NOT BASEBALL

I explored some iPad apps again today. Sketchpad Explorer had the advantage of being free so I review that. My students do not generally have iPads so I m looking for good demonstration software or software that I can use to create content for the students.

Sketchpad is a good app for projecting content. You cannot create in it. It claims that it can open any Geometer’s Sketchpad file. I have not tried to create an account with Sketchpad Explorer to upload and then download my Sketchpad content. I did use some of the built in content and looked through the 90 or so user submitted files that were optimized for iPad.

I found a multiple shading application that could prove useful for arithmetic and pre-algebra classes. I also found some transformation of graphs files that could prove useful in College algebra. There were also some balance demonstrations that could introduce the Addition Property of Equality for solving linear equations.

There were some slope games that looked useful for developing slope estimating skills, that would be better if all students had an iPad. Finally there were some files that I thought were cool if not useful for how I use the iPad for teaching. For instance there were several different ways to construct ellipses modeled.

I would recommend this as long as it is free. I may use it more once I explore converting Geometer’s Sketchpad files for use on the iPad. Until then the app is only useful occasionally and I will probably just continue to use Geogebra and the presentation computer built in each classroom when geometry presentation is desirable.