Monday- Must Have App(s)

Happy Monday friends! You may remember my Top Ten Favorite Apps awhile back but I am constantly downloading and trying new apps! Did you know there are over 700,000 apps in the Apple App Store?

Toontastic is a free app I have had on my iPad forever but just started exploring! It is a storytelling, animation, cartoon creation app that creates videos which can be shared on the  ToonTube Website. You an upgrade to the All Access Pass which gives you a ton additional characters and settings for $9.99. You can also buy Toy Sets for $0.99. I have a few iTunes gift cards that I have been holding onto and I think the full upgrade will be my next purchase! It was really easy to use and I had a lot of fun creating my first Toon Tube Cartoon. Please excuse my horrible voice and the fact that I actually sound like a five year old with a great vocabulary. 

Puppet Pals Director's Pass ($2.99) is another awesome animation creation app! There is a Pocket version which is free but it has limited characters and settings. The upgrade gives you access to a lot more characters and also gives you the ability to import your own pictures for characters or setting which is super fun. One of the second grade teachers at my school just used Puppet Pals to create a Social Studies Fairy to teach her class about local and state government and then they used that information to create an Animoto. The kids LOVED the social studies fairy although the boys were convinced it was their teacher's voice. 

Show Me remains one of my all time favorite apps! I have blogged about it here and here. Show Me turns your iPad into a mini SMART Board essentially and allows you to record voice over whiteboard.  It is super easy to use and FREE! Show Me allows you to easily explain a range of topics to teach a lesson or assess students on their knowledge. Here are a few middle school student examples. As soon as you save your Show Me it is posted to the web! You can post a link or embed the actual Show Me on your class page. 

8th Grade Multi-Step Math Equation

This one is a great example of using this as an assessment tool. Obviously the girl is able to solve the problem and come up with the correct answer however, she has a big misconception and is reading the symbol incorrectly which causes her final graphing step to be incorrect. It is much easier to see where she went wrong over just her steps on a piece of paper.

Happy linking! I cannot wait to see what you think are Must Have Apps!!!