Windows Apps Anyone?
If you work in one of the many school’s that availed of Microsoft Surface RT Offer to Education which John O’Mahony highlighted last September, I would imagine that your still grappling with how to use these devices and in many cases due to delay in many schools receiving their order as demand outstripped supply, the shrink wrap may still be intact?
Back in September John did warn “When buying, I was well aware of the fact that availability of apps in the Windows Store wouldn’t compare with the apps available on the iTunes and Google Play stores.” but for many schools getting a flash-enabled, web-ready 10 inch touch screen device for under 200 euros outweighed any drawbacks of a sparse app store.
Anyhow five months down the line and it would appear that the Windows Store is beginning to gain traction so TechCrunch contends “Microsoft’s Windows Store Averaged 1.7M Daily Downloads” and the number of apps available is fleshing out. From the get-go you had stalwarts the likes of SkyDrive, Skype, Wikipedia and DropBox but there wasn’t a huge amount particularly in the education space, however this situation is undoubtedly evolving and to help get the ball rolling I’ve listed five top apps with a short summary…
One of the first Educational App’s in the Store from Microsoft, Fresh Paint is an easy to use, free app that includes oil, watercolours, pencils, and all the tools you need to paint. Fresh Paint for is a very powerful painting simulator that will prove to be useful to those bussing artists in class that can now play around with colours and shape without making a mess of the classroom…
The app version of the evergreen science website, HowStuffWorks explains thousands of topics, from engines to lock-picking with over 40,000 articles with illustrations, videos and podcasts so you can learn how everything works….
Now available for Windows 8, The GeoGebra app is free dynamic maths software for all levels bringing together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use interface…
Free Interactive multimedia Children’s books that read themselves! With a new book published every fortnight for children to read on their own or accompanied…
Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math (Free Preview)
The return of the red coated sleuth popularised as an adventure game for PC in the 90s. Carmen reappears for the first time in a Win 8 app in the The Great Gateway Grab…”Get to Rio fast and find the arch-criminal who carried out this monumental malfeasance!”
The above is only a smattering of what educational apps are out there for Windows first mobile OS and whilst it still trails significantly behind iTunes and to a lesser extent Google play stores for choice and variety, the Windows Store is expanding quickly so further levelling of the mobile learning playing field seems inevitable…
For more see…
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