those goals, especially if students write or type a list of words they encountered as they used the apps. 


All of these apps seem to be equally interesting for students, although everyone tends to gravitate toward one favorite game or another. Words HD Free was the first word game app I introduced to the class. First semester, the students had so loved playing Scrabble (the "real" board game, not the virtual version), that I was sure they would be at least a little interested in Words Free, which is a nearly identical game. It was immensely popular, much more than I expected. One of my students told me, "This is the first time I've ever had fun with words!" What more could a teacher want to hear?


Letris 2 also interests students in spelling. The player can choose a one-player game, two-player split-screen, or online games. If playing solo, the students can choose Letris, Acronyms, or WordMatrix settings; if playing against other students, they can choose either Duel or Endurance. While this game pushes students to choose letters quickly to spell words accurately, I've noticed two disadvantages: The game seems to accept abbreviations of words, something that doesn't help teachers who are battling the proliferation of texting lingo in students' writing; and because the two-player split-screen game is fast paced, students are encouraged to spell shorter, usually three-letter words.

Word Solitaire is one of the more challenging word game apps, and I warned my students they would not enjoy playing unless they completed the tutorial. This game encourages students to spell longer words. Because it is more difficult, fewer students choose to play this app more than ten minutes, but a few students who normally struggle with writing were surprisingly successful with this app.

Word Warp Xtreme is the most popular app among students in my classes. I like that this game introduces students to new words and challenges them to discover these new words by spelling them from a restricted list of letters. They especially love the Head-2-Head setting, which allows two teams or players to compete simultaneously on their iPads using Bluetooth technology. Whirly Word is a similar single-player game that challenges students to spell words with a limited list of letters that are arranged in a circle.

There is no shortage of crossword apps, but some are better than others, such as Ultimate Word Search and Word Search+, because their word lists offer more challenging words than games such as Word Search Party.


Although it's hard for students to interrupt their games, I have asked students to post a list of new words and definitions on lino before the end of the class period. When they "accidentally" spell a word without realizing it was a word, I ask them to pause, open the Lino app, and post their word (and they can highlight and define the word at the same time in Lino). I have to remind them to do this, of course, because once they are involved in their game, they are not very keen about taking their focus away from winning.

My quest to find the best iPad apps continues, so I will post my reviews as I see which ones are the most successful with my students.