Apps for our homeschool part 2

It seems like every week I discover new apps to try on the Ipad.  Some of them we use a lot and some of them are fun for a short period of time and then don't get used anymore.  Here are some of the more recent ones we have used.
1. Puzzleography- This is a fun quiz game for learning World geography.  It teaches as well as quizzes.  S. is learning all the countries of Africa so she has been using it to practice.  It gives you either the name or the puzzle piece shape whichever you choose and then you figure out where it goes on the map.  You can "cheat" by touching any country on the map and it will tell you the name of the country.  I don't mind this though because she is still learning.
2. 7notes HD premium-  I downloaded this app because it does handwriting to text. I wanted to see how that would work for N.  So far it has been somewhat frustrating because it doesn't always recognize what he writes.  He is a messy writer, but I think what throws it is that he doesn't write his letters in one fluid motion.  I think I will have him write in cursive and see if that helps.  There is a lot of potential if it would recognize his writing quickly.
3. Solids Elementary HD:  N. is studying solids in Math and learning about faces, edges and vertices.  This is a great way to give a clear illustration of these concepts.  He really didn't need it for understanding, but he has had fun playing with it.  I can see how for someone who has trouble visualizing things (like me) that it would be a great learning tool.
4. Tourwrist:  Just downloaded this today and it is a hit.  It has panoramic photos of various places and you move through the 360 degree scene by moving you Ipad in different directions.  There is a different tour a day as well as many other tours that have been done by either individuals or the company.  Today he toured Paris around the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, as well as Venice. These are often aerial photos and you can't zoom in, but wow it really gives you a feel for what the area looks like. 
5. Wolfram Alpha-  This is like one of those smart computers you used to see on Science Fiction shows in the 70's.  You type in an equation or a question and it spits out the answer.  S. needed to know the average high temp for Kenya.  It spit it out in seconds and also gave the average high and low for today and other information.  I can see a lot of use for this as both of them do research etc.

On one other note, the last one of these I did I talked about Notability and how N. was still figuring it out.  He has now become very proficient at using it and it does make writing up his Science lab reports much easier.

Apps for our homeschool part 1

I want to start posting some ways we are using the Ipad apps in our homeschool.  N. and S. use the Ipad for schooling and N. also uses it for educational games in his free time.  I thought I would review just a few of them today.
1.Dragon Dictation : This is the app I was most excited to use for N.  So far we have had mixed results.  There are times when it is pretty accurate and other times that it misses every word.  I think one of the things we need to do is have him use it more so it gets trained to his voice.  The other thing we tried this weekend was using the headset/mic that came with my iphone.  Just playing with it for a few minutes, this seemed to help quite a bit.  If we can get it to accurately dictate it will be of huge benefit.  It will come in very handy for notetaking.
2. Notability :  This app gets used every week to write up his science lab sheet.  He can type as well as draw and write on it.  He then sends it to dropbox and I print it out from the desktop computer.  This app will also read pdf's.  We haven't even touched on all the things it can do and it's developers continue to make improvements.  It also has voice recording capabilities.
3. World Fact Book: S. uses this for all her World Geography Research.
4.  Video Science: This app has been a huge hit.  N. has watched every video I think.  It was designed for teachers, but shows videos of science experiments.  He watched one and then had the idea to make cubed bubble wands out of his Knex and was blowing square bubbles.  This is really sparking an interest in different areas of science for him. 
5. Blueprint 3D: This app is a game, but it is so much more.  You have portions of blueprints to many things, some of them famous buildings like the Eiffel Tower.  You have to rotate the blueprints in different directions until the lines line up completing the blueprint.  I am terrible at it.  N. on the other hand finished all the levels in a day and a half, and he wasn't even playing it that much.  I now need to have him try a harder mode.  He just is able to see thing visually perceptually in a way that I can't.  The testing we had done on him identified this as a huge strength and we were told to nurture that strength, so many of the so called fun or game apps on the Ipad do just that.
6. Discovery Education Plus:  This isn't really an app, but it is something new for us and we are utilizing it on the Ipad.  I bought a subscription from the homeschool buyers co-op.  This gave me access to thousands upon thousands of video clips and full length videos to use to supplement things that N. and S. are learning.  N. especially is a visual learner so if he can read about something and then watch a video of it all the better.  He can access it either through Safari on the Ipad or there is a mobile app page that is designed specifically for the Ipad.  I had read that there were not as many videos available if you go through the mobile app page, but so far we haven't found that.  Today he watched a video on illuminated manuscripts, and 3 video's on Spanish Explorers.  In his free time he is searching for videos on animals.