The iPad is a revolutionary Tablet PC that serves as an e-Book reader and so much more. It can do almost everything you would expect from a laptop, but what makes the iPad so useful is the incredible number of free apps that users can download. This article focuses on some of the Educational apps that are available for the iPad user. The apps reviewed in this article are:
- Kobo e-Reader,
- iBooks,
- Present,
- Culture GPS,
- Tips for iPad,
- Strategic Acceleration,
- NPR,
- 3D Medical Images,
- 3D Brain,
- Discover.
Free E-Book Readers for Education
There are a number of great e-book reader apps available for the iPad. Kobo and iBooks are two of the best for ease of use, functionality and features.
Kobo has a great layout. The opening screen brings the user to the Library, which houses all of the users purchased e-books. The opening screen also gives the user the option of navigating to the Kobo store to purchase more e-books or to review the books that are currently being read. Kobo also enables the reader to bookmark, review the Table of contents and switch to a night reading mode (very useful). Kobo has a great selection of e-books available to purchase.
iBooks is also a great user interface with the opening screen presented as a bookshelf, loaded with the users purchased books. As with Kobo, the user can enlarge and shrink text as well as bookmark text. A useful feature of iBooks that Kobo does not seem to have is the total number of pages left to read in the book as well as the current page number the user is on.
This is helpful, if you find yourself referencing an e-book that you have been reading. In Kobo you cannot find the actual page number you are reading. Kobo renders only the page number of the chapter you are reading and then reverts back to page 1 in the following chapter. This is not a problem if you are not referencing from e-books that you have purchased.
Free Educational Business Skills Apps
There are some extremely helpful free business skill apps. These apps assist the user in developing presentation skills, cross cultural skills, and strategic planning skills.
Present is a free iPhone app that looks and works great on the iPad. Present boasts 60 presentation tips in a Tapstack format. You simply swipe the current card to move on to the next card, shake the iPad to ascertain which card number in the stack you are currently reviewing. This app has great presentation tips and best of all, it is free!
Culture GPS is helpful for anyone who works in cross cultural settings. This app is based upon the amazing book “Cultural Intelligence”. It is a free app that uses the 5D model developed in the book. The user can look up almost any country in the world and gain a general understanding of the cultural mores of that particular country. The five areas reviewed by this app are: Power Distance Index, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long Term Orientation.
Strategic Acceleration is another Tapstack series of 60 cards. Each card has a helpful strategic focus that will sharpen any leader or executive in the execution of his or her duties.
Tips for iPad is a must have app that will greatly enhance your iPad usage and productivity. It is full of useful tips and tricks and the graphics and user interface make the learning easy and fun.
Free Educational Apps for the Whole Family
3DMedical Images and 3D Brain are two amazing free apps that take the user right inside the human body and inside the human brain! The graphics are exceptional!
NPR is a great iPad app that graphically displays the current listings of program offering on National Public Radio with special reference to three categories, News, Arts and Life, and Music. One of the great features of this app is that many of the program offerings are available to listen to directly on the iPad!
Discover is powered by Cooliris and serves as a free encyclopedia on the iPad. You can search for any topic in the search and choose from a list of search results. The search results come back in a library format and the search result you choose to review is rendered in an easy to read Encyclopedia format, complete with photographs, diagrams, statistics and all manner of useful information. This is a great educational app.
The iPad is a revolutionary tool that is also extremely educational. I have only scratched the surface of the incredible range of free educational apps that are available for the iPad. Time and space do not permit a review of other amazing free educational apps like: EZ Interiors, Sonatanote, Guitar Scales, HGTV, BBC News, Wikipanion, WirdyBooks, and many others.