When I was a kid in school a scientific calculator was not something every student had, many didn’t even have their own standard calculators.  The Internet was in it’s infancy and our first home PC was loaded with 8MB of RAM and 512MB of hard-drive space.  We were told at the time that “You’ll never fill this up!  It’s as much space as you’ll ever need.”  Now I don’t hold the salesman accountable for that statement, there is no way anyone knew what was coming…however what HAS come over the past 16+ years has been astounding.  I had to type my first report (The Cheetah), and I say type because it was on a typewriter, not a computer or even a word processor.  Research was done in a library with a card catalogue, and spell check wasn’t even an option.  Ok, so I’ve just shown my age…

When the iPad was announced I started thinking of all the possible uses it could hold inside a classroom.  I’m a middle school teacher and I wondered if such a device would have a place within the pale toned walls of education.  The answer I found is yes.  And not just a whisper…it’s a roar…so loud it almost scares me to imagine where things will go from here.  It took me years to finally open the eyes of the higher-ups when discussing iPod classroom integration, I’m hoping apps like these help make the process for the iPad a bit quicker and less stressful.

So without further ado…

iPad Apps for the Classroom – Part 1

In education there are many who feel asking students to learn, memorize, and “regurgitate” terms, aka vocabulary words, is a waste of time and effort.  While I do believe that students must be presented with many different styles of learning, vocabulary words SHOULD be one of them.  Whether it’s keyboarding in middle-school, a social studies or science course in high-school, a physics class in college, or perhaps a real estate or insurance licensing program…vocabulary is important and helps communicate properly regarding a specific subject.

Until recently if you were taking one of the aforementioned classes you would spend hours putting together flashcards to help study vocabulary words.  You may have someone quiz you, set aside the cards you miss, or perhaps jot down the words that need more attention.  Chances are after the class or test, you threw them out or simply lost them.  It felt like a tedious task, a waste of time when you were done with them, and let’s face it, you didn’t always have them available when a free moment presented itself.

Enter Flashcards Deluxe ($3.99).  Let me start by saying this is not a flashy in your face kind of application.  It’s put together with a purpose and it shines when it comes to that purpose.  Users can enter flashcard information into the app directly, browse quizlet.com for card sets created by users all over the world, and even search the orangeorapple.com decks for a set that matches their needs.  The application allows you to share your decks with other users via a private code or to make them available to the public.  For example.  As a teacher I could create a set of flashcards for my class in Excel, upload it to the orangeorapple.com site for free, give the set a private code, and any student who has the app installed could then use that code to download that flashcard deck. It’s extremely easy and and there are many options for putting the information into the flashcard application.

What’s more impressive is that the application includes the iPad version as well as the iPhone version, making on the go studying all the more likely!  Users can “flag” cards they are having trouble with and then use those flags to view only that particular set to help learn those pesky terms that are proving difficult.  Flashcards Deluxe allows for pictures and sounds to be inserted onto a card, and can even email the set to others (no sound or images however).

Users who decide to download this app will find it is extremely useful for studying, and if there is something you find seriously missing, the developer, Ernie, is amazingly responsive and keeps a blog of his upcoming changes as well.  Anyone who is feeling apprehensive about purchasing the app can always give it quick try for free, the Lite version is here.  We’ve also been generously provided with a few promo codes for you, so visit my profile here at theipadfan.com, and hit me up with an email to grab one.  Tell me what school you attend or are planning to attend in the fall and what classes you feel this app may be able to help you…you may win one!