While there are thousands of education related iPhone / iPad apps on the market (some of varying quality), few have been designed to take advantage the iPad’s expanded video presentation factor. Nibi Software Group, Inc., an online provider of collaborative learning tools, specifically video based distant learning, looks to get an early mover advantage in the space with its recently released $1.99 iPad and iPhone application Nibipedia.
The company claims the app offers access to 200 YouTube channels produce by the company on a wide variety of educational topics. Each video is linked to a corresponding page on Wikipedia with the same or related topics. Company spokespersons did not return calls by press time but a download of the app gave us an opportunity to run the program thru its paces.
The Nibipedia app does what you’d expect it to do: Access the Nibipedia.com site and it corresponding videos with a clean and simple interface. Each video in the Nibipedia library is designed to serve as an entry point for interactive, multimedia discussion, conversation, and learning according to the company website. Videos are tabbed with "Nibs" that provide either additional commentary or links to other similar resources. The company is currently offering the app to educators for free to use.
