I have been working with the iPad and iPhone in the classroom for the past 5 years. The following are the apps I found to be most useful for my students and me. I teach basic beginning level chemistry for community college students.
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Periodic Tables:
EMD Periodic Table EMD Periodic Table – GOOGLE
This is one of favorite free app for students. It provides very good information on the elements. Pictures, the discovery, and physical properties are included. This app also allows students with a molar mass calculator that is extremely easy to use.
Periodic Table with Videos Periodic Table with Videos – GOOGLE
This is my other favorite free periodic table app. It is new and provided by the Royal Society of Chemistry including videos by a wonderful group of chemists at Nottingham University and film crew.
Visual Elements Periodic Table
This app does have a high cost but well worth anyone interested in the Chemical Elements. It’s authored by the famous Theodore Gray and has an amazing 3-D offering for each element and the uses of each element. Also provided are very useful and relate-able facts about each element.
This app has a small cost but is very useful for providing good visualization to students when learning nomenclature for inorganic chemistry. Chemical compound structures, descriptions, and visuals are provided for many common compounds. There are also a good amount of videos offered for common chemical reactions.
This app has a cost but provides the spectrum of each element and has a good listing of physical properties and 3D images. This app also provides the electron configuration of the elements.
This is free. A fantastic set of videos by Nova in presenting the periodic table. It even features Theodore Gray, the architect behind Visual Elements App and a few other great chemistry apps!
Calculations / Measurement:
There is a small cost. This is my favorite calculator for the iPad when showing beginning level calculator use to students.
This is free. This might change our need for teaching students calculator use. It is a handwriting calculator that allows users to enter the computations exactly as they have written on their papers.
This is free. Very simple unit conversion app. I like it because it is add free and it allows for scientific notation.
This has a low cost. Quick and easy molar mass calculator. Keeps history of compounds, shows percent by mass, and determines oxidation numbers (charges) of polyatomic ions.
Matter:
Free app but doesn’t have much to offer. The one nice feature is the ability to see states of the elements with changing temperatures.
There is a small cost but a must for chemistry students to understand matter at the particulate level. The visuals are fantastic for common material and states of matter.
There is a cost. A very good app to show students what water looks like at the particulate size. Also showing water under different conditions of temperature and states of matter.
Atoms:
Building Atoms, Ions, and Isotopes (I recommend the paid version)
Good practice in building iosotopes and learning basics subatomic particles
My favorite for modeling isotopes, good visuals!
There is a cost but this is a wonderful simulation showing the movement of atoms. I use this for Gas Laws in showing changes in temperature, pressure, volume, and moles.
There is a cost. This only app I can find to showing good visualization of ionic bonding at the particulate size.
This is a free app. Very simplistic in looking at isotopes and determining the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
Compounds:
There is a cost. A good app showing the unit cells of salt crystals. The only criticism is the long load time every time I open the app.
There is a cost. This is similar to the odyssey ionic solids but includes polyatomics. If I were to select between buying only one I would select this one.
Nice Molecules
There is a small cost. This is a good molecules app for beginning chemistry students in providing a large list of common compounds and their molecular shapes.
There is a small cost. This provides a good list of basic inorganic compounds with their shapes. I like that the shapes of the ionic compounds are also included in showing the cations and anions (including polka tonics). Also this brings in connectivity with wearable technology with using google glasses.
Lewis Dot and Molecular Shapes:
There is a small cost. This app allows you to determine the Lewis Dot Structures of simple molecular compounds and then transition to it’s molecular shape.
There is a cost. Great app for showing the different possible molecular shapes.
There is a cost. This app allows you to build your own molecules.
There is a cost. This app does a fantastic job showing the orbitals of each atom and the electrons located in the orbitals. With each element there is a small description.
Resources:
Chemio – A Student’s Chemical Reference
There is a cost to this app but two features I really enjoy are the solubility table and the visual electron configurations! This app has a lot of great chemistry resources!
An online resource for all educators and students now in an app. So many great video lessons and well organized based upon concepts being taught/learned.