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Android 4 Schools

Apps and Devices for Schools

Tag Archives: geography

Fun and Education With GPS Essentials

Yesterday, I published a post about creating QR codes for GPS locations to build scavenger hunts. In that post I mentioned an app called GPS Essentials that a friend turned me on to. I spent some time last evening having fun testing out GPS Essentials.

In addition to the expected features of showing your current latitude and longitude coordinates, GPS Essentials offers a bunch of other useful features. Using GPS Essentials you can measure your current altitude, measure distances, and record your tracks. You can export your tracks and waypoints as KML files to use in Google Earth and Google Maps. You can also import KML and GPX files to use in GPS Essentials to navigate to various locations.

Combine the use of QR-GPS Plugin with GPS Essentials to create and carry-out scavenger hunts. Use the combination to record and plan walking tours for your next field trip. Or use GPS Essentials to teach students basic lessons on navigation (if you’re taking students on actual hikes, long bike rides, or paddling trips, don’t use GPS Essentials as a replacement for a real GPS unit and maps).

Create QR Codes for GPS Coordinates to Create Scavenger Hunts

QR Droid is my favorite free QR code reader for Android devices. QR Droid website offers a free QR code generator that makes it very easy to create a QR code for just about anything. This weekend I installed a free plug-in for QR Droid called QR-GPS Plugin.

QR-GPS Plugin works with the free QR Droid app to allow you to quickly create QR codes for the GPS coordinates for wherever you are standing. You ca also manually input coordinates or manually input a location by entering an address. Whichever way you choose to input locations, the QR code that is generated for you can be share via text message, email, Twitter, or Facebook. You can also save the code to your SD card and print it. (Of course, if you emailed the QR code to yourself you could print it from there too).

When you scan the QR code generated by QR-GPS Plugin you can open it within a number of different Android apps including Google Earth, Google Maps,  and GPS Essentials. The QR Droid blog has detailed directions on how to use the QR-GPS Plugin.

For academic activities using the QR codes generated from QR-GPS Plugin, I have a few thoughts (with a little help from a friend).  First, since the codes easily open in Google Earth and Google Maps you could create geography puzzles in which students use clues to guess the location to which you’re leading them. Then to check their answers students scan the QR codes and open them in Google Earth or Google Maps on their tablets or phones. Second, create a scavenger hunt in which students go from location to location scanning QR codes to get directions to the next stop in the hunt. Finally, the QR codes could be scanned and saved in Google Maps or GPS essentials for students to use as part of a walking tour.

Study Country Facts, Watch Videos, and Take Quizzes

Countries of the World from Socratica is a free Android app that students can use to study world geography. The app has two main parts; a study section and a quiz section. The study section includes basics facts about the location of each country and basic statistics about the government, people, and economy of the country. The study section also includes audio pronunciations of each country’s name and, in some cases, videos about the country.

The quiz section of Countries of the World is a series of multiple choice quizzes. Players select a part of the world that they want to be quizzed about and the type of information that they want to be quizzed on. For example, I could choose to be quizzed on the population size of countries in Asia.

Countries of the World isn’t going to win any prizes for style or innovation, but it is a nice app that students could use to learn basic world geography.

Socratica Offers a Nice Selection of Android Apps for Students

Socratica offers nice little selection of free games and apps for Android users. The free apps and games offered by Socratica are Periodic Table, Countries of the World, US Presidents, 50 States, Words Words Words, Alphabets, and Pi (this app doesn’t do much other than help you remember the digits of Pi).

The Periodic Table app offers reference information about each element. The app offers audio clips to help users learn pronunciations of the names of the elements. The app also includes a quiz mode.

Countries of the World and 50 States are geography apps for learning country and state locations and capitals respectively. The apps also offer some background information like population, flags, state mottos, and postal codes. An online version of 50 States also exists on the Socratica website.

The US Presidents app quizzes players about the presidents, their birthplace, years in office, and their vice presidents.

Words Words Words is a vocabulary and grammar app containing 1,000 words with audio pronunciations. The app quizzes players on the proper uses the words.

The Alphabets app is designed as a quiz to help you learn Greek, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, and English. (I should note that some user reviews noted that the Hebrew and Arabic characters didn’t display correctly on their phones).

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