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"Creating a journal in iPhoto is like crafting a scrapbook page that you can post live on the web for anyone to see, for free. Not only is it fun to design a journal, but it's a super-fast way to show off vacation pics, or to show distant relatives how much the kids have grown. In addition to creating a journal on an iPad, you can also make one on an iPhone in the same way. The feature is currently missing from the Mac version of iPhoto, however."

"A version of Google's Chrome browser has finally come to iOS devices. The company made its announcement on Thursday as part of its annual Google I/O conference in San Francisco, with Chrome becoming available on the App Store for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users just hours after the announcement. But while Chrome fans will be pleased with the app's ability to sync tabs between their computers, Android devices, and now iOS devices, they will likely also be disappointed in the fact that Chrome's back-end is exactly the same as Mobile Safari's. That's right: Chrome for iOS is based on the iOS WebKit, and as such, performance won't be much different than what Apple already offers-in fact, it's slower."

"With the end of the school year, Apple is taking the opportunity to remind schools and educators about a free professional development program that it's offering. Called the Tune In Series, the program is a series of webcast events covering the iPad and many of the technologies that Apple introduced during its education event in January. The series is running every week through the end of August."

"One of the best places to show off sumptuous design and photography is the iPad, and Hipstamatic is taking advantage of that with its new Snap magazine, a digital publication that combines Hipstamatic user pictures with print and other art that's completely free."

"Handwriting is one of those things that seems like it should be easy on the iPad, but, in reality, it is fairly difficult. Unlike Apple's legendarily quirky handwriting recognition on the Newton or the Windows tablets of more recent vintage, the iPad is designed primarily for finger-based input, not for longhand wirting with a stylus."

"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."

"The default iOS clock in the US is a 12-hour clock, with AM and PM appended to the numbers to denote morning or evening. The other, more standard way of representing the time is with the 24-hour clock, in which any time after 12:00 is the logical 13:00, 14:00, and so on. It's really easy to set on your iPhone or other iOS device."

"There is one fundamental way we can support our schools that I find is often missing from the equation when we debate funding priorities, and that is supporting teachers through training. "

"Reading is not the most straightforward skill to teach young children. There is a great deal to it in terms of constructing sounds, understanding grammar and finally comprehending what is actually being read."

"Study Hall is a new website and iOS app for sharing and studying with friends. Even though the service is still in a beta phase it seems promising. The basic idea behind Study Hall is to enable teachers and students to upload content to a common place and access it through an iPad, an iPhone, or an iPod Touch. "

"iStopMotion for iPad (US$4.99) is an app that is designed to get younger iPad users into the thrill of making animated movies through the magic of stop motion animation. When the app is launched, a pair of clay figures are animated to show you how to use iStopMotion. "

In a world with spell check, why is studying spelling still important? It aids in reading. It helps cement the connection that is shared between sounds and letters. Learning high-frequency sight words also has been shown to help with both reading and writing. Not only is the ability to spell necessary in most occupations, but a person also needs to be able to spell well in order to be able to communicate and take notes and directions. 

"This week's pick is Vodio - a social videos app for the iPad that some have said is a bit like Flipboard for videos. Although there are some similar features, I don't think that's a very accurate comparison - but nonetheless this is quite a nice app to enjoy videos on your iPad."

"Rockmate is a breakthrough music creation app. It turns your iPad into a complete music studio easy and super fun to use. You can compose, record and play songs with up to 4 Rock players on one single iPad. Rockmate is easy to play with smart chords progressions, sounds great with separated guitar effects and in-house produced audio samples and is also fully customizable with multiple drums and keyboard styles."

"Camera Boost 2.5 is a camera app with night mode, live image enhancement and effects for the iPad2! Record smooth HD video and take photos with truly unlimited effects with this totally unique app. Camera Boost is a new kind of camera: Filters and effects are shown live at full size and quality right in the camera view, and everything is instant. You can take photos and record video with effects like color adjustment, noise reduction and HDR applied in realtime. See the end result before you shoot! "

A free alarm app we found to help keep us on time in the morning is Winter Wake-Up. The app is for the iPhone but works fine on the iPad in 2x mode. The idea of the app is that it watches for weather changes where you are (you need to have Location Services turned on), then adjusts your wake up alarm time to give you extra time.

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.

"The 'app' is more of a enhanced book application called Color Uncovered. It's purpose is to help you better understand everything about colors. How your eyes see colors, how your mind 'sees' colors, how colors play into the impact of a photo and ads. It is actually a very important subject for anyone that snaps a photo from time to time. As well, helpful to our creative and not so creative folks. It's a all-ages, everyone app… and it's free."

"The iKeyboard was another Kickstarter success story at Mocworld / iWorld 2012, garnering over 6 times what the required threshold was for funding. Its mission is to "addresses the one drawback of a tablet computer" which is the inability to touch type on the iPad's virtual keyboard. Again, I'm not a fast typist - I definitely need to work on that to improve my overall productivity when writing. The iKeyboard gives me the opportunity to work on that on what is often my primary writing tool."

"After only a day of use, I'm very impressed. Not only is it easy to use, but it offers a lot of features and customization that iMovie doesn't. From picture-inpicure, to three layers of audio, Avid Studio is a really nice video editing app."