Free Math Apps!

There's been a price drop to free.  We like free when they are good apps by a trusted publisher.  No idea how long it may last, so grab it while you can.

McGraw Hill - Everyday Mathematics line of apps has dropped a few of it's apps to free.  To see all of the apps in their math line you can search "Everyday Mathematics" in the app store.

Addition Top It - Practice basic addition facts (0-10) and number comparisons.  It is a two player game that is quite fun and has great graphics with no ads.

Addition Top It for the iPad 
Addition Top It for the iPod Touch




Beat the Computer - Practice Multiplication facts (0-10) beat the computer game with 20 rounds.  It gives feedback and is available for both the iPad and iPod Touch.

Beat the Computer for iPad 
Beat the Computer for the iPod Touch

Monster Squeeze - Number recognition practice and number line concepts in a two player game.  5 rounds of play and can set the number line to a variety of number sets up to 30.

Monster Squeeze for the iPad 
Monster Squeeze for the iPod Touch




Equivalent Fractions - Practice fraction concepts by matching fractions with their visual representations on cards.  Win the game by clearing the board.

Equivalent Fractions for the iPad
Equivalent Fractions for the iPod Touch


Divisibility Dash - Practice recognizing multiples of a number and applying divisibility rules in a fast paced game.

Divisibility Dash for the iPad
Divisibility Dash for the iPod Touch

iPadagogy

You want to check out some apps, and you are a visual learner.  Sit back and watch through videos dedicated to iPad apps for the classroom on the Youtube channel "iPadagogy".  There are several short 5-10 minute videos, each video covering the use of an app in education.  If the app is extensive, like Evernote, you may find a few videos in order to cover all the features.  A great resource for teachers using iPads in an educational setting.

Open House and QR Codes

Open house season is among us! 

Here are some fun ideas for things to do with QR Codes

that I have been seeing popping up on some great teacher blogs.  

From kickinitinkinder.blogspot.com

• Open House Scavenger Hunt by Angie Sigmon on ipadsinschool.blogspot.com
• QR Code for Syllabus and School Supply List by Mrs. Hawke on mrshawke.com 
• QR Code for Teacher Website, School Email, and School Phone Number by Kickin It In Kinder Blog.  

These three give great instructions and images and suggest sites to use for making the QR Codes.  In this digital age, as Huffington Post reported a study, 46% of Americans are using smartphones and this does not include the number of youth that have iPod Touches in their pockets, QR Codes can make Open House a little more interactive!

For my suggestions for apps and sites to use check out the post QR Code Book Talks that we posted back in June.  

Restarting, Restoring, and iCloud

My ipad2 decided to be wonky today, I ran my battery out and went to plug it in and it just started turning back on, and then off, and then restarting.....  After leaving it plugged in to recharge for a bit, it continued with powering down and restarting over and over so I figured it may need to be restarted.
To restart an iPad or iPod Touch you can hold the home and sleep buttons down at the same time for about 10 seconds until you see the apple logo.  This will restart your iDevice.  This often fixes frozen screens or strange behavior and has been successful many times with my iPod Touches.  But this didn't work for my iPad today, it immediately continued to restart over and over. 
So that's when I started the dreaded restore process.
Normally when an iPad is plugged into a computer with iTunes, it will recognize that a device has been plugged in.  If it doesn't (which mine would not today) then you can hold the home key down while plugging it in.  This little trick worked and it immediately told iTunes that this device was needing to be restored.
From there I had to ask it to restore and update which can be a very lengthy process.  Restore will also delete your data and set you back as if you have a new iPad.  This is why backing up your iPad is so important. When done extracting and restoring, it will appear as if it is again new out of the box.
Please note: I have never plugged my ipad into my computer thus I had no back up of my iPad settings on my iTunes.  But I did set up iCloud. 
And in iCloud, I had marked "on" for backup.



 Once my iPad finished restoring and I walked through the set up process I was asked if I wanted to restore from iCloud.  It then prompted me to enter my Apple ID and password and then I let it load.  It saved all my settings from about a week ago and the only thing I had to enter was the passwords on my email accounts. That was so much better and faster than having to reset up my iPad!
Notice in iCloud the very important option of "Find My iPad" - this is a must, along with backing up!  iCloud is limited to 5GB without purchasing more, so you may want to backup your larger files (like photos and videos) to Dropbox or something similar.