While teaching in UBC’s MET program has given me a reasonably strong sense of the needs of K-12 educators seeking to leverage technologies…my own practice remains focused on higher education. But here’s some iPad apps I have found useful:
Best word processor: QuickOffice. Yes Pages is pretty, but it’s a Word world–and if I build a sophisticated document in Pages then convert it to .docx (or .doc), it invariably stuffs it up.
Best presentation tool: Keynote. Pick up a VGA dongle for your iPad and you can use Keynote to present via LCD projector–or any TV with a VGA port. Speaking of which, not all apps that should be able to use the VGA output can do so. So you can’t use Quickoffice for PowerPoints. Which bites. 🙁
Best Moodle app: mTouch. It’s not perfect; in fact, it loads upside down and won’t re-orient itself) and only supports student activities (in other words you can’t build or modify your course as a teacher), but it’s a great interface.
Best Twitter app: TweetDeck–though in fact it’s merely the least annoying one I’ve tried. Fingers crossed Nambu develops an iOS app–I love Nambu!
Best browser: iCabMobile. Real tabs support, highly customizable, can import bookmarks from an html file. Alternate: SkyFire, which will run Flash on some pages. Now I just want Apple to allow me to choose my default browser: 8 Safari windows is a pain.
Best French/English dictionary: Ascendo’s French-to-English, English-to-French Dictionary and Phrase Book. Tons more entries that any other I’ve found. Nice simple interface.
Best ebook app, experience: iBooks. It’s super-configurable, but also simple to learn. anything I could do with a hard copy book I can do: highlight, cut/paste, bookmark. But I can also search–can’t do that with hard copy books! But the price differentials are often significant when compared to…
Best ebook app, selection and price: Kindle. It’s not as featureful as iBooks, but the selection from Amazon is much broader–and often much less expensive–than Apple’s store
What are you favourite apps?
