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" Apple has long touted its device's assistive technology as a powerful tool for the educational development of physically and mentally disabled children. The iPad's touch screen makes it easier to manipulate than more traditional educational tools. For children with autism, "the iPad is not a toy, but a tool that works best when there is a 'team effort' between parents and therapists encouraging its proper use," said Marc Reisner, co-founder of Reach for the APPs. "Our goal is to provide schools with iPads so they can reach every child on the autistic spectrum." Reach for the APPs built their site with an initial donation from Managed Digital. Now, they're seeking out donations of money and/or iPads from both individuals and corporations to propel the program forward. According to reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1-in-88 children have some form of autism, up 78 percent from just a decade ago. The demand for augmentative communications devices is growing. But the schools can't meet the demand, so the children are losing valuable time during critical developmental years. Lois Brady, a speech language pathologist and assistive technology specialist, said apps can help develop fine-motor skills, which will in turn make functions like writing and manipulating small objects easier for the students. "I have spent years working with the most challenging students that are considered profoundly disabled," she said. "And I have seen some small miracles when I introduce the iPad into our therapy, as the children have made huge gains in attention, focus, communication, language and literacy skills." Some experts also say that the iPad can lessen symptoms of autistic disorders, helping children deal with life's sensory overload. Brady will be contributing content to the Reach for the APPs website to inform therapists about the latest-and-greatest apps for children all over the autistim spectrum. Apps must be tailor

"Browsing or searching the App Store for free apps can be a time-consuming process. Apps Gone Free can save you time in your quest for free iPad and iPhone apps. Apps Gone Free is a free iPad app that serves up a new list of free apps everyday. The apps featured on Apps Gone Free are apps that normally require a purchase but have been made available for free download for a limited time. I used Apps Gone Free today to find a neat app that I think physical education teachers will like (blog post coming soon)."

"Our publishing schedule for the best apps of the year will be: Sunday, December 25: 20 best iPad productivity apps Monday, December 26: 15 best iPad education and reference apps Tuesday, December 27: 10 best iPad healthcare apps Wednesday, December 28: 20 best iPad business apps Thursday, December 29: 15 best iPad news apps Friday, December 30: 20 best iPad utility apps"

"Using Google Apps on the iPad can get sticky! Historically, Google and the iPad have not played well together. But we have come a long way in the last couple years! There are now tons of apps for iOS devices that integrate well with Google, and Google has release several official apps for the iPad. There is hope, Obi Wan, Google and Apple can play nice! The infographic embedded below details the most useful Google apps for the iPad. These are the apps that I find most useful not only for teachers, but any Google user. Take a look, download, and explore the wonderful possibilities of using Google Apps on the iPad! (Note: There are a few apps that were designed for the iPhone, but worth mentioning for the iPad as well.)"

"Using Google Apps on the iPad can get sticky! Historically, Google and the iPad have not played well together. But we have come a long way in the last couple years! There are now tons of apps for iOS devices that integrate well with Google, and Google has release several official apps for the iPad. There is hope, Obi Wan, Google and Apple can play nice! The infographic embedded below details the most useful Google apps for the iPad. These are the apps that I find most useful not only for teachers, but any Google user. Take a look, download, and explore the wonderful possibilities of using Google Apps on the iPad! (Note: There are a few apps that were designed for the iPhone, but worth mentioning for the iPad as well.)"

"With the recent announcement that Google Classroom will be available to all Google Apps for Education schools by the week of August 11th, schools that have also adopted iPads are interested in exploring the platform to determine if it will integrate into their existing deployment to provide a helpful and approachable workflow solution. While there are currently a number of workflow solutions and Learning Management Systems that work well with iPads, Google Classroom will likely become a top contender for iPad classrooms because of the integration with both the Google Drive and Google Docs iPad apps as well as any number of iPad creativity apps. While there is not an iPad app for Google Classroom, the web interface works seamlessly and allows students to turn in any assignment or file that is in their Google Drive account as illustrated by the video below."

"The iMovie app could possibly be my favorite app on my iPad.  It's a versatile app that can lead to a whole lot of creation in your classroom  Yes, I know that iMovie on my MacBook Pro has all the bells and whistles, but I believe that the app has all the ingredients to make some pretty powerful products in your classroom. I love the fact that the app allows our students (and us) to make thinking visible.   There are so many ways that you can use iMove in the classroom.  From knowledge to comprehension, every level of Bloom's taxonomy is easily addressed using the iMovie app.  I plan on teaching our K-5 students how to use the iMovie app in the coming weeks and I can't wait to see the creativity that is generated! The best thing about iMovie is that you can use it with a lot of other apps! App Smashing?  Try using iMovie as the final app to display your app smash.  Just drop your products in from the photo library, do a voice over and you have created a product that allows you to showcase the learning happening in your classroom! I have created a folder on my iPad of apps that I use to supplement some of the videos that I produce. Here are some of my favorites:"

"One question I seem to get a lot about the iPad is what apps do I recommend that are free. I am hearing from a lot of teachers that they have no way to add paid apps and thus are stuck trying to find free apps. My experience is that many free apps stink. They have many adds, require in app purchases to be useful, or are just junk. I tend to stay away from most free apps. So what are you to do if the district controls adding paid apps? My suggestion is to build relationships with the decision makers. Don't just ask for a bunch of apps, instead provide documentation and purpose for a few apps you would like to have. I know this process takes time and effort but if you can show the purpose and learning you have a much better chance. If you need lesson ideas I suggest checking out my Pinterest page, and three of my favorite Pinterest pages: iPadsammy, TechChef4u, and Sue Gorman. Look for apps and lesson ideas there and modify them to fit your standards and kids. If I was starting from scratch this is the $10 iPad app setup I would push for in my kindergarten classroom. (I will be posting a $20 setup later)"

We Want Apps is a free iPad and iPhone app for discovering new apps for kids. I discovered We Want Apps on David Kapuler's blog and immediately gave it a try on my iPad. With We Want Apps installed on your iPad you can search for apps according to the age of your students, the platform (iPhone or iPad), and price (free or paid). After choosing your search criteria you will be given a list of apps. Click on an app in the search results list to read a detailed description of that app.

"Weebly, a popular website creation service, has offered an iPhone app for a couple of years. This morning I learned that they now offer a free iPad app too. Weebly's free iPad app allows you to create a new website from scratch. After creating your website with the app you will be able to manage nearly all aspects of your site from your iPad. The drag-and-drop website building process that made Weebly popular as a browser-based tool is found in the new iPad app. Select a site component from the menu of options and drag it into the editor to build your site one component at a time. Watch the video embedded below for a short overview of Weebly's free iPad app. "

"On comparing iPad apps with iPhone equivalents, one thing rapidly becomes clear: apps for Apple's tablet are pricier. Many of the best free iPhone apps cost 59p or more in their iPad incarnations, and the quality level of what's still free is often ropey. But among the dross lie rare gems - iPad apps that are so good you can't believe they're still free. Of those we unearthed, here is our pick of the best free iPad apps. Note that apps marked 'universal' will run on your iPad and iPhone, optimising themselves accordingly."

"For the past couple of years I've been really fortunate to have access to iPads in my classroom. The increased access to this mobile technology has provided my students with that many more individualized opportunities to show and share their learning. Now if you're new to this blog you may not realize that student choice and voice is something I believe very strongly about. Very strongly. This means I am constantly looking for apps that allow my students to learn, show, and share their knowledge in innovative ways. As a result I purchase and download many, many iPad apps for my work iPad. I take them for a test drive sort of speak before they make their way onto the iPads my students have access to. The reality is very few apps I test drive end up on my student's iPads. But why? Below you will find some of the questions I ask (and why) before an app will make it on my students iPads. I am hoping this information will be of benefit for both teachers purchasing apps for their students, and developers creating apps for students. Here are my top eight questions."

"Loopster is a video editing tool that I first tried as a web app last fall. Recently, I learned that Loopster has a free iPad app. The free iPad app offers all of the same features that are available in the web version of the service. The Loopster iPad app provides a four track editor. There are tracks for video and images, transitions, sounds, and text. You can import images and videos from your iPad's camera roll or shoot a new video with the app and edit it. On the video editing track you can trim clips and combine clips. On the text track you can add speech bubbles and other text effects. Loopster has a slow motion effect that is available on the iPad app too."

"Have you read The Paperless Classroom with Google Docs by Eric Curts? If not, you should. It is a great way for Google schools to harness the power of Google for sharing documents, and establishing a workflow for students to turn in work for teachers to grade and return in a paperless environment. I love it. In fact, I liked it so much that I decided to pay homage to it with a version that is dedicated to doing the very same thing on the iPad using just the Google Drive app. Regular readers will have seen my last post, How to Use Comments on the Google Drive iPad app. For me, this was a key change to the Google Drive iPad app, and one that had huge implications for the iPad classroom. It inspired me to think about just how much you can do in Google with an iPad and the Drive app, and I soon discovered that you can do a lot more than you might think. So, with the blessing of Eric Curts himself, I sat down and went through all the steps he meticulously outlined for the desktop version of Google Drive, and converted as many as I could to the equivalent actions in the Google Drive iPad app. Then I added some additional steps for other things like taking documents offline, or grading PDFs, images and movies."

"I'm often approached by educators looking for the best iPad app.  While my students have their favourite go to apps, what works for my students may not work for theirs.  In fact even my own students can't decide which app is best because each has their own preference depending on what they are trying to do. It's far less about the specific app, then what that app can do to show learning. For me, the beauty of the iPad and more specifically the apps available for it, is that it allows my students to create, and show their learning in ways that work best for them.  For this reason I have created an iTunes U course titled Show What You Know with iPad: Using an iPad to Create and Self Assess in the Early Years.  This is a free course but does require an iOS device to access it through iTunes U . It can be downloaded onto  an iPod, iPhone, or iPad."

"We have come a long way with using Google on the iPad. We now have 50 official apps from Google, Inc. for iOS. The following is a list of Google Apps for iOS. This list is exhaustive and includes several apps that are not on the infographic Guide to Google Apps for the iPad. Some of these are natural for classroom integration, and some are more for personal or business use. Some are optimized for both iPad and iPhone; some are only optimized for iPhone. Each app title is linked directly to the App Store so you can click directly from your device to download each app."

"Anchor are continuing their march to podcast dominance with the launch of the new Anchor iPad app. Although you could always use the iPhone version of the app on an iPad, the experience, like most iPhone apps on an iPad, was less than ideal. The new app makes much better use of the larger screen and will of course sync all your recordings from the web and your phone. However, the iPad app also brings a collection of brand new iPad specific features, so here's a look at what you can expect."

"Besides the multitude of resources we have covering reviews of hundreds of educational apps, from time to time we create lists featuring our favourite picks from the piles. Our purpose is to provide teachers with tested educational iPad apps that they can try out in their instruction. The last thing to ask an overburdened teacher is to spend hours in iTunes apps store searching  for apps to use with students. We do the curation job for you and it is your turn to integrate and make the best of these resources in your teaching. That being said, here is a handy visual we created a few months ago featuring some of the best educational iPad apps to consider in your teaching. We know our selection is subjective and many other wonderful apps are missing but for practical reasons we only included a limited number of 20 apps. More educational apps are to be featured in future collections"

"Google Apps for the iPad is a small site built by Google Certified Teacher Jill Galloway. The site addresses a lot of common questions about using Google Apps on iPads. Additionally, you will find some helpful tips for first time users of Google Apps on iPads. If you're just getting started using an iPad, Google Apps for iPad is a good reference to look at."

"Yesterday I mentioned a useful tip for using physical keyboards with iPads in my guide to unlocking the full potential of the iPad Pro. The tip actually works with all iOS 9 iPads connected to external keyboards over Bluetooth, Lightning, or the Smart Connector: hold Command (⌘) to see a list of supported keyboard shortcuts for the Home screen or app you're in. This works in most of Apple's built-in apps and plenty of popular third-party apps as well, but it can be monotonous prompting that sheet in each app to get a sense of what keyboard shortcuts work. Instead, I've compiled a cheat sheet of which keyboard shortcuts work in all the system apps and several popular third-party apps. Whether you're using Apple's Smart Keyboard for the iPad Pro, Magic Keyboard, Logitech's excellent K811, or any other physical keyboard, these will make you more efficient when working on your iPad."