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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)"

There are a number of apps that are available that let you record your voice in order to convert it to text. I find this helpful when I need to transcribe longer pieces or even if I need to transcribe multiple entries. This technology is not yet perfect but it has improved considerably since these apps first came on the market. The first time I tried these app I got about 30% of the words correct, that figure is now more like 85% and with some effort on your part can be as high as 95%. Even with the minor inconsistencies it is still a quicker way for me to do larger pieces of text. I find these good when I want to just get the text down for a piece that I will spend some time formatting later. These are great for students as well, especially those kids who display great verbal intelligence but struggle with the written word.

"One of the frustrating things I found in teaching online last semester was the lack of direct contact with students. The class felt impersonal, despite my efforts to give it life. I found that especially frustrating when I graded assignments. The feedback seemed cold and distant, even as I as I tried to point out strong areas of writing and multimedia projects. I overcame this in part by using my iPad to add audio comments to grading. This was a revelation to me. Using an app called iAnnotate, I could write comments on PDFs but also add voice comments, allowing me to make grading more personal but also add details that I otherwise wouldn't have included."

"Two years ago today, I wrote a post about how I was going to use my iPad in the classroom. It was simply titled "Using My iPad in the Classroom This Year". To my surprise, it is my most visited post of all time with over 37,000 page views. That is about 20,000 more than my second most read post. I thought it would be fun to do an updated post having used the iPad in my class for two years. Now that I have a class set of iPads, the number of apps that I use or will be using has changed and I thought I would share that with everyone."

"Since I act like I know what I am doing and I carry an Ipad, a number of parents, teachers and friends have asked me which apps I recommend. This list is really just an inventory of what is currently on my Ipad, for each app I will discuss why I have decided to keep it. There have been many apps that have cycled through my iTunes, but only the most useful and least annoying get to have a permanent home."

"I'm very invested in the iPad as a laptop replacement, and I endeavour to make it my main machine when I'm away from my desk (at which I currently use an iMac). I travel regularly, often to speak at events, and I try to embrace simplicity and to work away from my office as much as I can. To that end, I've compiled a list of my essential iPad applications for productivity, that I use regularly when:"

"My school was lucky enough to get a class set of iPads (unless you have a class with over 30 students), and I was lucky enough to be the one in charge of looking after them. Since I am the one in charge of them and the one who really pushed to get them, it seems necessary that I make the most out of these devices. To do this, I have made them a daily part of my grade 12 class, and am currently using them daily with my grade 9 and 10 locally developed class. It has been about three weeks since the start of the semester and the start of my use of iPads in the classroom so I thought I would take the time to reflect on them."

"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."

"Last Sunday, I received a note via the contact form on my blog that was a first for me in many ways. It was the first time I had ever been contacted by a parent via my blog, the first time I could not put a comment out of my mind until I had addressed it, and the first time I ever thought about the impact a school's 1:1 take-home technology initiative could have on a family."

"I haven't had a lot of time in the last few weeks to spend searching for great mobile apps. But with a hat tip to Jaime H. and through a conversation with a couple of great teachers in Illinois, I did run across three that I really like. I think you will too."

"I got an iPad because my girlfriend Laura has one. She told me that once I had one, I wouldn't want to live without it. Unfortunately, she was right. My iPad is more addictive than anything I've ever owned. It gives me everything I need except for sex and chocolate bars."

"I searched all summer for a fun Back-to-School activity. Well. . . unfortunately I couldn't find anything!! So, I have been racking my brain to come up with something exciting for Open House. This is when my kids will find out who their teacher will be for the year, and they will also find out that we will have 30 iPads in our classroom!! Yay! I decided to incorporate the QR scans and create an Open House Scavenger Hunt to give the parents and kids the information needed to begin the new school year. As the students arrived, there was an iPad and the first page of the scavenger hunt on their desk. They were instructed to work through the scavenger hunt with the help of their parents. Here is what I created:"

"As a part-time college professor, I love Evernote: I can clip articles, make lecture notes and cross reference assignments between different courses. But the more I get into Evernote, the more I see how my students could benefit from using it even more than I do. Here are five top tips for students who want to use the service to organize their class work."

"Chances are, if you have an iOS device of some sort, you have apps. And if you have apps, chances are that you have too many of them. They start to get lost in the crowd. I find that, for myself, once I get past the first couple of app pages, I might as well tap at random for all I can find the app I need."

"I am revisiting this topic of enhancing students creativity using iPad apps for the second time this year. Almost 10 months ago I featured here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning a selection of some great apps that can be used in class to boost students creative thinking; and today and after having reviewed hundred of new educational apps since that post, I decided to compile an updated version of that list and include some newly featured apps in the category of creativity. Of course by creativity I mean giving students the chance to take their learning to the next step, one in which they are active producers and participators in knowledge building. Creativity is all about creation and iPad is an ideal device to support this creative thinking. Check out the apps I have handpicked for you today and share with us if you have other suggestions :"

"I did a quick search, delving a few pages deep in the results, but couldn't find what I wanted. I thought that it would be useful if a trailer could be planned in advance, rather than shoot footage and hope that there was enough of the various types of scenes to fit the trailer templates. I know that we should design a trailer around our content, but it is also nice to be able to create one quickly from the templates."

"I came across Haiku Deck this morning. I have been aware of this app for some time but have resisted the urge to have a look because in my mind it was just another slide presentation tool. How wrong could I be! I love this presentation app. It is so simple. "

"With so many schools adopting the use of iPads I find it strange that we aren't hearing more about the incredible opportunities available in iTunes U. Well I suppose it isn't that strange given that schools in the early stages of transitioning to an iPad platform are extremely busy and learning one more thing can seem overwhelming. Trust me, I understand that, but I believe if you were to learn one more thing it should be about the power of iTunes U. The possibilities of this incredible tool are endless. I'd like to provide you with just a few examples of the many uses of iTunes U in the hopes that more schools will join this incredible network of learning resources."

"My wife is thrilled with the "new" iPad 2 she inherited when my new iPad arrived. I wanted to configure it for her so she could get up and running, so I thought I would just change a few settings here or there and give it to her using my settings. After about 30 minutes of tweaking, I decided to start over from scratch."