In class you will be playing with and reviewing some apps related to your authorization/endorsement areas. As you look at the apps analyze them from an educator perspective - e.g. how good is the app from an educational standpoint? What age level is it suited for? How could you see yourself using this in your practice? You can start writing your reviews in Word or GoogleDocs and when you are ready create a comment to this post and copy and paste your reviews so to get them into our blog.
Some apps that you might want to check out are:
- Explain Everything
- Show Me
- Quick Voice [to be able to create podcasts like you did on the iPod]
- G-Whiz Google Browser [get the free version]
You can also set up apps for your accounts on :
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Skype
- Linked In
Good apps for productivity include:
- Drop Box [to coordinated files between your computer & device
- OnLive Desktop [gives you Office virtually but requires a good connection]
Show me and Educreations:
ReplyDeleteThese apps essentially turn your iPad into a white board. You can draw using different colors, erase, and pull in pictures. By hitting the record button before you begin, you can speak while you draw and the whole thing will be recorded to be played back later! This is a great way for students to show what they know and be able to exhibit it for others. Appropriate for all ages.
Create a graph:
This app can be used to create different styles of graphs, similar to creating graphs in a word document. The graph can then be sent to the student through their email. Through this app they can create 3D, or 2D graphs of varying colors, sizes and designs. Appropriate for all grades.
Free Graphing Calculator:
Awesome app for a math wiz, or someone who wants to be! The calculator can be used to graph linear equations, vector functions, or be used to add 2+2. The app also offers tutorials on various graphing processes. Appropriate for middle school and high school math
Read Me stories:
This app provides stories for the student to read or have read to them. They can turn the speaker on or off depending on what they want to do. There are many stories available, but I found the app a bit difficult to navigate. Appropriate for lower elementary
Fun Rhyming:
This is a good app to help review rhyming with lower elementary students. The images move and talk making it an interactive app. I found the app to be very basic, and there were reminders that popped up offering the better version if you paid money which I found distracting.
iTalk: another app to create podcasts.
ReplyDeleteApplication Review
ReplyDeleteBehavior Status:
This app is a sort of behavioral check-in that can be used to document students’ behaviors throughout the day. The main menu after it is set up will be a list with all the names of the students in the class or group you want to document. From there the user can tap on a student’s name. From that point a stop light will show up and the user can change the stop light based on the student’s behavior. When a stop light has been changed, the user has the option to change the time of the incident and make a note of what happened. There is an option for an advanced organizer of behaviors, but that is not available in the free version. This app would be very helpful in a behavior classroom where the students have many different behaviors that must be documented in order to comply with IEP goals. This is a fairly new application (this is the first version released to the public), but is fairly well designed and is usable as it is now.
1800 Grammar Questions:
This app is a very basic quiz of English grammar. The questions are presented in 5 question clusters and have an option to show the correct answer right after an answer is chosen or wait until all 5 questions are answered. The question all have sentences that are missing a word or phrase, multiple choice options are below to choose from. This application could be a good fun quiz for English learners or those who do not have a great grasp of the English language. For advanced learners of the English language, this app would not be very applicable. Because there are 1800 different sentences for questions, there is a vast amount of knowledge to learn for this application.
The U.S. Presidents:
This app has a great deal of knowledge about the Presidents of the United States. It would be ideal for memorization of the order, number, party affiliation and names of all the presidents. Its use would be very narrow and specific, although many AP U.S. History classes require memorization of the presidents. There are different modes depending on what the user wants to learn at the time. The user can choose learning mode where one can go through each of the president’s pages and learn the information on them; the user can then go to the quiz mode where the app will quiz you on whatever information you are learning. You can choose from number, random facts, full name, and years in office and party affiliation.
This would be a great app for a high school or college student who has a need to memorize the presidents.
National Geographic Explorer:
ReplyDeleteThis app has four interactive "books" that have audio and visual interactive pages as well as pages to test your knowledge. Lots of stimulating pictures and video. The text is appropriate for upper elementary students.
Quick Voice
ReplyDeleteThe first app that I had downloaded was a voice recording app. This app is pretty easy to use. The idea of recording a student as they are talking during a dialogue will give me a better understanding of what the student needs and it also gives the student an opportunity to listen to themselves too. So the recording can go both ways, what I mean by that is, the student can record their piece and when they are done I can then record myself so that the student can hear a native speaker. With that they can make sound distinctions with their voices and my voice. This will help the students pronunciation. So once the recording is over this app makes it easy to send recordings to emails. The student then has the recording at home and they are able to practice.
Univision Videos
This app or any other video or audio app will work for students that want to get more Spanish listening. If the students are not able to listen to audio or watch videos they can download this app.The idea of having students around the Spanish language will enhance their Spanish understanding. They can listen to news, music,entertainment, comedy shows and sports. The students are now surrounded by Spanish speaking tv. This would be useful during the summer days when students are sitting at home. They can keep up with their Spanish comprehension and they can pick up where they left off.
Spanish class lite
This app is very simple and gives the basics of Spanish grammar. From simple vocabulary words to semi advanced grammar, students in Spanish 1 and students in higher level Spanish can use this app to practice. The app provides small test and Spanish to English translation. I think that the best part of this app is the verbs and how to conjugate them. Good app for basic learning.
***BrainPop-
ReplyDeleteBrainPop Espanol
Explores hundreds of animated videos, quizzes, readings, activities, lesson plans etc. Used by educators and teachers and aligned to academic standards.
***Read Timer-
Reading timer App by scholastic records kids’ reading times and adds them into a log. Parents can keep track of child’s reading and browse tips, articles, and booklists.
Storykit-
Children can read stories and edit or create their own.
Sight Words HD-
Allows kids to go through flashcards of sight words.
Chicktionary-
Kind of like scrabble as you are given chickens with different letters and the goal is to make several words.
Counting Coins-
Match values, make totals, how many cents, show values.
***Oh No! Fractions-
Gives two fractions where you must choose greater than or less than and then you can prove it using bars.
***Number Line-
Order decimals, fractions, percentages on a number line.
Math Bingo
Allows you to set up different files for different people. Choose Addition, subtraction, division, and play a fun timed game of math.
National Geographic Explorer-
Allows you to download magazines. An example was one about lemurs. Includes vivid photos, videos, audio, etc.
***AU Combo-
Math problems that unlock a hidden picture.
***My particular favorites