Simon & Schuster and Folger Shakespeare Library will release a set of interactive apps aimed at helping students explore the work of William Shakespeare.

AppNewser has more about the upcoming apps:

Coming this November, the joint effort will release app versions of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They will continue to release plays thereafter until the entire collection is available. The app versions will include audio recordings, videos and photos, which are designed to help teach the texts. This includes audio performances produced at the Folger Theatre, as well as expert commentary from Shakespeare scholars. The apps will also have social networking reading tools on a private network so that teachers and students can take digital notes and share them with each other within the networked text.

If you are looking for un-interactive versions of these famous plays, follow the links below to download free copies of Shakespeare’s most popular works on Project Gutenberg.

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The new Story app from Disney will let you create a simple digital book to share with friends and family.

It is a great way to create something new with the kid in your life. AppNewser has more:

The app accesses a user’s camera roll and the user can add photos and videos to the app to create a story. Users can write captions and create spreads of their various pictures and content. They can add pages of text, themes and layouts. These photo stories are designed to be shared. So a user can simply tap to share with friends on Facebook or via email. The photos are not public, and a friend or family member will need an invitation to view a story. Stories can also be embedded onto a website or blog. The app is also synced with iCloud, so that users can back up all of their stories.

Hollywood producer Neal Edelstein explored the boundaries between film and app with Haunting Melissa, a serialized “ghost story that was designed to be watched in the dark with headphones on.”

AppNewser interviewed the producer:

The film, which was written by Andrew Klavan, isn’t to be watched in one sitting like your usual movie. It’s also not your average series with multiple episodes. Instead app users can experience the story over a six-to-eight week period as different pieces of the story are revealed. As viewers progress, Edelstein’s Hooked Digital Media will add new content to the app that helps advance the story. When a new piece is added to the app, users will get a push notification. The schedule is a mystery, so don’t expect a new episode every Tuesday. It’s unpredictable, explained Edelstein. Clips are also not a standard length. For instance, one clip could be three minutes, another twenty, but each piece will push the story forward, explained Edelstein.

How will we read with Google Glass?

Mashable has created a Google Glass app called Mashable Velocity for Google Glass, sending quick alerts users to readers before a story goes viral. AppNewser has all the details:

When the app predicts that a story will go viral, the Google Glass user will get an alert. Users can decide to have Glass read a summary of the story to them aloud or share the story on their social networks. Mashable created the Velocity tool, which predicts which stories will go viral before they go viral, back in December when they relaunched their website.

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App marketplaces are filled with great reading and writing tools for kids, but finding the best apps for the kids in your life can be a daunting experience. Fill out the form below to share your favorite app with our readers.

To help our readers find and share better digital material for children, we’ve started a new Recommended Apps for Kids directory. AppNewser has all the details:

Once you fill out the short form, your app suggestion will be stored in our growing database of great apps for kids. We will use this directory to plan features and share new digital tools with our readers. You can also download an Excel version of the directory to sort the results for yourself. I’ve added a few of my favorite apps for kids to get things started. What’s your favorite app for kids?

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Do you wish you could write by hand on your iPad or Android tablet?

This GalleyCat editor used to write everything by hand, but switched to typing as his life grew busier. However, using a TruGlide stylus and Notes Plus for the iPad, we now digitize our scribbled notes.

To help our readers find the best stylus, AppNewser rounded up highly recommended styluses that work on all devices with “capacitive touch screens.”

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Are you working on a book app or interactive digital book? You might want to try Appsplit, a new crowdfunding site dedicated specifically to raising money for apps.

AppNewser has the scoop:

Do you feel like your app has gotten lost on Kickstarter or Indiegogo? Now there is a crowd sourced fund raising site specifically dedicated to funding apps. It’s called Appsplit and it lets you raise money for your app, sell your source code and connect with the talent that you might need to create your app.

When news broke that Google plans to to close Google Reader, many writers and readers scrambled to find new tools.

Now, for a limited time, you can grab a free copy of Reeder for iPad, another alternative to Google Reader. AppNewser has all the details:

The makers of Reeder are making their iPad and Mac app available for free. You’ll still have to pay $2.99 for the iPhone app, but the iPad version would have cost $4.99 prior to today. Reeder’s announcement suggested that the app will only be free until its next update.

The reading app Flipboard has a new feature that lets readers create personalized magazines out of the content they enjoy reading. Simply download the free app and save stories in a personalized magazine within Flipboard.

In the time it took to write this post, we created a GalleyCat magazine in Flipboard–look us up if you have the app! You could make your own literary journal, for instance, mixing short stories from your favorite online outlets along with publishing news.  AppNewser has all the details:

News aggregation app Flipboard has updated its iOS app to Version 2 and the update allows readers to curate and share their own personalized magazines. Users can now use the app to “collect and save content into your own magazines,” explains the iTunes update, using a new bookmarklet icon to add items from a browser. These personalized Flipboard magazines can be public or private. If you want to make it public, other people can like, comment and subscribe to your magazines and you’ll get an update when they do. You can also share your creations via email, Facebook, Twitter, and G+.

In the 21st Century, high school kids can use technological literacy just as much as traditional literacy.

The Professional Association for Design (AIGA/NY) will offer New York students a course in building iBooks and apps. AppNewser has more details:

The pilot weekend course taught Harlem students the basics of coding, robotics, and graphic design with a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and three workshops: Make a Mobile App, Electronics Prototyping with Little Bits, and Be a Graphic Designer.

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