Educational Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily iPad App: Sun by Discover Kids is a star-studded look at our Sun

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 22nd, 2013)

The sun is one of the most important stars in our galaxy. It gives us light, enables the growth of plants, is a source of energy and is the cornerstone of our calendar. To learn more about this spectacular star, you should check out the Sun By Kids Discover app. The iPad app features interactive ...

Daily iPad App: NASA's Earth As Art shows us our beautiful planet

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 17th, 2013)

NASA has a series of excellent educational iOS apps that appeal to adults and kids alike. Most have a strong scientific bent, but if you lean more towards art than science, NASA has an iPad app for you, too. Mixing a little bit of earth and planetary science with a keen eye for art, NASA has ...

Daily iPhone App: 7 Little Words for Kids is a well-made word game for youngsters

by Mike Schramm (Mar 11th, 2013)

I'm a big fan of 7 Little Words, a word game that's different from the rest, in that you need to simply figure out vocabulary clues and match up syllables rather than playing Scrabble yet again or lining up letters. Now, the app's creator has returned with a version for children called ...

Daily iPhone app: Dr. Smith's Music Factory

by Mel Martin (Feb 1st, 2013)

Here's an iPhone app that's great for kids just learning about music. Dr. Smith's Music Factory, (free) listens as you hum or whistle a tune and then composes music around it. You can also touch icons if you don't want to rely on your ability to carry a tune. Here's how it works. You select a ...

New iBooks Author supports LaTeX and MathML

by Mike Schramm (Oct 25th, 2012)

LaTeX is document markup system (similar to the popular Markdown) that's popular among high-level academia and mathematics authors. iBooks Author 2, which was released during Apple's big event, now supports the LaTeX protocol. It works through the MathML markup language, which a lot of ...

Brøderbund's Living Books return for iPad via Wanderful

by Michael Rose (Oct 8th, 2012)

Some of you may not remember the early 1990s. Heck, some of you probably weren't born yet in the early 1990s. But for Mac users of a certain vintage, it was an exciting time. The growing popularity of CD-ROM drives paired with Mac II-series machines (did the IIci really cost over $6,200 at ...

iLearnWith is an early childhood education program for the iPad

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 14th, 2012)

There are a wide range of educational apps in the App Store. Some titles like Tapfish are fun, while others like the iLearnWith program from Tribal Nova are geared for learning. The thing that sets iLearnWith apart from its competition is the ability to set up profiles for multiple children and ...

Educational app series Motion Math reaches one million download milestone

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 13th, 2012)

We often hear about games reaching one million downloads, but, today, educational app Motion Math announced it has reached this notable milestone, too. Motion Math develops four math-oriented titles for the iPad and the iPhone including its self-titled debut, Motion Math. All four titles ...

Daily iPad App: The Little Girl Who Could Fly is a delightful interactive book for children

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 19th, 2012)

Today we are stepping outside our typical app reviews for the iPad and looking at an interactive book. Because of their interactive elements, these titles stray over into the app category. This particular title, The Little Girl Who Could Fly from YellowPixie, is an animated, illustrated ...

Daily iPad App: Murky Reef is a fun, underwater game that'll improve math and language skills

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 13th, 2012)

There are apps that teach your kids math and apps that teach your kids language arts and then there are some like Murky Reef by Frolyc that teach them both. Murky Reef targets the younger elementary group with a series of apps that teaches math, English, critical thinking and logic. All these ...

Minds of Modern Mathematics from IBM available for iPad

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 12th, 2012)

Math is one of those disciplines that has a long and colorful history. If you want to learn more about the great math minds of the past, you should download Minds of Modern Mathematics from IBM. The multimedia-rich app is a timeline that shows the history of math from 1000 BC to the 1950s. ...

Daily iPad App: Looking Glass

by Kelly Hodgkins (Nov 18th, 2011)

Created by Project Comet, Looking Glass is an iPad app for children that's full of short videos about how things work or how they are made. The app ships with handful of videos for you to preview and over 100 are available via a monthly subscription. The subscription costs US$3.99 a month ...

See Rome as it is and as it was

by Mel Martin (Oct 11th, 2011)

Rome MVR (mixed virtual reality) is a very cool and innovative iPhone app that allows you to see views of the Roman Coliseum today, and -- with a tap on the screen -- also shows you 3D computer renderings of the location as it was at the peak of the Roman Empire. If you are actually at the ...

Apple quietly launches new $999 educational iMac

by Kelly Hodgkins (Aug 8th, 2011)

Apple quietly launched a new sub-US$1000 iMac model for the educational market. The new iMac is similar to current models, but has a set of slightly toned specs that make it less expensive than current retail versions. The educational only model will include a 3.1GHz Intel Core i3 dual-core ...

Watermelon Express now BenchPrep, publishing academic prep texts to iPad

by Michael Grothaus (Jun 1st, 2011)

Educational app maker Watermelon Express has shifted gears and entered the electronic textbook market. The Chicago-based company, now known as BenchPrep, has over 75 educational apps in the App Store, most of which were interactive textbooks and test prep materials made for larger, more ...