App Essentials: Werdsmith

Werdsmith is an interesting app. It is just a text editor. There are no bells, no whistles, it is just a place for you to create and write and work on those long writing projects that you have a hard time focusing on. Not much to review, but take a look at the video for why I am choosing to highlight this video.

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Holiday App Guide (for iOS)

Well, it is that time of year when we all dip into our pockets a bit and give the gift of gaming and productivity to those around us (especially if you want folks to shell out the $9.99 to play Carcassone). This year, I started publishing my own set of App Reviews. I started publishing my own, when I realized that some of my favorite games were not covered by a lot of review sites. There was nothing out there to help me find the best SciFi games or games that you can learn from. There has been a lot of trial and error in my review process, but in general, I review apps in three broad...

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App Essentials: iStudiez Pro

There are a ton of planning apps out there for you to sink your teeth into. I have used a bunch of them as I tried to find the best programs in my productivity series. What I learned is that as a Teacher and a Student, you have different needs than a business professional.

As a student, I love using iStudiez Pro to manage my calendar, assignments, and grades. This application is a great purchase if you want to get all of the functionality of a physical planner on your iPad. As a technologist, I always watch for those apps that are an integration platform. iStudiez Pro is a great app because it syncs with the default calendars to give you a complete view of your schedule and what is going on. I used this daily in my graduate courses to ensure that I had every assignment marked out and broken down for me and my team to complete.

This is a great app for integrating your normal planning in your iOS devices.

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App Essentials: Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is the best resource app on the iPad. It has a very STEM tilt, but works great for language as well as math and science. As an education and productivity app, this cannot be beat.

In an educational context, you can have students do real time calculations with moving celestial objects, evaluate expressions, and of course do advanced mathematic modeling. It is a great way to give the power of science and math to students.

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App Essentials: Trello (Projects)

Platform: iOS     Cost: Free Trello is a great program if you understand how to use it. Like most things, there is a bit of a learning curve to setup and start using the Trello tracking system. I find that it works best when I use Trello in a team. When edits are made by any member of the team, you can set notification preferences for email and iOS Alerts. A great way to track larger projects that span multiple team members and to-do items. The Video Review

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