So, like my co-worker, Mary, I too took the i-plunge. I dove in a few months ago after my husband persuaded me that a phone was much more than a communication device. I saw him entertaining friends by simulating beer drinking on his phone. I listened to my 4-year old son play the virtual flute, and witnessed my 5-year old daughter enhance her memory with a moose memory game. But, I wasn’t really convinced yet...

Despite my tentativeness, it was only a matter of days until I was a convert and found myself deep sea diving through the sea of apps. I now use my i-phone for much more than communication. A few of my favorite apps include, Pandora, AroundMe, Newsstand, WordWhirl, Ski Report, and Spawn – all apps for my personal use, always in my back pocket or wet suit, as the case may be.

Lately, I’ve been wondering how teachers can use i-phones with students in the classroom. I decided to investigate some of the thousands of education apps of the 40,000+ apps available. A quick survey of education apps could be categorized into the following:

• Organization: keep notes, tag items, calendar
• Utilities: dictionary, graphing calculator, calendar for tracking assignments
• Communication: wordpress, facebook, twitter, free text
• Media: educational videos, digital books, photos
• Reference: geopedia, wikipanion, worldcat, Google Earth
• Games: educational, entertainment, competitive
• Skill building: memorization activities, vocabulary builders,
• Language: foreign language, travel vocabulary, word recognition
• Study guides: classics, subjects

With so many apps, I wasn’t sure how to navigate my course. Instead of spending the hours that it would take to view and test numerous apps, I decided to first look at what others had to say about education apps. Below are some of my findings.

Tony Vincent, of learningbyhand, offers his review of several apps for education in a ustream video including:

• Lemonade Stand ($1): A math game, based on the original Apple II game, involves setting up lemonade stand. The user applies math and economic skills to set up a virtual lemonade stand.
• Oregon Trail ($6): An updated version of the popular historical simulation, where students make their way along the Oregon trail, using mapping skills, budgeting, and analyzing data.
• Whiteboard (free): A virtual whiteboard that allows users on the same wi-fi network to work together, using different colored pens.
• Dictionary.com (free): A free English dictionary that includes pronunciation with audio.

I found the following three Web sites most useful for mining through the education apps.

• i Educational Apps Review: Video reviews of apps organized by grade level and subject area
• Learning Interchange: Resources for teachers that are made by teachers, including lesson plans that use iPods and iTunes.

Some of the more interesting ideas that I found on the Learning Exchange do not rely on “education apps”, per se, but use other apps and apply them to the classroom learning. In one example, the students have 12-hours to put together a story, using realtime photographs of geographic locations. In another example, students learn about the night sky with one of the many planetarium apps. One lesson plan shows students gaining financial literacy by using an i-phone app to follow the stock market.

I’m eager to hear about other educational uses for the i-phone or i-touch. How can kids justify such a purchase to their parents? How can teachers justify a purchase to principals?