Category Archives: ipad

PhotoToaster – iPad App of the Week

April 10, 2012 James Clay Leave a comment

PhotoToaster – iPad App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.

This week’s App is PhotoToaster.

Flexible Interface

PhotoToaster™ combines the ease of use of a ‘pick from a preset’ app with the power and flexibility of full manual adjustment. Three different editing interfaces are available to provide ease of use for the novice and creative accuracy for the discerning professional. Start with the collection of beautiful global presets, move down to the category presets, or dive right in and adjust individual settings. The edits are non-destructive, so you can experiment all you want.

Blazingly Fast Performance

Speed is a major ingredient of the Toaster. You don’t have to let go of a slider and then wait to see the result. The sliders are ‘live’ and the feedback is instant. There’s no waiting with the Toaster.

Non-destructive

Non-destructive photo processing means that order doesn’t matter. If you add a vignette and then adjust crop, the vignette will be reapplied. If you add a border and then do an image adjustment, the adjustment is applied only to the image. This allows for a fun and creative editing experience.

Creative

The adjustments are combined to provide infinite possibilities. Your photo doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s with the Toaster. Even if you start with a preset, you can open the manual settings and adjust the controls until it’s just right for you.

You can email or message the result, post it to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr, or save to your photo album.

£1.49

Regular readers of this series will know that I have a particular fondness for image editing apps and do like trying out different photo imaging apps.

PhotoToaster allows you to edit photographs, manipulating the brightness and contrast, add filters (effects), add textures and add borders or vignettes. Continue reading PhotoToaster – iPad App of the Week →

e-book, ipad

ebrary on Bluefire

February 15, 2012 James Clay 2 Comments

One of the criticisms I had of the official ebrary app for iPad was that if you used Federated Access or Athens the only way to authorise the app was via Facebook.

I am never a fan of making people sign up to a social networking service just so that they can do something else or to support their learning. Also in many FE Colleges, Facebook is blocked for either staff, learners or both, or there is restricted access.

I had heard of the Bluefire app before, but hadn’t looked at it, as the reports I heard was that it “didn’t work” across Federated Access or Athens and needed a dedicated ebrary account.

Whilst researching my ebrary on Android article I decided that the Bluefire app may be worth another look, as I had read that it was possible to use Bluefire with an Adobe Digital ID to access and download ebrary books, all without needing to go through Facebook.

Download the Bluefire app from the iTunes App store, it’s a free app.

Authorise the app with your Adobe Digital ID.

Visit the ebrary platform in the mobile Safari browser. Sign in, through Federated Access (or Athens) and then find the book you want. Select Download and then download the book.

If you have the ebrary app on your iOS device then you will be asked which app you want to use with the download.

Select Open in… and then select Bluefire Reader.

In terms of usability both Bluefire and ebrary work in a similar manner.

The advantage of Bluefire over ebrary, is not just not needing to connect your ebrary account with Facebook, but also you can use the Bluefire app for other e-books, so you can use a single app for all your reading. If your college is publishing resources and assignments in ePub format then you will be able to read these in the Bluefire app.

app of the week, e-book, ipad, iphone

ebrary – iPad App of the Week

February 7, 2012 James Clay 4 Comments

ebrary – iPad App of the Week

Update: The app has now been discontinued.

This week’s App is ebrary.

Researchers now have an optimized way to experience authoritative content – both online and offline – from multiple sources including e-books that their institutions acquire from leading publishers and materials uploaded and integrated by librarians.

Free

I have a bit of a passion for e-books. It’s not about replacing paper books, much more a way to provider greater access to books at a time and place to suit the learner.

The e-Books for FE from JISC Collections enables FE Colleges to start with e-Books through the ebrary platform.If you can it makes sense to provide authenticated external access, either through Federated Access or Athens.

One of the disadvantages of the ebrary platform was it was browser based, though that meant you could easily access the collection through a PC or a Mac, it did mean that it was either not possible or challenging to read them on a mobile device.

Recently ebrary have added a download feature to the collection, this means you can download either 40 pages as an unprotected PDF or the whole book for a 14 day loan using Adobe Digital Editions. This means you could transfer it to some e-book readers such as the Sony Reader.

ebrary have just released an iPad and iPhone App. What surprised me was how much better the app was for reading books than the browser based platform on the iPad.

Disappointingly the only way I could get the app to work was to link my account on ebrary that I use with Federated Access with my Facebook account and then link the App with my Facebook account. There didn’t appear to be a way of logging into the App using Federated Access (and I also believe it isn’t possible with Athens either). I guess there is a technical reason for this, but this could cause problems if your institution blocks Facebook for staff or learners (or both).

The app doesn’t “hold” the authentication for very long either, so as a result you do need to re-authenticate on a regular basis. So it’s not like you can authenticate at home and then use it in college, you would need to authenticate across the college network. Though if staff or learners have a 3G iPad then they could just use 3G to authenticate and then go back to wifi to access the book!

In my own college that wouldn’t be an issue, learners would have access to Facebook over the student wireless network and though we do block Facebook to staff, staff who have an “academic need” to use Facebook can get the block lifted. Using Facebook to access ebrary would be a legitimate “academic need”.

Once authenticated you can search and browse for books as you can on the browser platform.

The books download page by page which on a slow connection can be frustratingly slow. It makes much more sense to download the books, but to do that you need an Adobe ID for the Adobe Digital Editions. This is in addition to the other IDs. I can imagine that this could be complicated for learners in having to combine various IDs to use the app. Also if they have been using Ebrary purely through IP authentication on campus they may not even know they need an ID to access the books.

The books are quite large too, the ones I looked at were in the 70-100MB range which on a slow broadband connection will take a while to download. Once downloaded though, moving between chapters, or flicking between pages the experience is so much faster and better than trying to read the books “live” having to download each page. Also it doesn’t require you to re-authenticate so making it much easier to read books on the move. However once you have downloaded a book and it expires you don’t seem to be able to download it again!

I am looking into this limitation. You can return a book early, so I am guessing that is one limited solution. I have managed to re-download an expired book, but I suspect that there may be a watiing time before you can “borrow” it again. The ebrary help does cover some of this, but as the ebrary platform can be used for a variety of books and collections, the help isn’t always specific to the e-Books for FE or the iOS App.

You can copy and paste text from the e-books and what I do like (as it does in the browser) is it adds the appropriate reference to the pasted text. This makes it much easier for learners to understand and recognise the importance of referencing the text they cut and paste.

I will admit that the ebrary app is not perfect, but it does work and it does allow you to access the ebrary collection from your iOS device, there is an app for the iPhone as well as the iPad.

If you are subscribed to the ebrary collection, have a Facebook account and have an iPad, then get this app.

~~Get the ebrary app in the iTunes App Store.~~ Update: The app has now been discontinued.

apple, ipad

Thinking about iTunes U

January 21, 2012 James Clay 4 Comments

Thursday in New York, Apple gave a presentation which announced three new products and services for education, iBooks 2, iBooks Author and an iTunes U app. I’ve already written about iBooks 2 and iBooks Author, so what about iTunes U.

Before today, iTunes U was in the main a marketing tool for universities and colleges. It was a way of showing prospective students great content and give them an idea of what they may expect to experience if they went to that institution. There were some institutions which used iTunes U as a delivery mechanism for their learners, it was even possible to “close” or “lock” down iTunes U so that only authorised users could access the content.

The key though was that iTunes U was a content delivery system and was not about interactive content, communication or collaboration. It also wasn’t a total content delivery system, as iTunes U was in the main focused on delivering audio and video content (and in some cases PDFs).

Most of the main UK Universities and Colleges were not using iTunes U to deliver all their content to their learners and certainly though there was some excellent content, it was just one delivery mechanism for learners. I would hazard a guess that in most institutions, once the learners are there, most of the content would be provided through the institutional virtual learning environment, a tool such as Blackboard or Moodle. These tools do allow for communication and collaboration and interaction. What was always lacking, until very recently, were usable and decent mobile access to the institutional virtual learning environment. Both Blackboard and Moodle now have either a mobile app, or a mobile optimised stylesheet, however these really don’t “work” as well as they could, as both products were designed to work in a standard web browser on a computer.

Apple have “upgraded” iTunes U to allow much more diverse content to be delivered to learners through iTunes and a new iTunes U app for the iPad. With iBooks 2, interactive textbooks can be “purchased” alongside the planned delivery of video and audio. iBooks Author allows teachers and lecturers to create their own “books” that either can be given or sold to learners (through the iBookstore). This means that much more varied content can be delivered through iTunes U.

What Apple have done with iTunes U for the iPad is design an app for the delivery of curriculum from a mobile perspective. The learner will be “given” a complete course that they can then use on their iPad complete with textbooks, video, audio and other content.

What iTunes U lacks is the social interaction, communication and collaboration tools that an institutional virtual learning environment can provide. Learners would probably say, “so what” as we interact and communicate using Facebook and Twitter. So though iTunes U fails from a two way student engagement perspective, there are other ways in which learners will talk, discuss and communicate, whether that includes the practitioner, that remains to be seen.

Will iTunes U replace Blackboard or Moodle? A lot depends on what we as consumers do. It’s true that iTunes has had a huge effect on the music industry and digital downloads. So there is a precedent for Apple changing an industry, the same can be said about the iPod or the iPhone. However we also need to consider Ping and iWeb, not everything Apple does has that golden touch.

Of course you can’t just use iTunes U, firstly your institution needs to apply to be on iTunes U and that isn’t a simple process, and it isn’t something an individual does, you will need to get management in your organisation on board. However I suspect this will be easier once more institutions get enrolled and you could argue about it from a competitive perspective.

Though a lot of stuff on iTunes U can be viewed on a computer, to take advantage of the real potential of the new iTunes U, the learner is going to need an iPad. You can’t read the new textbooks or books created with iBooks Author on a Mac or a PC, only on an iPad. So if you do put content on iTunes U for use with the iTunes U app then you will need to be sure that either a) all your learners have an iPad, or b) you provide the content in a different format. The latter will be challenging as the export functionality in iBooks Author leaves a lot be desired, the alternatives to the iBook format are PDF and text which don’t utilise the use of media or interactivity.

If every learner in your institution has an iPad, then iTunes U is a great way of delivering content to your learners, if every learner doesn’t… well I wouldn’t bother with iTunes U.

Get iTunes U in the iTunes App Store.

apple, e-book, ipad

iBooks Author

January 20, 2012 James Clay 7 Comments

A new free tool, iBooks Author, from Apple that should mean creating content for iBooks on iOS will be much easier.

Today in New York, Apple gave a presentation which announced three new products and services for education, iBooks 2, iBooks Author and an iTunes U app.

I wasn’t too impressed with iBooks 2, on the other hand, iBooks Author I think has real potential for practitioners in allowing them to easily create content that will work on the iPad. Practitioners have been wanting a simple tool that allows them to create simple content with added bells and whistles. This will I think have a greater impact than the textbooks for iBooks 2.

Why?

Well practitioners now have a tool that allows them to not only easily create content they can give to their learners, it also gives universities, colleges and schools the ability to convert and create content, that they can they give away within iTunes U, but also sell in the iBookstore to learners, not only in their institution, but also sell to other students across the world. You will also see individual practitioners creating and selling educational content that before was only mainly done by publishers and software companies. With iBooks Author there is now a tool that is not only free and simple to download, it is also very easy to use. Practitioners who are using Keynote and Pages (or even Powerpoint) will find that it is relatively simple to reuse or convert content, publish and sell it on Apple’s iBookstore.

Having given iBooks Author a try, in a similar vein to iWeb if you don’t mind following the Apple template then the app will work just fine. If you want to go out of the box? Then at this time the app isn’t a solution and you will find it very frustrating.

The export options are limited to iBooks, PDF and text. The PDF option is horrible in that it exports the “pages” in frames with a watermark underneath each one, and none of the media work, even though PDFs can support video and animations. There is also no ePub export option available either. It was rumoured that Apple would be using a ePub3 standard with HTML5 extensions that would allow the use of interactivity and media. Now that may very well be the case, but they are using their version of it which means that firstly any book you create will only really work on the iPad, and won’t work on other readers such as the Sony Reader let alone the Kindle. Secondly if you didn’t want to use iBooks Author to create an iBook then you probably wouldn’t be able to create (easily) an iBook using the ePub3 standard with HTML 5 extensions.

So there is no easy way to export as ePub or import ePub. From the perspective of the average practitioner this isn’t going to be an issue, but for some learning technologists this will probably create some real headaches if they are trying to reuse or repurpose existing content.

I can certainly see a lot of practitioners and institutions deciding to create and sell content using iBooks Author and as a 1.0 release I think it has potential, however it currently reminds me too much of iWeb and not enough of Keynote. For “normal” people I think it will be “awesome” and “magical” for everyone else it will be iWeb.

Get iBooks Author in the Mac App Store.

google, ipad, iphone, kindle, stuff

Top Ten Technologies of 2011

December 29, 2011 James Clay 2 Comments

This is the fourth time I have posted my top ten technologies of the year. Looking back over 2008, 2009 and 2010 it’s interesting to see what new technologies I am now using, which old ones have been left on the shelf and the technologies I still use.

What was interesting this year was how little change there was from last year, as though my personal technologies have settled down. There is no iPhone 4S for example in this year’s list. I keep thinking about upgrading my 3GS to the 4S, but keep putting it off.

There were a few technologies that nearly made it to the list. I really like my Apple TV and it’s a great tool for streaming content to my TV. However I really don’t use it as much as I thought it would. Without content providers such as BBC iPlayer or 4OD it’s not as useful as it could be. No cameras in my list this year, I do use my Canon DSLR a fair bit, though my Sony stills camera has spent very little time out and about. I still miss my Koday Zi8 which went missing in 2010, but the fact that I haven’t replaced it says a lot.

Will be interesting to see what is in my 2012 list.

10. Tricaster

The Tricaster makes a re-entry into my top ten, it was number six in 2009.

So you need to shoot video? You need to stream video? You need to record video? You need more then one camera? You want graphics, you want presentation slides, you want to screenshare? Though there are a plethora of tools out there for shooting and recording video, screen captures, presentations; most then require you to edit the footage before sharing. One of the things I wanted to do was to do all that, but do it live!

The Tricaster makes a comeback this year as it was the tool I used for ALT Live Beta, an experiment at ALT-C 2011 in which we broadcast live backstage video from the conference. It was a lot of fun and was well received by those who couldn’t attend the conference (and by a fair few delegates who were).

9. Blue Snowball Microphone

I have been recording this year again, not just e-Learning Stuff podcasts, but also symposia and other discussions. The Blue Snowball Microphone is certainly a key tool for this. I also use it at home for Skype and making recordings.

The main downside is that the size of the microphone makes it less than ideal for taking to events and carrying in a bag. However the quality of recordings means that I am more keen to use this then any other microphone.

It is lower down the list this year, in the main as I used it less. It is however still an essential tool for me.

8. Edirol R-09HR

The Edirol has appeared in my top ten for the last four years. it’s enduring quality has to be down to the fact it is that it still a brilliant job. It records fantastic audio in WAV or MP3 format to an SD card and uses AA batteries. Still a great technology and does what it says on the tin really well.

7. i7 iMac

People often ask me why I buy Macs, well the i7 iMac is a testament to why I do. I bought my i7 iMac in 2009 and was really impressed, it was my number two in my top ten in 2009 and was also in the top ten in 2010. It’s in the top ten again. Why, well for a computer that is over two years old it is still a really powerful computer that does everything I throw at it. It’s great for video editing, audio editing, video recording, encoding, all that web stuff, office tools and so much more. I use it virtually every day for a whole range of tasks. It’s one powerful machine and I don’t expect to replace it for at least a year, probably two, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I was still using it in 2015!

6. Kindle

I got my Kindle in 2010 and I was impressed with how easy it was to use, to get books and importantly read. Supported by the excellent Kindle app on the iPad, I am using Kindle much more for reading these days.

5. iPhone 4

The iPhone 4 is an amazing smartphone and was what the iPhone should have been from day one. The camera is excellent, and great for taking stills and video. The retina display still astounds me in terms of the visual quality, especially when I drop back to the 3GS (which drops out of the top ten this year). The key advantage of the iPhone for me is the sheer number of apps and the quality and quantity have changed how I use a phone. iOS 5 has improved the user experience, for example notifications (very Android like) are so much better.

I do think the iPhone 4 is one of the best phones I have ever used and I am really pleased with it. However the reason why it has dropped a few places is that it fails now and again as a phone for making phone calls. I have also had some signal issues failing to get a decent 3G signal.

4. Google Nexus One

The Google Nexus One is getting a bit long in the tooth for an Android phone these days, it’s stuck at Gingerbread, there is no Ice Cream Sandwich for the Nexus One (which is a pity). However Gingerbread means that I can use my phone as a portable wireless hotspot so the MiFi stays in the bag and I returned my 3G USB dongle over a year ago now. Another reason why the Nexus One is higher in the top ten was the integration with Google+ and I do like Google+. The main reasons that the Nexus One is higher in the top ten that the iPhone 4 is the fact that it is a better phone for making phone calls. Also I seem to get a better 3G signal on the Nexus One than I do on the iPhone, though that may be down to T-Mobile on the Nexus One over O2 on the iPhone. On quite a few occasions I have used the portable wireless hotspot on the Nexus One to provide internet connectivity to the iPhone (and that can’t be right). I will say I prefer the app experience on the iPhone, but that’s not to say the apps on the Nexus One are awful, no they are really good, but my preference is for iOS.

3. BT Infinity FTTC

My fibre connection was in my top ten last year and over the last twelve months I have been very pleased with the stability and speed of the connection. Rarely, well once or twice, I have had an issue with bandwidth (dropping to a still reasonable 7Mb/s) but generally I have had a stable 37MB/s down and 8MB/s up.

2. MacBook Air

I upgraded my 13” MacBook Pro this year to the 11” Air. Alas not the new model. However I have been very impressed with the MacBook Air. It took me a while to get use to Lion, especially the gestures and though I still prefer Snow Leopard, I am now use to Lion on the Air and it isn’t stopping me from doing stuff (which is key really). I really like the weight (or lack thereof) of the Air and despite the lack of raw power the SSD ensures that the speed of the MacBook is fast enough. It has made an impact on how much I use my iPad and if I had to choose one I think I would choose the Air, but would really miss the iPad.

1. iPad

So for the second year running, the iPad is my top ten technology for the year. Now I know I just said I would choose the Air over the iPad, the difference is that I only got the Air in July and I have been using the iPad all year, and this is a top ten for the year; so it will be interesting to see what will be number one in 2012. Also they are complementary technologies rather than competing technologies, they both have their uses, advantages and disadvantages.

I was surprised in 2010 the impact of the iPad on the way that I did stuff. It continued in 2011 to have a real impact. I use it on a daily basis for communication, collaboration, content creation and content consumption. I did managed to get an iPad 2 in the summer, but in terms of how I use the iPad it had a minimal impact, I rarely use the camera, but do like the mirroring. As a result the iPad 2 is not in my top ten, whereas the original iPad is.

Back in 2010 I said

At work I use the iPad for dealing with e-mail and my calendar and quickly checking things on the VLE. For some meetings I do need to take a laptop as some tools we use rely on Flash or Java and that is one of the main weaknesses of the iPad is that these kinds of tools can not be used on it.

I still use the iPad for e-mail and calendar, however I now use a Citrix app to access our Windows XP corporate desktop to access those Java or IE based tools that we have. Therefore the main limitation is less of a limitation for me now. The fact I can easily access these iPad unfriendly tools using the iPad still makes me smile.

… its media capability easily surpasses any other mobile devices I have used. It’s not all perfect, I would like to stream (easily) video and audio from my iMac to my iPad…

AirPlay has made a big difference for me for media streaming across my home network. I like that I can stream iTunes Rentals from my iMac to my iPad without having to go through the laborious process of transferring the movie file from the iMac to the iPad, I can just stream the DRM’d content across the wireless network.

So last year the iPad was my top technology, Apple have made things better and on the basis of how much I used it, the iPad is once again my top technology of the year.

app of the week, ipad, iphone

Microsoft OneNote for iPad – iPad App of the Week

December 13, 2011 James Clay 3 Comments

Microsoft OneNote for iPad – iPad App of the Week

This week’s App is Microsoft OneNote for iPad.

Microsoft OneNote for iPad is a note-taking app for capturing all of your ideas and to-dos on the go, brought to you by Microsoft Office.

Create searchable notes with text, pictures and bullets. Make and manage to-do lists with checkboxes. Then keep your notes in sync using free Microsoft SkyDrive® online storage to access, edit and manage them from virtually anywhere, from your PC or almost any web browser. Access your notes online at http://skydrive.com.

Free

My preferred note app is Evernote, but working within a Microsoft environment I now and again look at Microsoft’s OneNote. I did manage to get OneNote for the iPhone when it was US only, but it eventually came to the UK. I didn’t use it much, but quite liked certain features.

Microsoft have now released OneNote for the iPad and I think the iPad is a much better platform for note taking compared to the iPhone; the iPhone works better as a to do list and for reading notes in my opinion.

It’s a free app, but you are restricted to 500 notes, however you can go beyond 500 with an £10.49 in-app purchase for unlimited notes. Seems expensive, but Evernote Premium at $5 per month, or $45 per year is a lot more pricey.

You will need a Windows Live ID to use OneNote, but this is free and you get other features (such as Skydrive) which can be useful. There are some functions that will only be possible on the OneNote web app or in the OneNote application, but it’s not as though the Evernote iPad app was free of restrictions.

The app is very easy to use, and it is easy to add photographs or images, you can add bullet points and check lists.

At the end of the day I think the only real way to evaluate OneNote for the iPad is to use it on a regular basis, as it is a free app then it at least won’t cost you anything.

app of the week, ipad, iphone

Tintin – iPhone and iPad App of the Week

October 25, 2011 James Clay Leave a comment

Tintin – iPhone and iPad App of the Week

This week’s App is Tintin.

Explore the exciting world of The Adventures of Tintin in the official iPhone & iPad game of the movie! Treasure and adventure await those who seek to unravel the Secret of the Unicorn!

NEW THRILLS AT EVERY TURN
Sneak your way past guards, engage in a swordfight, pilot a plane, solve puzzles, race a camel and discover many more exciting experiences.

MEET TINTIN’S FRIENDS
Tintin can’t do this alone! He’ll need the help of his friends. You’ll take control of his dog Snowy, Captain Haddock and even the legendary Sir Francis Haddock during the great Age of Pirates.

FUN FOR EVERYONE
Players of all ages will enjoy the game. Accessible controls allow you to easily interact with the environment. With just a swipe of your finger (or a tilt of your device), you’ll be exploring the world, collecting items, and fighting off villains.

A BEAUTIFUL, 3D WORLD
Every building and character was carefully recreated in stunning 3D graphics that perfectly matches the style of the movie. See for yourself what it’s like to walk through Marlinspike Mansion, the desert, and the Karaboudjan ship.

£4.99

It’s half term (well it is where I am) this week and this week’s app is a new game based on the recently released Tintin film.

The iPad (and the iPhone) are fantastic gaming devices, when I first bought the iPad one of the reasons I bought it for myself was (at the time) I thought the main use of the iPad would be for video and casual gaming. Since then I have been very surprised by how much I use the iPad for lots of different things. I have also found it very useful for work, research, reading, writing and doing lots of other stuff (well have a look at all the apps I have reviewed).

One area where I probably have used the iPad less is in the more indepth serious game. It’s one thing to use the iPad to play a single game of Boggle or Solitaire, it’s another thing to spend a fair bit of time playing an adventure game. However there are some splendid games out there, my family really enjoyed playing Lego Harry Potter for example which I reviewed here.

Tintin is a similar indepth game that has beautiful graphics and certainly reflects the look and feel of the new Spielberg film.

So what about the gameplay? Well to be honest I haven’t played it yet, so no idea, mainly as I want to watch the film first before I play the game. When I was younger I enjoyed reading the Tintin books and have been looking forward to this film for a while now.

So purely on looks I am recommending this game, as for gameplay, well I’ll let you know once I have had a game after watching the film!

Get Tintin in the iTunes App Store.

app of the week, ipad

Virtual History, Roma & Firenze – iPad Apps of the Week

September 27, 2011 James Clay Leave a comment

Virtual History, Roma & Firenze – iPad Apps of the Week

This week’s Apps are Virtual History, Roma & Virtual History, Firenze

Firenze – Virtual History, a three-dimensional journey using your iPad through the city that invented the Renaissance. Enter this epicenter of art, invention and history and even explore in detail masterpieces like those of Dante, Leonardo and Michelangelo.

Mondadori presents a fantastic voyage to Ancient Rome, the capital of the largest empire in the ancient world, which has been reconstructed in virtual form and which you can explore in a “full-immersion” panoramic experience.

£6.99 each

I was discussing with my team the other day on whether we should be placing iPads into the libraries at the college to provide additional resources and content for learners. There have been quite a few projects and trials that have shown the value of library users having access to the iPad for research and reading. The iPads would not replace existing paper resources or online content, but would supplement and enhance. I hope to expand on these ideas in a later blog post.

As a result I have started to look at the type of content we could put on the iPad, the DK Human Body (that I covered in a previous post in this series) was an obvious one for biology or anatomy.

For arts, history and travel & tourism I found these two apps (from the same publisher) that I feel would be useful for learners on those courses. Both the apps have an “immersive” experience that allows the users to explore both these famous cities using the touch interface of the iPad.

These apps would introduce the learner to these great cities and would be a starting point before moving onto for example for travel & tourism students we might also have on the iPad, the Rough Guide to Rome. We would also place e-books onto the iPads for additional detailed and indepth content, as well as content and links from practitioners.

app of the week, ipad

DK The Human Body – iPad App of the Week

September 13, 2011 James Clay 1 Comment

DK The Human Body – iPad App of the Week

This week’s App is DK The Human Body.

A ground-breaking look into the human body that offers highly accurate, visual and accessible information. The wonders of human anatomy are explored and explained in a way that offers hours of learning, fun and entertainment.

Designed for everyone with an interest in the subject, the Human Body app is a must-have reference. With enough detail to satisfy the demanding student, the app also offers rich illustrations and features for the casual browser. This is the perfect gift for yourself or someone who loves to learn.

£9.99

I was recently asked on Twitter how the iPad could be used for science. As well as obvious ideas about using it for data collection and web access, one idea I put forward was about using the many science based apps that are now available.

In previous posts in this series I have written about Pocket Heart, Merck PSE HD and Eureka.

Eureka is an iPad magazine on the science of sport and has a really interesting and interactive interface for accessing different aspects of sports science complete with images, video and audio.

Merck PSE covers the perodic table, though if you want an even better experience check out Elements.

Pocket Heart is a really nice app that looks at the anatomy of the heart which has won respect from many science teachers and medical practitioners.

What DK The Human Body does is cover (as you can guess from the name) the whole human body.

According to many medical practitioners and science teachers I have spoken to, this is a excellent app for any learner studying human anatomy.

As well as been an engaging interactive app, it also has the necessary detail required by relevant courses, even for medical students according to one review!

So if you are studying (or teaching) human anatomy, take a look at this app.

eLearning Stuff