Atomes app on the iPad

I have been looking at several types of apps for the ipad and just thought of Atomes app as app that can make science fascinating but also as an app that can help someone who has a problem with reading on test scores.  The following French video provides an outline of what the app is about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkHAEHPi3Nc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkHAEHPi3Nc

The app has as a menu of the table of chemical elements.  The menu is interactive and shows all the elements in animated form that can be touched.  It is a great app that provides connections of the elements to real life.  We can actually see all types of places where each element is used.  The reading level of the description is accessible to junior students.  I know that personally, if I had had an app like this as a child, I would probably be a chemist today.  I liked chemistry very much but I was missing, at the fast University pace, the connections to real life.  An app like this provides such connections, in a very accessible and fascinating format.

I have one of my students in my class currently who is very hands-on type of student.  She is very kind and works well but she seems to have difficulty with reading in her second language.  I see her as very hands-on.  Whenever she has the chance, she draws or do something with her hands.  She looked at my personal iPad and saw the app Atomes.  In grade 4, it is a good fit since she loves rocks and it looks like she would like to spend the entire day going through the elements and make the “rocks” flip around.  With her interest and some support at home with a very involved parent, I see she could very easily become the next chemist.  She has the interest and is very tactile.  I am wondering if an app like that could help her reading since it has two elements that textbooks do not have:  being tactile and the focus on her interest.

It is a great app for all science students but I am also seeing that it might be a great app for a struggling second language learner who is very tactile and loves the subject. Such an app would be great for project-based learning.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/pbl-debunking-myths-fallacies-bob-lenz

 

 

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