Ocean Science is a free iPad app that at least six people have recommended to me over the last few weeks. The app is essentially a seven chapter, multimedia ebook about the basics of ocean science. Each chapter includes animations, pictures, video, and text. You can toggle back and forth between the multimedia elements and the text in a document. A useful aspect of the app for students is that you can take notes within the margins of the text.

The chapters of Ocean Science cover aspects of biology, ocean currents, conservation, and exploration. Ocean Science could be a good app to use as part of an introductory marine biology lesson.

Kindoma Storytime is a free iPad app that I can definitely see myself using with my nieces who live 1,000 miles away from me. Kindoma Storytime allows me to read stories my nieces through our iPads. Here’s how it works; after I create a free account I can invite my family members to connect with me through the app (they will have to have it on their iPads too). Once we’re connected the app is a bit Skype-like as we can video call each other. When we’re connected we can pick a book from the library of free books. As I read my nieces will see the same page that I’m on and will see the pages turn when I turn them. Of course, when my nieces get older they can use the app to read to me too.

A demonstration of the Kindoma Storytime app is embedded below.

VerbBusters is a straight-forward iPad app for learning and practicing recognizing English irregular verbs. VerbBusters supports learners whose native languages are French, Spanish, German, Portugese, and Italian. The app can also be used by native English speakers to practice recognizing past and present tenses of verbs.

VerbBusters has two modes; a practice mode and a quiz mode. To start using the app students have to select a base or native language. After choosing a language students select a level of difficulty from beginner through advanced learner. Each activity has students type the infinitive, past tense, and participle of each verb. If students get stuck in the practice mode they can tap the help button to get the correct answer.

VerbBusters costs $1.99. It could be a good practice application for high school ELL students.

Kids Boats is an iPad app through which students discover animals of different climate zones. In Kids Boats students navigate a boat down a river avoiding obstacles and collecting stars. Along the river students will find animals native to the climate zone that the river is in. At the end of each river students will see the animals of that climate zone.

Students can make boats move through Kids Boats in three different ways. The simplest way to navigate the boats is to drag and move the boats. Students can tilt their iPads to make the boats move. The third way to make the boats move is to blow on the iPad (near the microphone) and the boats will move.

Healthy Heroes is a free iPad app designed to help children learn about healthy snacks and meals. In the free app students feed healthy foods to a friendly monster. Before each activity students are shown a few healthy foods and they’re told a bit about the nutrition and calories of the foods. Then in the activity students tap mystery boxes to find the snacks and drag them to the monster’s mouth. Between each activity a short, healthy eating tip is played for students to watch.

Healthy Heroes could be a great app to include in an elementary school lesson about health and nutrition.

Thanks to David Kapuler for sharing the app last week on his blog. 

A few years ago I gave one of my U.S. History classes an assignment to create a short videos to recruit people to join Lewis & Clark’s Corps of Discovery. The assignment was designed to get students thinking about what it might have been like to plan for and go on that expedition. I pretty much gave my students free reign to create their videos however they wanted to. I had one young man in that class who created models on his computer, printed them, then used those models as the action figures in his video. It was a great little video and I wish that I had saved it. That student’s project was the first thing that I thought about when Fred Delventhal shared 123D Creature on Google+.

123D Creature is an iPad app produced by Autodesk which also produced 123D Catch. Using 123D Creature students can draw three dimensional model creatures on their iPads. The creatures start with a basic skeleton and the app users take it from there. Models can have many limbs, colors, positions, and special effects added to them. When the model is complete it can be saved and or printed.

If your students are writing short, science fiction stories they could use 123D Creature to create some models to use in their stories. This app does require iOS 6.0 or later.

Vocab Junkie is an iPad app from Brainscape. I learned about Brainscape early this week on Larry Ferlazzo’s excellent blog. Vocab Junkie features more than 800 vocabulary flashcards. Like any flashcard application the cards present one word at a time. To get the definition tap the card to read it. After reading the definition and sample sentence rate your understanding of the word. Over time the app learns the words that you know better than others and shows you the words you don’t know more often than those you do know.

MasteryConnect has offered a free iPad app that allows you to quickly look up the Common Core standards for the grade levels and content areas that you teach. Today, the app was updated to reflect new labels, a glossary, and standards for practice. To find the standards simply select math or language arts, choose your grade, then tap on any of the listed standards to read their details. The MasteryConnect iPad app also includes the college and career readiness standards. The app is handy when you need to quickly find language of a particular standard.

Disclosure: MasteryConnect is an advertiser on iPad Apps for School. 

Story is a new, free app from Disney. The app is designed for iPhones, but I tried it on my iPad anyway. It worked well on my iPad. Story allows you to pull in pictures and videos from your device’s camera roll and arrange them into photostory books.

Creating photostory books with Story is a simple process. To get started allow the app to access your camera roll. Then to create a storybook tap the “+” symbol in the upper-right corner of the screen. Then to add pictures and videos to your book tap the “+” symbol at the top of the screen. You can import pictures and videos that are stored on your device or you can take new pictures and videos with the app. After you have arranged all of the elements that you want to use in your storybook you can tap the play button to watch the story. Your completed stories can be shared via email or Facebook.

Story could be a nice app for students to use to create autobiographies or to highlight some of their favorite observations during a field trip in which they took a bunch of pictures and or video clips.

This morning I stopped by my friend Mike Morrell’s 9th grade science class. It was water rocket launch day so I knew it would be a fun day. Mike’s students have been working on rocket designs and building their rockets for a while. The water rockets are the first phase of the unit. Full model rockets with engines will be launched later this spring.

To get rough measurements of the heights each water rocket reached Mike had students using a clinometer iPad app. You can grab Clinometer HD for free right now. The app has a large read-out so that one student can point the iPad at the rocket while another reads the display to capture the peak angle. After recording the angle and the distance they are standing away from the launch point students were able to calculate the approximate height that the rockets reached. You can read about the process for measuring the height on this NASA page or on this PDF from Estes, a model rocket manufacturer.