TechForum Top 10

SonicPics

SonicPics is a simple way for students to create podcasts, multimedia books, narrated slide shows, and more. It is a perfect way for young students to express themselves verbally and visually.

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Simplenote

This is meant to be a personal notetaking app, but if a whole class logs in to a single SimpleNote account, it functions as a safe collaborative space where students can have access to their classmates’ ideas. The teacher can view everyone’s contributions in real time at simplenoteapp.com.

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Drawing Pad

This is my favorite drawing app. It includes a wide range of virtual drawing tools and stickers. Remember those huge boxes of 128 crayons? Drawing Pad has the virtual version, and so much more.

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Confer

This is a pricier app, but it enables teachers to keep detailed, individualized records of instructional conferences with students — proving that not all technology-enhanced assessment involves multiple choice questions.

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Blue FiRe

We use Blue FiRe as our voice recording app when students are practicing their reading fluency. It doesn’t allow the audio file to be e-mailed, which is a drawback, but it’s free, the audio quality is very good, and it is easy for students to use.

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ABC – Magnetic Alphabet Lite for Kids – Learn to write!

This is a simple, colorful Magnetic Alphabet that enables active, hands-on participation in a wide range of language arts lessons, especially Spelling.

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Sums Stacker

Sums Stacker is a clever twist on an addition facts app. It is a wonderful math game that challenges kids to stack dice, coins, digits, etc. so their sum equals given numbers.

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Pages

Pages deserves mentioning because it makes it possible to publish a wide range of documents on the iPad. Tools like text boxes, shapes, and arrows expand the possibilities to include diagrams and other graphics-rich documents.

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Popplet Lite

This app allows you create concept maps using images or text.

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A Sight Words Read and Spell app with checkmark and review – HD

This is a well-designed app that helps young students practice reading and spelling sight words. It’s my favorite for this purpose.

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