Tag: free ipad apps

All About Mars

Earlier this week SciShow Kids published a new video titled Meet the Mars Rovers! The short video explains to elementary school students what a Mars rover is, what they’re used for, and some basic background information about Mars. The notes below the video on the YouTube page for it include links to lots of helpful […]

A Fun Augmented Reality App for Spelling Practice

My daughters really enjoy the PBS Kids show called Word World. In each episode of the show the characters build a new word. As I was recently watching Word World with them I was reminded of a fun augmented reality app called Catchy Words AR. Catchy Words AR is an augmented reality app that provides […]

Apps and Sites for Learning About Fresh Water

Earlier this week I was looking through a list of augmented reality apps that I’ve tried over the years when I was reminded of the World Wildlife Fund’s Free Rivers app. Playing with that app again prompted me to look for some similar resources. Here’s a few fun apps and sites that students can use […]

How to Start Using Plickers in Your Classroom

Last week I led a workshop for a group of special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and consultants. One of the elements of the workshop was about creating and conducting fun formative assessments. To that end, I introduced the group to Plickers. It was a hit!  Plickers has been around for almost a decade. It’s still a […]

How to Play GeoGeek AR

Last week I wrote a brief overview of a fun geography app called GeoGeek AR. The “AR” in the app’s name stands for augmented reality. The use of AR makes it possible to put a digital globe right into your classroom or anywhere else that your students are standing when holding an iPad or Android […]

GeoGeek AR – An Augmented Reality Geography Game

GeoGeek AR is a fun app for testing and developing your knowledge of world geography. As its name and icon imply, the app uses augmented reality to put a virtual globe in any space that you choose. You can spin the globe with your fingers or simply move around the room to see different parts […]

Five Fun Science Games for Kids

I’m taking my daughters to a science museum today. Thinking about the museum and the interactive displays that they have got me thinking about some of the science games that I’ve reviewed over the years. I went into my archives and pulled out five fun science games for elementary school students.  Peep and the Big […]

Create TinyTap Educational Games With Houdini Effects, Videos, and More

Disclosure: TinyTap is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com  TinyTap is an educational game creation tool that I’ve been using and writing about since its launch as a free iPad app many years ago. In my recent series about creating games with TinyTap I’ve focused on using the web-based game creation tools. Today, I’m going to […]

Build Talk or Type Educational Games on TinyTap

Disclosure: TinyTap is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com Throughout January I wrote about creating your own educational games with TinyTap’s web-based game creation tool. I’ve covered creating a basic identification game, making your games look good, and making puzzle games. To end the month, I’m going to dive into making a game that doesn’t rely […]

NBA Math Hoops – An App for Practicing Math Facts

NBA Math Hoops is a free iPad and Android app for practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. The app can be used by students who don’t have email addresses. There is also an option to create an account to save games in progress.  NBA Math Hoops pits players against NBA and WNBA players in […]

TinyTap – Create Your Own Educational Games in Your Browser

TinyTap is a company that is best known for its iPad app that lets teachers create educational games to share with their students. I’ve used it and written about it for almost a decade. Recently, TinyTap made a fantastic update. You can now use TinyTap to create your own educational games in the web browser […]

The Freshwater Access Game

Aquation is a free iOS, Android, and web game offered by the the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The game, designed for students in upper elementary school or middle school, teaches students about the distribution of clean water and what can be done to balance global water resources. In the game students select a region to […]

GitMind – A Collaborative Mind Mapping and Outlining Tool

GitMind is a mind mapping tool that offers some excellent features for teachers and students. GitMind offers more than one hundred templates for teachers and students to use and modify. Some of the templates you’ll find in the gallery include essay structure, timelines, book reviews, and study plans. GitMind also lets you create your mind […]

Math Learning Center Apps Now Include Sharing Options

Math Learning Center offers twelve free apps that are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. All of the apps are available in versions as free iPad apps and as web apps. Last week I visited the Math Learning Center for the first time in a while and noticed that the apps now have a sharing function.  […]

ChatterPix Kids – Create Talking Pictures for an Educational Purpose

ChatterPix Kids is one of my favorite digital storytelling apps for elementary school students.  ChatterPix Kids is a free app that students can use to create talking pictures. To use the app students simply open it on their iPads or Android devices and then take a picture. Once they’ve taken a picture students draw a […]

Nine Neat NASA Resources for Students and Teachers – Updated

Years ago I published a list of nine neat NASA resources for students and teachers. At the time the list was current. Over the weekend someone emailed me to point out that few of them were no longer available due to the deprecation of Flash. Here’s my updated list of neat NASA resources for students […]

Overviewer – Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom

Thanks to a recent article on The Verge I just learned about a new, free iPhone and iPad app called Overviewer. Overviewer is a free app that lets you use your iPhone or iPad as a document camera during a Zoom meeting. The app essentially mirrors your iPhone or iPad camera into Zoom via Airplay […]

Seven Apps and Sites to Encourage Healthy Diet and Exercise Habits

It’s that time of year when many of us have healthy eating and exercise on our minds. Even if you’re a regular exerciser like me, the December can be a tricky time to stick to good eating and exercise habits. The following apps and sites might help you get back on track. And if you […]

Twelve Free Apps for Math Instruction

Math Learning Center is a resource that I’ve shared in the past. The last time I wrote about it was a couple of years ago. Back then it offered ten free apps containing virtual manipulatives for math lessons. Since then MLC has expanded to offer twelve free apps. Ten of them are available for iOS, […]

Create Talking Pictures of Famous People

This morning the power was out at my house so I sat on my porch drinking coffee (brewed before the power went out) and brainstormed a list of ways to use video tools in elementary school classrooms. One of the ideas that I came up with was using ChatterPix Kids to create talking pictures of […]

NASA Selfies – Put Yourself in Space and Learn a Bit About It

NASA Selfies is a fun and free app for “taking a selfie in space.” What it really does is just put your face into the helmet of a space suit that is floating in space. You can pick the background for your space selfie. Backgrounds are provided from NASA’s huge library of images. When you […]

Spacecraft AR – Explore NASA Spacecraft With Augmented Reality

Spacecraft AR is a free iPad and Android app offered by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The app enables students to learn about various NASA spacecraft including the Curiosity rover, Voyager, Mars Exploration Rover, and a handful of other spacecraft. Spacecraft AR includes information about each spacecraft’s development and use. With Spacecraft AR installed and open […]

Three Free iPad Apps for Learning Programming Basics

An iPad isn’t the ideal device for practicing coding and programming principles. I prefer to have students use a full-size Windows or Mac computer as they can split their screens to see lessons and practice in side-by-side windows. But if an iPad is the only device your students’ have to use, there are some free […]

Loom – Create Screencasts on Your iPad

Loom is a good screencasting that I’ve written about a handful of times over the last couple of years. Amongst it’s many features, Loom offers a Chrome extension that makes it easy to respond to an email with a video. Recently, Loom launched a new iPad app that you can use to create screencast videos. […]

Kids Can Learn About National Parks on a Virtual Road Trip With Nature Cat

PBS Kids Nature Cat collection offers a bunch of great activities that elementary school students can do at home with or without direct involvement of parents. One of the activities that kids can probably do on their own is the Nature Cat Road Trip. On the Nature Cat Road Trip students learn about a handful of […]

Fact Fragment Frenzy – An App to Practice Identifying Facts

Yesterday, I shared Common Craft’s new video about facts and opinions. In looking for some related resources I came across a blog post that I wrote a few years ago about a free iPad and Android app from Read Write Think. The app is called Fact Fragment Frenzy. The purpose of Fact Fragment Frenzy is to help […]

Math & Science Halloween Lessons

This afternoon one of my students asked me what my daughters are going to be for Halloween. That question reminded me that Halloween will be here soon. If you find yourself starting to look for some Halloween-themed math or science lessons for elementary school, take a look at the following items. PBS Learning Media also […]

How to Use Stop Motion Studio

Last week I featured a couple of videos about making stop motion movies. One was about the big concepts of making a stop motion movie. Those concepts can be applied to any app or software that you use to create stop motion movie. Stop Motion Studio is one of those apps that your students can […]

How to Use Socratic by Google

Last week Google announced the release of an updated version of the Socratic app. Socratic is now owned by Google and is therefore called Socratic by Google in the app store. The free iPhone and iPad app (Android version available in the fall) lets students take a picture of a problem, question, or phrase and […]

Quik – Quickly Create Audio Slideshow Videos

Quik is a free app from GoPro for quickly creating videos on your Android or iOS phone or tablet. With the app installed on you can import pictures and videos that you have stored on your phone, in Google Photos, or in a GoPro Plus account. After you’ve selected a few pictures or video clips […]

How to Create a Green Screen Video on an iPad

Last night I posted a tutorial on how to create a green screen video in iMovie on a Mac. After I Tweeted that some folks asked me about making green screen videos on iPads. As I promised to them, here’s my tutorial on how to create a green screen video on an iPad. Materials and […]

How to Create Talking Pictures With ChatterPix Kids

ChatterPix Kids is one of my favorite digital storytelling apps for elementary school students to use. For many years the app was only available in an iPad version. Earlier this year an Android version was released by the developers, Duck Duck Moose. ChatterPix Kids is a free app that students can use to create talking […]

The Best Apps & Sites for Learning According to AASL

While ISTE’s annual conference is the place that all of the big ed tech companies showcase their new developments for the coming year, AASL’s annual conference is featuring best apps and websites for teaching and learning. The American Association of School Librarians annual conference was held over the weekend and that’s when they revealed their […]

Beaker – Virtually Mix Chemicals on Your Phone or Tablet

Beaker is an iOS and Android app that lets students virtually mix chemicals. In the app students can select chemicals to mix to see how they react to each other. The app also has a virtual match that students can light to see how chemicals react to heat. The most impressive feature of the app […]

Veescope Live – A Free Green Screen App for Your iPad

Veescope Live is a free iPad app for creating green screen videos. Of the free iPad apps for making green screen videos that I’ve tried, including all of the most popular ones, Veescope Live is easiest to set-up and use even with the annoying quirk of menus not always closing on the first tap (and […]

An Overview of Fishbowl – A Professional Discussion App for Teachers

Last week I published a post about Fishbowl that generated some good questions from readers about how the app works. Fishbowl is more than an app, it’s a professional discussion network. Teachers can join Fishbowl to engage in discussions on issues important to educator community. Fishbowl will let you participate in discussions anonymously, on the […]

5 Ways for Students of All Ages to Make Animated Videos

Making animated videos is a great way for students to bring their written stories to life on screen. Those could be fiction or nonfiction stories. Some nonfiction animated video topics include making a video to illustrate a historical event, making biographies, and explaining complex concepts in simple animations like Common Craft does. In the fiction […]

Rivet – A Reading App from Google

Rivet is a reading app from Area 120 (a Google property). The free app offers more than 2,000 books for students to read independently. The books are appropriate for students in Kindergarten through second grade (5-8 years old). All of the books provide audio support to students in the form of an option to tap […]

Check Out the Periodic Table of iOS 12 Apps for Education

Mark Anderson, known as ICT Evangelist on Twitter, recently published a handy guide to educational iPad apps that are updated for iOS 12. The guide is arranged in periodic table format. Rather than featuring elements, the table features iPad apps. The guide is further arranged into eight categories. The categories of apps on Mark’s Periodic […]

Eat & Move-o-Matic Encourages Healthy Eating and Exercise

Eat & Move-o-Matic by the Learning Labs Game at New Mexico State University is a free iPad app intended to help teachers and students get a better understanding of the impact of their food choices. Eat & Move-o-Matic is based on a simple premise. That simple premise is calories in, calories out. The does this by […]

Wiggle & Stomp – A Fun App for Learning About Animals

Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp is an educational game produced by the Smithsonian. The purpose of the game is to help children recognize the movements of animals. In the game children move through a virtual zoo with a zoo keeper. As they go through the virtual zoo the zoo keeper will ask students to take pictures […]

New Features Added to Synth – Simple Podcasting for Students

Synth is one of my favorite new ed tech tools of the 2018-19 school year. If you’re familiar with what Synth does, it provides a simple way to create short podcasts that people can reply to with their own audio comments. Think of it kind of like Flipgrid for audio. You can experience a Synth […]

Shaking Stories – Shake Your iPad to Create a Story

Shaking Stories is a free iPad app that is filled with randomly generated writing prompts. New prompts appear on your screen when you shake your iPad. The prompts are divided into for categories. Those categories are Characters, Places, Problems, and Time. When you shake your iPad a prompt will appear in each of those categories. […]

How to Use Flipgrid on an iPad

Last week I published a detailed tutorial on how to get started using Flipgrid in your classroom. In that tutorial I focused on using Flipgrid in the web browser on Mac, Windows, and Chrome OS computers. Students can also use Flipgrid on iPads. The Flipgrid iPad app is intended for student use not for teacher […]

Kids World Atlas – An iPad App for Learning About Animals Around the World

Last week I wrote a review of the Kids U.S. Atlas iPad app. That app offers an interactive map of the United States that kids can tap on to learn about 25 animals that are indigenous to the United States. Kids World Atlas is the companion app to the Kids U.S. Atlas. Kids World Atlas […]

Kids US Atlas – Learn About Animals of the United States

Kids US Atlas is an iPad app that features an interactive map of the United States. On the interactive map you will find twenty-five animals that are indigenous to the United States. Tap on the animals to read about them, to hear about them, and to watch videos about them. The text passages about the […]

Introduction to Using Google Expeditions in Your Classroom

Google Expeditions is one of my favorite virtual reality apps for students and teachers. The app provides hundreds of virtual reality experiences for students. There are VR experiences that can be used in social studies, science, and art classes. The guide mode in Expeditions is fantastic for pacing activities inside of the app. Rather than […]

WWF Free Rivers – An Interactive, Augmented Reality Story About Rivers

WWF Free Rivers is a free augmented reality iPad app produced by the World Wildlife Foundation. The app uses augmented reality to present a story about rivers. In the app students learn about the importance of free-flowing rivers in world. The app offers a series of sections or experiences through which students can learn about […]

Wonderscope – An Interactive Story App for Kids

Wonderscope is an iPad app that uses augmented reality featuring stories that students interact with through voice and touch. Students position animations and interact with story animations by moving their iPads and reading the lines that appear on their screens. Wonderscope doesn’t require students to have any kind of log-in to use the stories in […]

PBS Kids ScratchJr – Scratch With a PBS Twist

PBS Kids ScratchJr is a PBS Kids-themed version of the popular ScratchJr app. PBS Kids ScratchJr is available as a free iPad app and as a free Android app. The app is designed to help five to eight year old students learn basic programming concepts through a drag-and-drop interface. Just like the ScratchJr app, on […]

A Fun App for Learning About Money

Money Math Duel is an iPad app and Android app designed to help students learn to count currency. The app is unique in that it allows two students to use it at the same time. Students place the iPad between them and each has his or her own end of the screen to use. Students […]

WWF Together – Revisiting a Favorite App

The World Wildlife Fund’s Together app has been one of my favorite iPad apps since the first day that I saw it more than five years ago. The app is beautifully designed to show the stories of endangered or threatened animals around the world. This morning it popped-up on my iPad as a featured app […]

Synth – Quickly Record Short, Interactive Podcasts

Synth is a new service from Swivl. Synth is a free service that you can use to record short podcast episodes that are up to 256 seconds long. When you record your episode you post it publicly for others to listen to and record spoken responses. In that way it is somewhat like VoiceThread without […]

Three Types of Elementary School Video Projects to Complete on iPads

On Monday I shared free five apps that I recommend for making videos on iPads in elementary school classrooms. You might have looked at the list and wondered which one(s) you should try. If so, here’s my basic break-down of how these apps can be used by students and the ages that they are appropriate […]

Nature Cat’s Great Outdoors – An App for Sunny, Rainy, and Snowy Days

Nature Cat’s Great Outdoors is a free app from PBS Kids. The app, available for iOS and Android, provides students with activities they can do outdoors in all kinds of weather. And there some indoor activities for those days when you really don’t want to go outdoors. To use the Nature Cat’s Great Outdoors app […]

5 Free iPad Apps for Making Videos in Elementary School

In the next weeks I’ll be spending quite a bit of time working in elementary school classrooms that are equipped with iPads. One of the things that I’ll be doing is helping teachers help their students make short videos. These are some of the apps that we’ll be using. Teachers will try them with me […]

Anchor Adds New Ways to Craft Podcasts

In the last year Anchor.fm has become my go-to recommendation for easily creating podcasts with students. The web version of Anchor.fm lets you record, edit, and publish podcasts in a matter of minutes. The Anchor mobile apps are even easier to use. This week Anchor added a couple of new features to their free iOS […]

Ten Free Apps for Elementary School Math Lessons

The new school year will be here soon and I haven’t taken a break all summer. I’m taking a short break from the Internet to go fishing at one of my favorite places in the world, Kennebago Lake. I’ll be back with new posts on Saturday. While I’m gone I’ll be republishing some of the […]

Free iPad Apps for Creating Animated Movies

The new school year will be here soon and I haven’t taken a break all summer. I’m taking a short break from the Internet to go fishing at one of my favorite places in the world, Kennebago Lake. I’ll be back with new posts on Saturday. While I’m gone I’ll be republishing some of the […]

13 Great Drawing Lessons for Students

ShowMe is a popular app for creating whiteboard style instructional videos on iPads, Android tablets, and Chromebooks. ShowMe users have the option to publish their videos for inclusion in a public gallery of instructional videos. It was in that gallery that I found thirteen videos published by an art teacher named Nikkie Milner. The topics […]

Monster Heart Medic – A Game for Learning About Heart Health

Monster Heart Medic is a free iPad app produced by the Lawrence Hall of Science with funding from the National Institutes of Health. The purpose of the app is to help students learn about the cardiovascular system through a game environment. The basic premise of Monster Heart Medic is that students have to help a […]

Learn About Lake Ecosystems on DIY Lake Science

For the Fourth of July holiday I took my daughters to play at a little beach on a local lake. My older daughter enjoyed gathering snail and mussel shells in her bucket while my younger daughter enjoyed playing with some beach toys. The smell of the snail and mussel shells that my daughter collected reminded […]

SeeSaw Unveils a New Activity Library – 1500+ Activities to Use Now

SeeSaw is a great digital portfolio tool that students can use on Chromebooks, iPads, Android tablets, and on any computer that has an updated web browser. Last fall SeeSaw introduced a feature called “Activities” that enabled teachers to create and give assignments in their SeeSaw online classrooms. That feature proved to be a hit! Now […]

Adobe Spark Post Now Available on Android

Adobe Spark Post is a free graphic design tool that has been available online and as an iPad app for a few years. Last week it finally became available for use as an Android app too. You can use Adobe Spark Post to create photo collages, to edit your images for sharing on social media, […]

Anchor Now Has an iPad App for Easy Podcast Creation and Publication

Anchor is a free service that makes easy to record, edit, and publish your own podcasts. In fact, you can record and publish your first podcast in less than six minutes. You can use Anchor in your web browser, as an Android app, as an iPhone app, and now as an iPad app. Yesterday, Anchor […]

Three Ways to Digitize Your Physical Sticky Notes

Last week Padlet added a new feature to their free iPad and iPhone apps. That feature is the ability to snap a picture of a set of physical sticky notes then have those notes appear on a Padlet wall that you can manipulate in the app and or in your web browser. If you haven’t […]

Lensoo Create – Create Whiteboard Videos on Your Phone or Tablet

Lensoo Create is an app for creating whiteboard videos on your phone or tablet. The app is available in an Android version and in an iOS version (iPad only). To create a video on Lensoo Create just open the app and tap the record button in the top of the screen. You can then start […]

Unsplash for iPad – Quickly Add Public Domain Pictures to Keynote & iMovie

Unsplash is one of my favorite places to find high quality pictures to use in presentations. This week Unsplash launched a new iOS app. The new Unsplash app lets you search through the entire Unsplash collection. The best part of the Unsplash iPad app is that once you find a picture that you like you […]

Poetry Lesson Plans Incorporating Word Mover

April is National Poetry Month. This is a great time to remind you of Read Write Think’s Word Mover app for iOS, Android, and web browser. Word Mover from Read Write Think is a free app that helps students develop poems and short stories. When students open the Word Mover app they are shown a […]

Story Dice – Roll the Dice to Get a Story Starter

Story Dice is the name of two different, but similar apps that can be used to generate creative writing prompts. Story Dice for iOS is a free app that lets you select up to ten dice from four story categories. The dice feature pictures that are intended to prompt you to write about them or […]

Sharalike – Quickly Create Audio Slideshows

Sharalike is a free iOS, Android, and web app that makes it easy to create audio slideshow videos. To create an audio slideshow video with Sharalike simply open the app, select pictures to import, drag and drop them into any sequence you like, and then choose some music to accompany your images. Sharalike handles all […]

Draw and Tell – Great App for Simple Digital Stories

This afternoon, for the first time ever, I let my toddler use my iPad. I hadn’t planned on letting her play with it, but I had it open to play music and she grabbed it while I was changing her sister’s diaper. She enjoyed pushing the button and seeing things change when she tapped the […]

TinyTap – Create Image Reveal Games and Identification Games

This morning I answered an email from a reader who was looking for a way to create educational games in which students have to correctly answer questions in order to reveal a picture or part of a picture. My suggestion was to try TinyTap. TinyTap is a free iPad app and free Android app that […]

How to Use Padlet’s New Broadcast Feature

Padlet has been on a roll with new updates over the last year. The latest feature added to Padlet makes it easier than ever to share your Padlet walls with your students and colleagues. Now when you’re using Padlet on your Android or iOS device you can broadcast your wall to be discovered by other […]

Three Free iPad Apps for Creating Animated Movies

Last night I answered an email from a reader who was looking for a free alternative to Tellagami. Tellagami hasn’t been updated to work with iOS 11 so if you’ve updated your iPad, the app won’t work. Tellagami says that an update is coming, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for that. They said […]

Aquation – A Game for Learning About Global Access to Clean Water

Aquation is a free game offered by the the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The game, designed for students in upper elementary school or middle school, teaches students about the distribution of clean water and what can be done to balance global water resources. In the game students select a region to explore its current water […]

Peter Pig Helps Kids Learn About Money

Peter Pig’s Money Counter is a fun little game designed to help kids learn to recognize U.S. coins, to recognize the values of U.S. coins, and to add the values of U.S. coins. The game is available to play online. Peter Pig’s Money Counter is also available as a free iPad app and as a […]

10 Free Apps for Elementary School Math Lessons

Math Learning Center offers ten free apps that are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. All of the apps are available in versions as free iPad apps, as Chrome apps, and for use in the web browser of any computer. With the exception of the flashcards app, all of the Math Learning Center’s free […]

Three Free iPad Apps for Creating Talking Animations

Creating videos with students is the topic of one of my most popular on-site workshops. I always customize the workshop depending upon the type of device that teachers are using and the grades that they teach. The following are three of my favorite iPad apps for elementary school students to use to create animations on […]

A Handful of Apps for Exploring the Potential of AR in Education

Earlier this week I shared a neat augmented reality app called SkyView that helps users identify constellations, planets, and satellites in the night sky. SkyView could be helpful in sparking students’ curiosity about space. SkyView shows some of the potential for augmented reality in education. There are other apps that I often share with people who […]

BandBlast – A Fun App for Learning to Play Music

BandBlast is a free app designed to help students learn to play music. There are many ways that students can use the BandBlast app. Whichever way that students end up using the app, they all have to start by selecting an instrument that they wish to play either virtually or physically. Students who want to […]

SkyView – An Augmented Reality App to Help Students Find Constellations

SkyView is a free augmented reality app (an Android version and an iOS version is available) that helps students identify stars and constellations. With the free app installed students can point their phones at the sky and see constellations identified on their screens. In addition to constellations the app will identify planets, satellites, and some […]

Music Crab – A Cute App for Learning to Read Music

Music Crab is simple and free iPad designed to help students learn to read music. The app features a little crab that students move by playing virtual piano keys in the app. To move the crab students have to play the correct notes. If they play too many incorrect notes in a row, the game […]

PuppetMaster – A Great App for Creating Animated Movies

PuppetMaster is a free iPad app that kids can use to create animated movies. The app is designed for elementary school students and therefore doesn’t require students to create accounts in order to use it. All movies made with the PuppetMaster app are saved to the camera roll on a student’s iPad. To create an […]

RWT Flip Book – Free Flip Book Creator for Kids

Read Write Think offers a lot of great tools to help you get your students interested in writing. One of those tools is the RWT Flip Book app. The RWT Flip Book app is available for iPad, for Android, and for use in your web browser (Chrome or Firefox is recommended). RWT Flip Book lets […]

Built to Last – GeoGebra

GeoGebra is the fifth entry into my Built to Last series. This is a series of blog posts celebrating the free resources that have been available to teachers and students over the ten years that I have been publishing Free Technology for Teachers. When I started writing Free Technology for Teachers GeoGebra was available to […]

Fraction Mash – A Neat App for Elementary School Math Lessons

Fraction Mash is a free iPad app that provides a fun way for students to learn about fractions. The app lets students insert two pictures then divide those pictures into grids, columns, pie slices, triangles, or rows. Once their pictures have been divided students select the portions of one picture that they want to combine […]

TinyTap Introduces a New “Houdini” Mode for Educational Games

TinyTap is a great tool for creating your own educational games for students to play on their iPads or on their Android tablets. Earlier this year they added an option to create games that have voice response features. For the new school year TinyTap has added another new feature. The new feature is called Houdini […]

How to Use SeeSaw’s New Messaging Option

SeeSaw is a great digital portfolio tool that works on Chromebooks, iPads, Android tablets, and any computer with a modern web browser. Earlier this year at the ISTE conference SeeSaw announced some new features including a new messaging option. The new messaging option is now available to all teachers. In the video embedded below I […]

Google Earth for iPad Now Equal to Android Version

Back in April Google introduced a completely new version of Google Earth for Android and for use in your web browser. This week that new version finally arrived for iPhone and iPad users. Like the Android version of Google Earth, the iOS version features a “voyager” mode for taking virtual tours of places around the […]

SeeSaw Unveils New Features at ISTE 17

This morning at ISTE 2017 I had a nice conversation with Carl Sjogreen from SeeSaw. Carl shared with me the newest features being added to SeeSaw. The following new features will be available on July 5th and are available to preview here at the ISTE conference. 1. A new teacher-to-student and teacher-to-parent messaging system has […]

A Good App and A Good Site for Learning About Endangered Animals

WWF Together is a beautiful iPad app and Android app that features interactive stories about endangered animals around the world. Each of the interactive stories includes beautiful images and videos, facts about the animals and their habitats, and the threats to each of the animals. Some of the animals currently featured in the app are pandas, marine […]

Convert Physical Sticky Notes Into Digital Notes

Post-it Plus is a free iPad app that you can use to turn your physical sticky notes into digital notes. With this free app installed on your iPad or iPhone you can snap a picture of a collection of physical sticky notes and have them quickly digitized. Once your notes are digitized you can re-arrange them, […]

12 Sites and Apps for Learning to Code

Last week on Twitter I mentioned that Logo was my introduction to computers and programming. Today we have many more ways to introduce students to programming and coding. Here are some good resources that you can use to introduce students to programming and coding. When the conversation amongst educators turns to programming, Scratch is often […]

Fact Fragment Frenzy

Fact Fragment Frenzy is a free iPad and Android app from Read Write Think. The purpose of the app is to help students learn how to pull facts out of a passage of text. The app includes a demonstration video in which the narrator explains which words in a text represent facts and which words […]

10 Apps & Sites That Help Students Learn To Spell

Last night a new champion was crowned in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I followed a lot of the finals on Twitter last night. Like many others who followed the finals, I have to admit that there were some new-to-me words in the final rounds. That reminded me that I have a bunch of sites […]

Try This Fun, Free AR App for Outdoor Lessons

Spring is here in the northern hemisphere and those of us in northern climates are ready to get back to playing outside without wearing seven layers of clothing. This is the time of the school year when my students always ask about having class outside. If you’re an elementary school teacher who is ready to […]

Word Mover – A Great App for National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. If you have students who need a little help crafting poems, have them try Word Mover. Word Mover from Read Write Think is a free app that helps students develop poems and short stories. When students open the Word Mover app they are shown a selection of words that they […]

Explore NASA Spacecraft in 3D

Spacecraft 3D is a free iPad app produced by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Spacecraft 3D uses augmented reality technology to bring NASA spacecraft to life on your iPad. To get started using the app you first need to print out the spacecraft target codes. Then your students can scan those target codes with their iPads. […]

Plum’s Creaturizer – A Neat AR App to Get Kids Exploring Outdoors

Creaturizer from PBS Kids is a free iOS and Android app that lets students create fun cartoon creatures then place them into outdoor settings through the use of augmented reality. In the app students create cartoon creatures by swiping and tapping on the features they want their creatures to have (students can have multiple creature […]

Google Calendar Now Optimized for iPads- Finally

My life seems to be run by Google Calendar and Google Keep these days. I use it to schedule and keep track of appointments, to keep track of how many hours the babysitter worked in a week, and to remind of the things I need to do everyday to reach my goals. The one complaint […]

Free Through the Weekend – Teach Your Monster to Read Mobile Apps

Teach Your Monster to Read is one of my favorite online programs for helping children learn to recognize letters and sounds. The browser-based version of Teach Your Monster to Read is free and always has been free. The mobile apps for the program are usually not free. Through this coming Sunday (March 26th) the iPad […]

30Hands Has Removed Free App – Try These Alternatives

30Hands is an iPad app that I’ve used and shared in workshops quite a bit over the last few years. It’s a nice app for creating flipped lessons or whiteboard-style instructional videos. Unfortunately, after years of offering a free version of the app, the developers have pulled the plug on the free version. The paid […]

Duolingo Tinycards – Quick Review Activities

Tinycards is a free service from Duolingo that provides quick review activities in your web browser or on your iPad. Tinycards are essentially multimedia flashcards with a few quiz questions interspersed between them. The idea being that students will flip through a few digital flashcards then answer a question or two to test their recall […]

Nudge – Interactive Algebra Lessons on iPads and Android Tablets

Nudge is a free iPad and Android app that provides students with interactive, on-demand algebra tutorials. The free app provides students with practice problems that they attempt to solve on their iPads or Android devices. When they get stuck on a problem students can ask for hint or for a demonstration of how to solve […]

View Animals and Their Ranges Through WWF Apps

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) offers a neat app and corresponding website for learning about animals around the world. The WWF Together app (available for iPad and some Android devices) features interactive stories about endangered animals around the world. Each of the interactive stories includes beautiful images and videos, facts about the animals and their […]

Winning Words – Fun Word Games for Kids

Parts of this post originally appeared on one of my other blogs, iPadApps4School.com. Winning Words is the developer of seven free word games for students to play on their iPads. All of the games use the same style as the classic Memory card game. For example, in Antonym Match students have to flip over one […]

Know Lounge – Host Online Tutoring Sessions for Free

Know Lounge is a complementary service to the Know Recorder app that I reviewed yesterday. Know Lounge lets you create an online room in which you can host tutoring sessions and record videos. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use Know Lounge as teacher. Applications for Education Know Lounge could be a […]

Know Recorder – Create Whiteboard Videos on iPads and Android Tablets

Know Recorder is a free iPad app and free Android app for creating whiteboard-style instructional videos. With Know Recorder installed on your iPad or Android device you can draw and talk while the app records everything that you do and say. Your video can have multiple pages which is a nice feature when you want […]

Quick Key + Google Classroom = Great Way to Conduct Formative Assessments

Quick Key is an excellent platform for creating and conducting formative assessments. I often include Quick Key in my presentations about formative assessment because it is a tool that works equally well in classrooms that are 1:1 and in classrooms that are not 1:1. This is possible because Quick Key allows you to create formative […]

Try Lapse It for Creating Timelapse Videos

Lapse It is mobile app (available for iOS and Android) that makes it easy to create short time lapse videos. The app comes in two versions, free and pro. The free version is adequate for most uses, but the pro version offers additional editing effects and a much higher output resolution. To create a time […]

SeeSaw Now Supports Text Labeling – 15 Lesson Plans for Using Labels

SeeSaw, a great digital portfolio platform, recently added a new text label feature. The labeling tool in SeeSaw lets your students add text labels to any picture or diagram that they have stored in their portfolios. There are eight pre-made labels that students can apply to their pictures and drawings within SeeSaw. Students can also […]

Toontastic 3D – Create 3D Cartoon Videos on iOS, Chrome, and Android

On Thursday Google released a new version of the popular animation creation app, Toontastic. The new version is called Toontastic 3D and it is available to download on the Android, iOS, and Chrome platforms. I installed on an Android phone and found it to be easy to use to create animated videos. To make a […]

TinyTap Talk or Type – Voice Response Activities

TinyTap is a service that lets you create educational games for your students to play on their iPads, Android tablets, and in their web browsers. For the most part the style of games that are created on TinyTap are identification activities in which students either choose an answer or type an answer to a question. […]

Pass the Past – A Review App for History Students

Pass the Past is a free iPad app designed to help students review U.S. and World History. The app was designed for students preparing for Virginia’s Standards of Learning exams, but it can be used by any student reviewing for a test on U.S. or World history. Pass the Past offers a large selection of […]

Free World and U.S. Map Puzzles for iPads & Android Tablets

Digital Gene offers a variety of educational apps for iPads and for Android tablets. Two of the Digital Gene apps that could be useful for elementary school geography review are Enjoy Learning World Map Puzzle and Enjoy Learning U.S. Map Puzzle. Both of these free iPad apps have the same basic types of puzzle activities. […]

Math Vocabulary Cards in English and Spanish

One of the challenges that some students face in learning math is just understanding the vocabulary used in mathematics. Math Vocabulary Cards can help students overcome that challenge. Math Vocabulary Cards is a free iPad app designed for elementary school students. The app offers exactly what its name implies, a series of flashcards of mathematics […]

Nominate Your Favorite Ed Tech Tools of the Year

At this time of the year you will find lots of “app of the year” type of blog posts on the web. The problem with those posts is that they’re usually based on one person’s subjective criteria. This year I’d like to ask you to help me identify the best educational apps and websites of […]

How to Insert Video Clips Into Adobe Spark Projects

Last week Adobe Spark added a new option to their video editing program. You can now insert video clips into your projects. Previously you could only use images, text, and audio in the videos that you created in Adobe Spark. The new option lets you upload video clips from your computer or iPad then trim […]

A Fun App for Learning to Add Fractions

This post originally appeared on one of my other blogs, iPadApps4School.com. Fraction Mash is a free iPad app that provides a fun way for students to learn about fractions. The app lets students insert two pictures then divide those pictures into grids, columns, pie slices, triangles, or rows. Once their pictures have been divided students […]

A Blog About iPad Apps and One About Android Apps

About a month ago I had a huge database problem on my blogs iPad Apps 4 School and Android 4 Schools. After a month of struggle I finally admitted that I was out of my league and called in professional help this morning. Of course, the pro was able to fix it all about an […]

Add Text Labels to Drawings & Pictures in SeeSaw Portfolios

In the two years since its initial launch SeeSaw has become one of my most frequently recommended digital portfolio tools. The team at SeeSaw is continuously developing new features to make it a better tool for students and teachers. The latest enhancement to SeeSaw comes in the form of a new labeling option in the […]

5 out of 5 of These Resources Can Help You Teach Fractions Lessons

In an earlier post I highlighted the Thinking Blocks tools included in Math Playground. Thinking Blocks offers a good way to introduce your students to fractions. Here are some other good resources for teaching fractions. Who Wants Pizza? is a fun online activity for learning about fractions. Who Wants Pizza was developed by Cynthia Lanius at Rice University. The activity […]

Sushi, Gmail, and Kahoot

At the end of every month I like to take a look at the search terms visitors frequently use on Free Technology for Teachers. It gives me a sense of what people are interested in learning about. That information helps me brainstorm new blog posts for the next month. The three most commonly searched terms in […]

A Brief History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

No unit of study about the Cold War is complete without including the Cuban Missile Crisis. The latest TED-Ed lesson provides students with a five minute overview of the moments of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The History of the Cuban Missile Crisis explains why the Soviet Union wanted to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, the […]

Draw and Tell: Create Animated Screencasts with Elementary Students

This is a guest post from Tom Daccord (@thomasdaccord) of EdTechTeacher, an advertiser on this site. Thanks to a recent partnership with Khan Academy, Duck Duck Moose has made its terrific Draw and Tell iOS app completely FREE. With Draw and Tell, young students can easily create an animated screencast complete with voice, drawings, images, and […]

Add Audio to Images In SeeSaw Digital Portfolios

SeeSaw is a great platform for creating digital portfolios. Whether students use the free SeeSaw iPad app, the Android app, the Chrome app, or just the website they can add all kinds of media to their digital portfolios. SeeSaw supports uploading videos, documents, slideshows, and audio recordings. Students can also include hyperlinks in their digital […]

5 Dice – An App to Help Students Learn the Order of Operations

5 Dice is a nice iPad app that provides students with a place to practice and develop their understanding of the order of operations. The 5 Dice app presents students with a number that they have to write an equation for using all of the dice presented to them. When students think that they have created […]

Khan Academy Adds 21 Free iPad Apps to Their Offerings

In what looks like a clear move to try to reach the elementary school market, Khan Academy has acquired Duck Duck Moose. Duck Duck Moose is the developer of 21 popular iPad apps including ChatterPix, Draw and Tell, and Moose Math. Duck Duck Moose has also published eight Android apps. ChatterPix and Draw and Tell […]

5 Tools to Help Keep Your Students and Yourself Active & Healthy

The new school year always feels like a new calendar year to me as many students and teachers have “resolutions” for the new school year. If one of your resolutions for the new school year is to keep yourself or your students active and healthy, the following free resources are for you. GoNoodle is a free […]

How to Conduct an Online Poll and Gather Image Responses Instantly

PingPong is a free online polling system that lets you collect feedback in the form of multiple choice, text, or image-based responses. In the short video embedded below I demonstrate the teacher and student views of the free PingPong response system. Applications for Education All PingPong activities are single question/ single prompt activities. The single […]

Summer Stories – Back-to-School Activities

The new school year is here for many and will be here soon for the rest of us. The first days of school are always exciting as we meet new students, they meet their new classmates, and we all start to get to know each other. As we all know, some students will start chatting […]

The Physics of Olympic Sports

The 2016 Olympics got underway over the weekend. I was thrilled to see the U.S. men win a second consecutive silver medal in archery on Saturday afternoon. Speaking of archery, CK-12 has a great set of physics simulations about archery and eleven other Olympic sports. The simulations are available to view in your web browser […]

PingPong – Collect Sketches & Written Feedback from Students

PingPong is a student response system that I recently learned about from Danny Nicholson. Like many similar systems PingPong provides you with a free and easy way to collect feedback from students in the forms of multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions. PingPong also lets you collect sketches from students which is a great […]

Reminder! TechSmith Is Ending Popular Free Products – Try These Alternatives

Back in May TechSmith announced that they are ending support for some popular tools that they had offered for free for years. This afternoon I received an email from TechSmith reminding me that on August 31st they will be ending support for ScreenChomp, Snagit for Chrome, and Knowmia. Here are some alternatives to Snagit for […]

Getting Started With Kaizena – Voice Commenting on Google Docs

Over the weekend a reader posted the following message on the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page, Hey Richard, would you be able to recommend a free site for audio feedack to students? I want to record my feedback on essays and have kids listen. Don’t know where to start. Is it an audio file […]

Connect Your Classroom Through SeeSaw Connected Blogs

On Tuesday morning at the ISTE 2016 conference I sat down with the founder of the popular digital portfolio tool, SeeSaw. He showed me some of updated features of SeeSaw’s free product as well as the new analytics options within SeeSaw Plus (a subscription service). One of the best features of SeeSaw’s free service is […]

Digital Storytelling With the Latest Version of Buncee Edu Mobile

Buncee is a nice tool that makes it easy for young students to craft digital stories. Recently, Buncee updated their iOS app to optimize for iPad and iPhone displays. The latest version of Buncee’s iOS app brings the best content creation tools of the Buncee Edu web app to the iOS environment. Buncee Edu provides […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from an airplane somewhere over the North Carolina/ Tennessee border. I’m headed out to Denver for the ISTE 2016 conference. As I boarded the flight I ran into my friend Kelly Hines from Discovery Education. I’m sure there are plenty of other excited educators on the flight too. If you are going to […]

Stop Motion Studio Offers a Great Way to Make Videos

Stop Motion Studio is a great app for creating stop motion videos. The app is available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac operating systems. The basic (free) version of Stop Motion Studio lets you take as many pictures as you like and string them together in a sequence that plays back at a frame-per-second rate […]

My Three Favorite Video Creation iPad Apps for Elementary School

Over the last month I have spoken at conferences all over the United States. Creating videos with students is was the topic of one of my most popular break-out sessions during that time. In that session I try to offer resources and ideas for teachers of all grade levels. I also try to provide resources […]

10 Sites and Apps for Vocabulary and Spelling Practice

Last night I watched the conclusion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. A recap of the finals is available on the Associated Press YouTube channel. Like many others who watched the finals, I have to admit that there were some new-to-me words in the final rounds. That reminded me that I have a bunch of sites […]

Hopscotch – Learn Coding Basics on Your iPad or iPhone

Hopscotch is a free iOS app that introduces students to programming logic. The app originally launched as an iPad-only app. Last week the developers released an iPhone-friendly version of the free app. In Hopscotch students put command boxes into order to make cartoon avatars move and draw lines. Students can program one or all of […]

Tony Vincent Teaches Us How to Make Great Illustrations

Over the weekend my friend Tony Vincent sent me an email about a new video that he made about Adobe Illustrator Draw. Adobe Illustrator Draw is a free iPad app and Android app. It’s the app that Tony uses to make the awesome illustrations that appear in his presentations, on his website, and in his […]

Front Row – Adaptive Math & ELA Practice for K-8 Students

Disclosure: Front Row is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com. Front Row is a service that offers teachers a nice way to deliver practice math and ELA activities to their students. The central feature of Front Row is that students are given practice activities based upon their individual needs. To get started with Front Row teachers […]

Haiku Deck Releases a New iPhone App for Creating Presentations

This morning Haiku Deck, a popular presentation creation tool, released a new iPhone app. This new app brings the features of the Haiku Deck iPad app and web app to the iPhone. The Haiku Deck apps allow anyone to create beautiful slide presentations. One of the core features of Haiku Deck that has made is […]

Kaizena for iPad – Add Voice Notes to Students’ Printed Documents

Kaizena is a great tool for adding voice comments to your students’ documents and slides. When Kaizena originally launched it was designed for adding comments to Google Documents and Google Slides in the Chrome web browser. It then expanded to add support for Word files and PDFs. The latest update to Kaizena introduces support for […]

A Nice Little Update to the Plickers iOS App

Plickers is my favorite student response tool for classrooms in which not every student has his or her own tablet or laptop. Plickers makes it easy to semi-anonymously gather feedback from students. Students simply hold up a card with a QR code to vote and you scan the cards with your phone or tablet. You […]

Scribeasy Offers Great Visual Prompts for Creating Short Stories

Scribeasy is a free iPad app that offers a fun environment in which students can write short stories. Students create stories on Scribeasy by first selecting a background image then dragging and dropping additional pictures onto their chosen background images. When students select objects to add to their backgrounds, a narrator reads the name of […]

Now You Can Sync Your Google Classroom Roster With Quick Key

Quick Key is a free app that turns your iPhone or Android phone into a bubble sheet scanner. It has two parts to it that when combined make it very easy for you to quickly grade multiple choice and true/false quizzes. This week Quick Key introduced the option to sync your Google Classroom rosters to […]

3 Tools for Creating Comics on iPads

This morning I received an email from a reader who was looking for suggestions for tools that her students can use to create comics on their iPads. I recommended some paid and free apps to her. The free tools that I recommend are featured below. Make Beliefs Comix is a free multilingual comic strip creation […]

Wikipedia Releases an Updated App for Exploring Interesting Content

The Wikimedia Foundation has released a new version of their Wikipedia iPad and iPhone app. The latest version, available now, features an aspect they’re calling the Explore feed. The Explore feed will provide users with personalized content updated daily. In the Explore feed users will see featured articles of the day, recommended articles based on reading […]

Best of the Web – Spring 2016

This afternoon at the NCTIES 2016 conference I had the privilege to once again give my Best of the Web presentation to a packed room (conservative guess of 350 people). The presentation features short overviews of my favorite new and or updated ed tech resources of the last year. Almost all of today’s presentation featured […]

5 Dice – A Fun Math Activity on iPads

5 Dice is a nice iPad app designed to provide students with a place to practice and develop their understanding of the order of operations. The 5 Dice app presents students with a number that they have to write an equation for using all of the dice presented to them. When students think that they have […]

Develop Mathematics Skills With Sushi Monster

Sushi Monster is a free iPad game from Scholastic that helps kids practice their addition and multiplication skills. This is the premise of Sushi Monster; students feed their Sushi Monsters by correctly choosing two numbers that when added or multiplied result in the number that the monster wants to eat. When the monster has been […]

Three Examples of Students Creating Real-World Products to Solve Problems That Mattered to Them

In many of my presentations I try to make the point that “real world” problems are whatever problems that matter to students. That problem could be figuring out how to get into college, how to earn some money, or how to better prepare for an exam that feels important to them. In my presentation Leading […]

New Commenting Options in Google Slides, Sheets, Docs Mobile Apps

If you have run updates on your iPad or Android tablet in the last 24 hours you might have noticed some new commenting options in Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets. If you haven’t run updates, you will want to after learning about the new commenting features. Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets for iOS and Android […]

Three Free iOS Apps for Test Prep

Last week my post about the test prep app Gojimo was one of the most popular posts of the week. This morning someone emailed me looking for a simple app in which students could create their own review materials. The following three apps let students create their own review flashcards that include explanations for questions. […]

A Math Review App in English and Spanish

Math Vocabulary Cards is a free iPad app designed for elementary school students. The app offers exactly what its name implies, a series of flashcards of mathematics vocabulary terms. Each card contains a term, a diagram, and a definition. By default the term is hidden and students have to guess the term based on the […]

Gojimo – A Great App for Self-paced Test Prep

Earlier today I had the opportunity to test out a study app called Gojimo. Gojimo was initially developed by a student for students. Gojimo offers thousands of free practice tests for students of high school age. Students can find practice tests for topics in science, math, history, geography, economics, and language arts. The app was […]

Three Free iPad Apps for Fun Vocabulary Practice

Yesterday, I received an email from an elementary school teacher who was looking for some new-to-her vocabulary practice apps to put on her classroom set of iPads. The following were my suggestions. Winning Words is a series of free iPad apps that feature matching / “memory” style vocabulary games. There are six apps in the […]

Newsela’s iPad App Offers News Stories Sorted by Reading Level

Newsela is a service that helps teachers find current events articles that are appropriate for their students’ age and reading abilities. This week Newsela launched a free iPad app and iPhone app. The Newsela iPad app and iPhone app delivers current news articles to students. The stories are matched to students’ reading abilities. At the end of each […]

SeeSaw Now Offers a Simple & Safe Blogging Platform for Kids

SeeSaw is a great digital portfolio tool for students and teachers. It works on all devices including iPads and Android tablets. The service allows students to draw and annotate items in their digital portfolios. In the SeeSaw iPad app students can talk while drawing on pictures in their portfolios. Today, SeeSaw launched a blogging function. Now you can […]

16 Ways to Use TinyTap in Your Classroom

TinyTap is a fantastic free iPad app and Android app for building fun and interactive review games. With the app you can create games based on pictures, diagrams, videos, and icons. Students can play your games on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. Speaking of playing games, TinyTap recently published […]

How Do We Know What Color Dinosaurs Were?

How Do We Know What Color Dinosaurs Were? is a new TED-Ed lesson that answers a question I often had in school. In the lesson we learn how scientists examine the melanosomes of fossilized feathers to determine the colors of some dinosaurs. The lesson explains how the physics of light and color eventually lead scientists […]

Classkick Introduces Viewer Mode – Parents Can View Students’ Work on Any Device

Classkick is a free service for creating, distributing, and assessing students’ work. Originally, the service was only available on iPads. It is now available to use on any device that has an updated web browser. The latest update to Classkick brings a feature called Classkick Viewer. Classkick Viewer allows parents, teachers, and students to view assignments […]