Amazing Apps

Amazing App for October 2015

Forest

http://www.forestapp.cc/

Stay focused on your studies and avoid distractions on your mobile phone or computer with this fun app. Forest can save you from internet addiction. You can plant a seed in Forest. In the next 30 minutes, this seed will gradually grow into a tree. However, if you cannot resist the temptation and start to browse the websites on your blacklist, your tree will wither away. The more focused you are, the bigger your forest grows. Try it today and see what you can achieve.

Forest app for Microsoft

Forest app for Android

Forest app for Chrome

Forest app for iOS

* This is not a free app - check your store for pricing 

 

Amazing App for September 2015

Flipboard: Your Social News Magazine

Free

Available for Android and iOS

With a new, streamlined interface, Flipboard is better than ever. With this app, you can browse the articles, videos, podcasts, and other media that matter most to you. Gain access to publishers and leading thinkers on the subjects you care about most. The app's signature magazine-style interface lets you explore the day's headlines in a gorgeous environment. New in this version is the Daily Edition, which gives you the most important news along with themed stories for each day of the week. Flipboard and Zite have now become one company, so fans of Zite can now migrate to Flipboard.

 

Amazing App for June - August 2015

Free Book Search

As it draws closer to the holidays, we wanted to give you lots of opportunities to read. Free Book Search is a Chrome search engine which allows you to download a great variety of free books. There are books for all ages and interests. If you have a Google Account you can access it via the Chrome App or the website which then directs you to the download.

 

Amazing App for May 2015

Elevate: Apple's iPhone App of the Year

Elevate is an app aimed at training your brain. It covers skills that will help improve your speaking, focus, processing speed, memory, language and maths. It begins with a test to determine your level and then provides a personalized training programme that adjusts over time to maximize results. It is suggested that you use the Elevate app at least three times a week. The more you train, the better the results. Elevate strikes a good balance between being challenging and fun. You will definitely go back for more.

• Download for IOS
• Download for Android 

 

 

 

Amazing Apps for April 2015

colAR Mix 3D Animations

This is a great augmented reality app for kids (and adults) to bring their coloring drawings to life in 3D. Print from a range of pictures available on the colAR Mix website, color them in, and then using the downloaded app (IOS or Android), scan the image using the tablet's camera and watch the picture come to life!

Watch a short YouTube video to see the app in action!

For the iPad app, go to the App Store, and for the Android app, go to Google Play.

 

Amazing Apps for March 2015

Clarity, one of the major online programmes used by Foundations students, is now available on the iPad . The new apps include Road to IELTS, Tense Buster, Clear Pronunciation 1 and Active Reading. Clarity programmes can be accessed from College and at home. Please contact your College ILC Coordinator for further information. 

Road to IELTS is used by Foundation 4 students to prepare for their IELTS exam. It contains interactive activities, videos and practice tests in Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing.

Tense Buster is available to all Foundations students across HCT. The programme has five levels: elementary, lower intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced. It assists learners in improving their understanding of 33 different grammar areas.

Clear Pronunciation 1 (CP Sounds) allows students independent practice in practicing their pronunciation skills. It is divided into three sections: consonants vowels and diphthongs. Students are able to practice the 43 separate sounds through audio and video activities.

Active Reading helps students improve their reading through a variety of stimulating and interesting texts. Text types include newspaper and magazine articles, emails, stories and poems. The Active Reading levels range from elementary to advanced.

 

Amazing Apps for February 2015

IELTS Tips!

IELTS Tips! is a new free app for your iPad, especially for students ready to sit for their exams. It is developed by Clarity, the company that produces the popular programme, Road to IELTS. This app offers a new IELTS tip every day for thirty days.

The tips are based on expert advice from experienced IELTS teachers. They cover Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Below is an example of one of the tips.

Find the Android version here.

 

Amazing Apps for January 2015

Science 360 for iPad

Science 360 for iPad is a science and engineering news app designed to engage the user in visual explorations through photos, videos, and text. There is new content added weekly by scientists, engineers, and the National Science Foundation. Teachers can email image and videos to integrate into lesson planning. Additionally, there is a built in news feed that keeps students and teachers up-to-date with the latest scientific discoveries. Science 360 provides the latest science videos from scientists, colleges and universities, science and engineering centers, the National Science Foundation, and more. The pictures, graphics, and videos are high quality and information is very well organized, easy to locate, and simple to use.

(Source: http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines/best-apps/2013)

Click here to download the app from iTunes.

Amazing Apps for December 2014

GoodReads

For the many who love reading for pleasure, there have been a range of good storage and review websites available over the years, such as LibraryThing, reddit.com, shelfari and GoodReads. GoodReads however, has made the move into iPad Apps, and it remains a user friendly and useful resource:

This free App allows you to search for titles, read the reviews of others, or follow links to more author information. If you rate 20 books you have read on GoodReads, you will then receive personalized recommendations, although I don’t find this hugely useful to find other new titles.  My reading history is probably too diverse!  You can store and then search through your own read titles, and can add friends to share with via either FaceBook or your phone contacts.

As this review blogsite from a couple of years ago remarked, GoodReads at that time wasn’t as good as LibraryThing (http://bookriot.com/2012/07/31/goodreads-v-librarything-part-one/) but now being an iPad App, is more portable and remains very user friendly.

 

Amazing Apps for November 2014

Art History Interactive

Art History Interactive: 50 Masterpieces you Should Know by Wei Yao is an App available for IOS (iPad and iPhone) on iTunes for $3.99, but from time-to-time is available for free.

It features fifty highly celebrated art pieces from western art history which are brought to life on an iPad as if you were physically in a museum accompanied by a personal guide. "Each masterpiece has an audio guide, an insight essay, feature stories, related works as well as in depth analysis…Art History Interactive lets you see every side of the 3D Venus of Willendorf, explore the panorama of the Sistine Chapel, discover real-life scene from Monet’s garden and swipe through to discover the movement in Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night." 

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/10/art-history-interactive-ipad-app-is-now.html

See a trailer for Art History Interactive iPad App at http://vimeo.com/52066312

 

Amazing Apps for October 2014

Arabic Dictionary +

Arabic Dictionary + is a bilingual English - Arabic dictionary that translates both words and commonly used phrases. There are over 94,000 English, and over 96,000 Arabic words available in offline mode. It also includes games for single or multiplayer that help to train with vocabulary.

Some of the features of Arabic Dictionary + include:

• Translate words, phrases, and whole sentences
• Scan text with your camera
• Multiple games to improve English and Arabic vocabulary
• Offline & online pronunciation of words in English & Arabic
• Flash card & word of the day
• Phrase book

 For a more detailed review, read "Arabic Dictionary iPhone App Review: A Useful Reference".

 

Amazing  Apps for September 2014

Lynda.com

Lynda.com is a database of over 2400 video-based tutorials to which HCT subscribes. This means that HCT students and staff have access to one of the world's best resources for self-training in the fields of: Applied Media; Business; CAD; Marketing; Education; and Information Technology.

However, this section is about Apps, and as Apps go, the Lynda.com app (both for IOS and Android) is really good and easy to use. Downloading the App costs nothing, and logging in is fairly straightforward.

 Before going much further, know that you can access Lynda.com from both your desktop/laptop computer, as well as from your mobile device. When visiting via computer, use this address:

lynda.hct.ac.ae

Using the App requires that you first identify your institution, so where it asks for your organization of school, type in HCT's base URL:

www.hct.ac.ae

 The next window will then require you to use the same username and password as used for all your other HCT services.

• In the case of staff, use your email prefix - initial + surname
• For students, use your full college email address - student@hct.ac.ae

Lynda.com menus are easy to browse. It is possible to bookmark courses you intend to do by adding them to "Playlists".

Courses are broken down into small "bite-sized" chunks that making learning easy.

To learn how to use all of Lynda.com's functionality, just type "lynda.com" into the search box, and find a detailed course on using Lynda.com!

Please ask a librarian if you need any assistance.

 

Amazing Apps for June to August 2014

PressReader

PressReader is an app that can be used in conjunction with the Library PressDisplay database that is subscribed to by HCT Libraries. With this app, you can read your favorite newspapers on your mobile devices. Get today's news on the go!

Find out more about our Library PressDisplay database in the Dazzling Databases section of this issue.

Please note: Since we have access to an institutional subscription, and not individual/personal subscriptions to PressDisplay, you can only update PressReader on your iPad while on HCT's network, i.e. while at college.

Lino

Lino is a virtual bulletin board using the familiar format of stickies. It's free to use and register for, with the creators claiming that "All you need is a web browser". Since the service is in the cloud, your stickies can be accessed on PC as well as on your mobile devices, with Apps being available for both iPad/iPhone and Google Android. You can also use pictures as stickies. Use this cool tool to bring some colorful time organization into your life! 

Amazing Apps for May 2014

In this issue, we have an app used by someone in the trenches of teaching, namely Huda Jamal, English Foundations teacher at Khalifa Women's College, and Abu Dhabi Women's College.

Note Anytime Lite

Note Anytime Lite is a great mobile learning app and it is becoming an indispensable tool used by teachers and students both inside and outside the classroom, including mine. This app has many practical uses. It provides my students with the ability to download and annotate PDFs as well as upload them to various cloud applications. They can also open new blank documents and type or write texts and even create their own sketches. They can upload and edit their own photos with the ability to add font with the choice of styles and colors. Using the cloud functionality of the app they can create folders copy files and manage their uploaded work portfolios. This is only a few things this app can do and it’s FREE.

I use Note Anytime mainly to annotate reading and grammar worksheets where I send students the PDF and they edit their answers and save them in folders. I also use Note Anytime to open and students’ Max Journal weekly diaries.

For more information, please see

http://noteanytime.com/en/

Or download it from the iTunes store https://itunes.apple.com/ae/app/note-anytime-lite-note-taking/id763225933?mt=8

Huda Jamal, Foundation Studies Teacher, ADWC/KCWC.

 

Amazing Apps for April 2014

Overdrive Digital Library App

Overdrive Digital Library includes a wide range of fiction and non-fiction eBooks. To read these books on your iPad, download the free Overdrive Digital app.

To access the eBooks on your iPad, go to http://libraries.hct.ac.ae/ , into Databases, eBooks and Overdrive Digital Library. Choose a book and click on ‘borrow’. The eBook will automatically download onto your iPad. Happy Reading!

Amazing Apps for March 2014

A perfect App for students of all ages. Feedly is a new way to browse and share the content of your favorite news sites, feeds, Tumblr blogs and YouTube channels and store them in one place. Instead of having to hunt down for news, Feedly uses RSS to combine the contents of the news sites and blogs you like and deliver them as a fast mobile-optimized experience.
Feedly is an RSS news reader re-imagined for mobile devices. It makes browsing faster and more fun: the content of your RSS feeds, news sites and blogs are transformed into pocket-sized cards which load very fast and are easy to browse.
The Feedly UI is custom tailored for the iPhone and the iPad. If you run Feedly on an iPad, you will get an experience which is very close to a personalized magazine: a really fun way to track and read your favorite blogs.
When you run Feedly on a phone and on a tablet, the configuration will automatically syncs between both devices. It also integrates with Pocket, Instapaper and Evernote.

To download the App - go to http://feedly.com/apps.html

 

Amazing Apps for February 2014

Some call it the new Pinterest for educators. Educlipper is really a great and promising App where teachers get to curate and organize digital content. Educlipper has been designed specifically for educators and by an educator and founder, Adam Bellow.

"The process of setting up your Educlipper account is pretty easy and can be done in a few clicks and once logged in you can instantly start adding content ." (Educatorstechnology.com)

Faculty and students will be able to :
+Explore top quality education resources for K-12
+ Create clips from the web, Drive, Dropbox
+ Use your camera to capture awesome work that you create
+ Create differentiated groups and share content with them
+ Collaborate with other users on eduClipboards for class projects or personal interests.