Do you ever find it difficult to find all the news of the day that interests you? Enter Zite!
Zite is a free personalized magazine for your device that automatically learns what you like and gets smarter every time you use it. Zite delivers all the great news, articles, blogs, and videos you want – and helps you discover new stuff that you’ll love. With Zite, you can select your unique interests, and the more you interact with the app, the better it’s able to highlight items that may be of interest to you.
Zite is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It was just updated December 4, and the newer version requires iOS 6.0. It is also compatible with Android and requires 2.1 and newer.
The helpful website, Parents to Kids Money, has a fantastic free app available to teach kids about the responsibility of money and budgeting. The P2K Money app will teach kids how to create a budget, track their expenses, save their money, and spend wisely. It is an interactive, easy to use, app that allows them to input their “income” (allowance, mowing the lawn, babysitting, etc), expenses, and items on their wish list. Overtime, as they learn the value of careful spending, they will see their “available money” increase as well as the funds they’ve put aside for their wishlist item.
The P2K Money app is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. The app requires iOS 3.2 or later.
Pearson Education, Inc. has developed a kid-friendly app for learning grammar usage and mechanics. The primary edition of this app promises “catchy animated songs and rhymes [to] make English language arts exciting!” Grammar Jammers Primary Edition includes unique animations and quiz questions on the following topics: adjectives, contractions, nouns, pronouns, punctuation, sentences, and verbs. The app is free and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.2 or later.
Check out this YouTube video for a nice sampling of what’s available on the app. I absolutely love the music and imagine that both kids and adults (parents & teachers) could enjoy listening to it (unlike some cartoon/kids music!).
Grammar Jammers is also available in Elementary and Middle Editions. However, these editions of the app typically cost around $2.99.
Word Lens lets you see the world in your language! Instantly translate printed words from one language to another with your built-in video camera, in real time! No network is required to operate the app; results appear immediately on your screen when you need it. It is best used on clearly printed large texts like signs or menus. Translated languages include: English, Spanish, Italian, and French. This app is available for most iOS devices 4.3 and later, and is optimized for iPhone 5. Additionally, the app is available for Android 2.3.3 (and up). It usually costs around $4.99. Want to learn more? Check out http://questvisual.com/us/ or watch this YouTube video.
Recommended at the MEMO Conference, iMotionHD is a powerful, yet easy to use tool that allows users to create videos that incorporate time-lapse and stop-motion functions. Time-lapse is helpful because it accelerates movement – such as clouds or people passing through an area throughout the day. Others have also used time-lapse for accelerating plant growth or the sky over a 24-hour period. Stop-motion on the other hand, is an animation technique which makes a physically manipulated object look like it’s moving on its own – making your prop come to life on video! Pretty flashy – huh?
iMotion HD supports all orientations and works with all camera-equipped iOS devices. The basic iMotionHD app is a free download; however, the full version of the app sells for $1.99 and allows you to export videos (to Photo Library, iTunes Sharing Folder and Email), to upload to YouTube, and to organize videos in a video library. To find out more about iMotionHD visit the app in iTunes, or visit the iMotionHD site.
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