iPad and iPhone Revolutionize Learning With Educational Apps

Over the last 25 years, technology has played an increasingly-important role in the field of education. It started in the 1980s with educational apps that could be installed on a personal computer and simple hand-held devices like "Speak and Spell." And now, textbooks are slowly being replaced by eBooks that allow students to study using their laptop or home computer.

Some schools are even making the move towards becoming virtually "book-free." These digital books are not only less expensive, but they can be updated "on the fly" so information is much more current than traditional textbooks. Plus, without the need to lug around heavy text books, learning is more convenient than ever before - and kids can't use the excuse "I forgot my book" to get out of doing homework!

Whether their school is on the cutting edge of technology or not, you can give your child a technological head start with one of today's "smart phones" or tablets. Devices like the iPhone and iPad offer a wide variety of apps for education so kids can take their learning everywhere they go. Apps covering topics like Science and Technology, Math, or English are proven to be more interactive than their hard-backed counterparts.

One popular app, Star Walk, opens up the heavens like a telescope, taking kids (or adults) on a tour through astrological bodies and various constellations. Another app called "Fish School" by Duck, Duck Moose uses creative and colorful fish to teach children shapes and letters. The fish swim around and, like a marching band, assume formation creating a shape that the child is asked to identify using a multiple choice format. These types of educational apps are especially attractive to younger kids.

Young or old, toddler or teen, the role of technology has expanded from just "fun and games" to "facts, facts, and more facts." In fact, there are educational apps designed to teach people of any age or skill level. Kids love these apps because they seem more like playing than learning, but even medical students are benefitting with apps like "Grey's Anatomy," which has full-color illustrations and all the information of the original tome, just in a smaller package.

Learning apps are revolutionizing the way education is delivered and changing our understanding of the word "classroom." Learning, in a literal sense, is no longer confined within four walls. It can happen anywhere, whenever curiosity hits. With the right tools, students can truly take charge of their own education. And while it's a big responsibility, most children have an innate desire to learn. Parents can nurture this desire by allow them to explore information on their own terms using an iPad or iPhone device.

Educational Technology

Educational technology is becoming more and more common in schools and this is a great thing. School officials, parents, principles and teachers all know that educational technology helps a student to learn more, learn faster and become more organized students. The limits are endless what a student can learn by successfully integrating educational technology into their studies. If they are taught in school how to use the Internet and educational technology to better their education, then they will be very prosperous in school. It's important for teachers to incorporate educational technology into classrooms not only because of the educational benefits that come from becoming very familiar with using technology as an educational tool, but because students respond well to technology.

Children now are run more by technology than ever, their wish lists went from bikes, baseballs and basketball hoops to Nintendo's, cell phones and laptops. Children love technology and the unlimited opportunities of entertainment it gives them, so why not add it into schools to keep kids excited and wanting to learn? Technology helps a lot to organize students, whether it be on the computer, saving documents to different folders, creating organized and clearly written essays or utilizing any of Microsoft's programs to enhance their document skills, educational technology helps children to become more organized. Since children love technology so much and use it so frequently a nonprofit group, Netday wanted to compose a survey to all school aged kids about technology and how it would influence them in their schooling. The survey was only supposed to last one day, it was called Speak Up Day, but because of the tremendous response they extended the survey to one week.

Officials were not surprised that children love technology and would like to see more of it, they already knew that when introducing technology into the classrooms in the past, it always caught the student's attention and got them interested. These days it requires a lot ore to be able to get students to focus and be interested in a classroom setting because of the immense amount of technological distractions that could b taking place, whether it is them texting on their cell phone, playing games on their cell phone, using handheld video game devices, listening to an iPod, or even other students doing any of these things, it causes distractions in the classroom and they don't get everything they should be out of the lesson that is being taught. By introducing the educational technology, students will put their handheld entertainment devices away and be interested to learn and see what the new technological devices can do.

In the survey what surprised school officials and the non-profit organization, Netday, who organized the survey, was that students not only wanted more educational technology, but also were coming up with ways to earn the money for the schools being able to equip their classrooms with more technology. This was surprising to the school officials because students not only wanted the technology but that wanted to help raise money by doing fundraisers to financially help equip their schools. This shows how important technology is to our students and children, we need to start giving them incentives to raise money for technology and help the schools to become more technologically equipped.