Bible apps - audio and text based

Learning Exchange recently received a request for an audio bible for a vision impaired student. So in addition to looking for bibles on cd or in mp3 format we also looked at a number of bible apps for the ipad. These are the ones we found:

Catholic Bible

The first is a free app called Catholic Bible. The translation is the public domain catholic bible and is not the most modern. It is searchable by chapter but not verse.

NRSV Bible for BibleReader by Olive Tree

The second app is one I use personally. It is the NRSV Bible for Bible Reader by Olive Tree Bible software. Olive tree have a number of translations of the scriptures available. This bible app is searchable by chapter and verse. It can be book marked and searched for particular terms. It also has highlighting, notes and bookmarking functions so would be useful for study. It costs $12.99 in the app store.

Unfortunately the accessibility functions on the ipad do not work well with either of the above apps so they don’t work as an audio bible.

Bible is

The third app we found is called “Bible Is” which provided audio and text versions of several translations of the scriptures. The app is still under development so I would expect that other translations would become available at a later date. The audio versions are the King James Version and English Standard Version translations. There is an option to hear the “non drama” version of the bible and a “drama” version complete with background music and character voices. The app is searchable by chapter but not by verse and has a bookmarking function. It also provides text and audio bibles in a variety of languages for students from non English speaking backgrounds. And the good news (sorry folks bad pun!) is that it is FREE.

From Bernie Lentern Learning Exchange.

Junior primary ebook apps

International Childrens Digital Library App [Grades PreK to Yr7]
The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) brings a worldwide collection of free children's books to the iPad. The largest collection of its kind, the ICDL spans the globe with thousands of children's books from over 60 countries, in a wide assortment of beautiful languages with captivating illustrations. Levelled by Age. Search facility.
This app and the books included are free.

Dr Seuss [Grades PreK - Yr2]
These highly interactive books are narrated with great voices, If you click on an image, the word lights up and floats over to the image. As the narrator reads the story, each word lights up. The child can read the book, or a parent or teacher can read the book to the child. If the ebook narrator reads the book, the child can turn the pages while being read too.
Most of the ebooks are $4.99 AU but there are a few free versions (called lite)
Just search for Dr Seuss in the App store to see the full list of lite and full versions.

• Fox in socks
• Hop on Pop
• Dr. Seuss ABC,
• The Cat in the Hat
• One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish,
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• The Lorax
• Oh The Places You’ll Go
• Green Eggs and Ham.
  
• Hop on Pop.
  
• Yertle the Turtle.
  
• Gertrude McFuzz.
  
• The Big Brag.
  

StoryChimes series (PreK- Yr3)
They currently have 27 titles. Includes your classic fairy tales like The Frog Prince and Sleeping Beauty. There are modern stories like 'Benjamin's walk in the woods' where Benjamins shares his discoveries of rabbits, squirrels, butterflies and more along the country wooded lane. Also a Nativity book.

Colourful and bright illustrations with accompanying music and sound effects, and optional narration make these delightful books to read.
Most of the story chime apps cost about $1.19 AU but some are free. Search for Storychimes in the App store.

Sesame Street books
Sesame Street books have many features including record you won story version of the book as well as a visual index that makes it easy to jump from one page to another.

Individual books (PreK- Yr2)

Little Bella's: I Close My Eyes
A bubbly little girl pretends she can fly, climb the tallest tree in the world and jump like a frog. Lite and full version available.

Melvin Says There's Monsters
Very funny book that children can relate to the kids because the illustrated characters look real.
Lite and Full version available.

The Wrong side of the Bed
Well illustrated book with a simple story about waking up on the wrong side of the bed, literally Includes music and narration and interactivity.
$3.99

9 great book apps for kids you NEED
Reviews of some great book apps for children. Various titles:
Alphabelch
Astrojammies
These apps range in price from $1.19 to $5.99. Some Lite versions

Another list of great iPad ebok apps from Librarian in the Cloud. Includes the wonderfully illustrated Alice and the readalong ToyStory.

There are lots of free and priced ebook apps. You can find these via the iPad App store by searching categories - Books. More and more ebook apps are appearing each day, so use Google to search for suitable ebook apps and reviews.

Apps for Art

The Teaching palette blog provides a list of top iphone apps for the Art Teacher many of which would also be available or suitable to use on the iPad. One app reviewed is Brushes which is a painting application is a painting application. It provides an advanced color picker, several realistic brushes, multiple layers, extreme zooming, The June 1, 2009 cover of The New Yorker was created in Brushes.

30 Essential iPad Apps for Designers and Creatives provides a list of useful apps for anyone designing or creating visual works. The apps are organised under the following categories:
Sketching
Typography
Mockups and Wireframing
Notes and productivity

Adobe ideas is one of the art apps highlighted in Art of Apex High School blog in the post Top 5 iPad apps for the Art Teacher. Adobe ideas is a digital sketchbook, letting you capture and explore ideas anywhere you go.

Apps for Dyslexia

Some thoughts on apps for dyslexic students from educators, parents and students themselves

1. Dragon Search - (FREE) Dragon Search is a great free app that allows you to use talk commands to search for information on Google, Youtube, Itunes, or Wikipedia. No more typing!

2. Dragon Dictate - (FREE) Another super free app from the makers of Dragon Naturally Speaking. Dragon Dictate can be used to dictated your email messages, Facebook posts, Twitter, or notes to yourself.

3. Web Reader - ($1.99) Web Reader is our pick for speech-to-text reading of webpages. WebReader will read webpages to you and you can use copy and paste to limit the read sections. The voices are pretty good (male and female) and can be used also for Project Gutenberg books, Google Reader and RSS Feeds. You can control the speed of reading and also use a highlighter function.

4. My Homework - (FREE) My Homework is a simple color-coded organizer to help with deadlines, classes, tests, etc. Notes can be sent to your email.

5. Evernote - (FREE) Finally, Evernote is a handy app for keeping track of information. You can copy text, take a picture, record an audio message and Evernote will keep track of it and sync to your Mac, PC, or web. Pictures can also be filed with text that can be searched later. Use this for taking picture of instructions written on a whiteboard, notes to yourself, stuff you may want to look at later.

From: http://www.dyslexicadvantage.com/top-iphone-apps-dyslexia.html

An app called “Martha Speaks” is a part of “The Great Word Quest,” a free online literacy game that is also accessible on Flash-enabled smart phone browsers. “Martha Speaks” focuses on building the oral vocabulary of 4- to 7-year-olds. It’s a compliment to the other two games: “Word Girl” and “The Electric Company,” which are more literacy-based

From: http://dyslexia.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/pbs-offers-apps-for-kids/

Writing aid software "Typ-O" to the iPad combines a language model, a spelling error database and a model of dyslexic typing errors to provide word predictions and regular spell checking while you type.

From a parent: 'We have free apps such as SPELL THAT! , dragon dictation, dragon search, ace multiply , mathboard,, plus countless books in iBooks with the text to speech shortcut key. The bright clean screen, the fewer words per page and only seeing one page at a time has been immensely helpful. I highly recommend it. We organize his work in ihomework.With regards to his courses in school, we look up the topics he is doing in iBooks and buy simpler books with pictures ( such as magnets) so he can understand the material, yet be able to read it in an easier format.

Another student uses: Writing aid software "Typ-O" to the iPad. It basically combines a language model, a spelling error database and a model of dyslexic typing errors to provide word predictions and regular spell checking while you type.

From: http://dyslexicbrian.com/resources/is-the-ipad-good-or-bad-for-dyslexic-children/

From a student: I’m in 8th grade and I have dyslexia and an iPad it differently has awesome features that help me a lot like when you select a word you have the option to use the dictionary to find out what it means. Also if you spell a word wrong it has automatic or selected word correction. There are many awesome apps that help a lot like:The Elements, World Factbook, The Solar system, Wolframn Alpha algebra, istudiez pro, Brain Pop, 3D cell, Dragon Dictation, Audiotorium, Mathboard, Penultimate, iBooks,vbooks and the recommended dictionary for dyslexia Collins Cobuild Dictionary.

From: http://dyslexicbrian.com/resources/is-the-ipad-good-or-bad-for-dyslexic-children/

Kindergarten.com currently have 26 apps listed on their site which are based on "Applied Behavioral Analysis" (ABA) techniques geared toward cognitive level rather than grade level. These apps are designed to meet the needs of "children with learning disabilities such as speech or language delays, hearing loss, ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism, Down Syndrome, Dyspraxia or PDD".