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"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)"

"The typical way to figure out what consumers want is to go out and do a survey. Or stay in and conduct focus groups. But Method, the design and branding agency, set out to do something a bit more interesting when Dell commissioned them to research the tablet market. Instead of a survey, they mined Google to figure out what people were searching for."

"The big news this week is that the Olympics are starting. The Olympic flame will be lit on July 27 and will burn until Aug. 12. To celebrate this important event, I wanted to do a special App Synergy article. Since the Olympics only occur once every four years, I decided to do four how-to uses, instead of the usual one. Spanning many different categories of apps from social media, to lifestyle, to news, each use will cover a specific aspect of need. Here is how to maximize your Olympic enjoyment."

"In his book "Start with Why" and the accompanying TED talk, author Simon Sinek claims that we're all very clear about "what" we do. In fact, you often define yourself by what you do - "I'm a teacher" for example. You focus heavily on "how" you should do whatever it is you do and usually develop a routine to make it easier."

"Want to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, but don't know where to start? Download the latest manual from MakeUseOf, which will teach you to do just that. From author Lachlan Roy, this guide shows you how to use RedSn0w and recommends tweaks and apps to try out once you do."

"Sometimes, to teach a class, its can be helpful to save a local, temporary copy of a YouTube video to your computer and transfer it to an iPad. Then the iPad can play the video from its "Photo Roll" without being connected to the Internet. This is especially helpful in places where wifi Internet access to YouTube is not available. In this four minute tutorial, Wesley Fryer explains how to use the free website saveyoutube.com along with the $2 iPad application PhotoSync (and free desktop companion software) to do this."

" iPad now 97% of tablet traffic, eclipses iPhone, iOS remains mobile leader By Daniel Eran Dilger Published: 04:27 PM EST (01:27 PM PST) A new market research report notes that mobile devices now amount to almost 7 percent of all US web traffic, with Apple's iOS representing a 58.5 percent slice of all mobile traffic and the iPad now accounting for more traffic than iPhones. The growth of mobile devices has claimed a 6.8 percent chunk of US web traffic from conventional PCs, according to a new report by comScore. Of that segment, about two thirds of the traffic is from mobile phones and a remaining third is being generated by tablet users. The group notes that Apple's iPad now accounts for 97.2 percent of all tablet-originating web traffic, driving home the reality that competitors have not yet released a significant tablet competitor. Among iOS users, iPad now accounts for 46.8 percent of all traffic generated, making it now a more prolific tool than the iPhone for mobile web use, which represents 42.6 percent of iOS traffic. An increasingly important market segment The firm also outlined why the growth of tablet traffic is significant, noting that almost half of tablet owners have completed purchases using their tablet. "Tablet owners exhibited significant use of their devices throughout the entire online shopping process," comScore reported, "from doing the initial planning, conducting product and store research, making price comparisons, to finally transacting. In the past month, more than half of tablet owners looked up product or price information for a specific store (56 percent) and read customer ratings and reviews while on a tablet (54 percent)." The group added, "the incremental reach through mobile and connected devices should not be underestimated," pointing out that, "in August 2011, the additional mobile and connected device audience for Pandora accounted for more than half of their total cross-platform audience." Who rules the mobile wor

"In 1987, Apple produced a concept video demonstrating a future computer called the Knowledge Navigator. The tablet-like device offered the user a natural language interface, video conferencing, multi-touch display and access to a global network of information. Siri understands what you say, accomplishes tasks for you and adapts to your preferences over time.mSiri can help you find and plan things to do. While seemingly the product of an overactive imagination, Apple's recent acquisition of Siri brings Apple a lot closer to that vision than ever before. Siri reportedly was born from the CALO artificial intelligence project which sought to fulfill a call for a "a cognitive computer system should be able to learn from its experience, as well as by being advised." Apple's value in acquiring Siri appears to be focused on this personal assistance technology. "

Siri is an excellent iPhone app that uses both text and voice to search for locations and much more information.

"Teaching students with iPads is like nothing I have ever done in the past 13 years as a teacher. Although I have been stuck in the honeymoon stage with the iPad since I got the first generation a couple of years ago, I never imagined some of the things that kids are capable of doing with iPads. I admit at first I thought that kids would just use their iPads to do a little research on the web, but they were not happy with just browsing the web, they wanted to do so much more."

"The key to learning to code is learning to think like a computer--which is a hard thing to do. "It requires structured thinking, ability to abstract details away, and there's little margin for error--one little typo and your program might do something entirely different from what you wanted," says game developer Rui Viana. "

Enable Multitasking Gestures!

10 Things You Never Knew You Could Do On Your iPad

IF you want to sync multiple calendars, this is the second step of doing that - you have to use the native safari web browser and navigate to the mobile apps piece to select the appropriate calendars. Change it as often as you like (I do!)

"This year, we've decided to do the same thing, adding a ton of great apps to the list that you'll want to get on to your iPad straight away. The list includes apps to handle your photos and videos, music apps, productivity apps, a few essentials to meet all of your social media needs, and of course a few games to keep you entertained."

"Part of the benefit of jumping forward with a 1:1 iPad deployment like we have tried is that we get the opportunity to impart knowledge to other districts looking to do a similar initiative. While that might not seem like a benefit, it actually also means we can make some mistakes because there is not a long history of this type of deployment in the world. "

"It doesn't take more than a cursory exploration of the application Explain Everything for the iPad, to find out that it is an incredibly useful and versatile app. So what is Explain Everything, exactly and what does it do? Well the answer to that question is in the name of the application itself. You can use the app to explain and share tutorial videos, collaborate with others and develop ideas and you can also use it to do live interactive presentations, using an iPad in the classroom."

"There isn't an iPhoto application on the iPad and while it might be nice to have iPhoto for iPad, we have to ask do we really need it. There are available a number of iPad applications that do allow you to edit and adjust your photos, you don't necessarily need to look for a free photo editing online application."

"The iPad and the visual stimulus is highly motivating to these autistic children ....What we're trying to do is mimic what regular kids get to do and enjoy."

20 cool things to do with your iPhone Essential apps to add new functionality to your handset : TechRadar UK