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| Emery finished the second Suzuki Book today and earn his second trophy for violin. |
One of my
favorite parts of being a teacher is learning from my students. This week in my
graduate class, we were challenged to spend an hour using some sort of social
networking site that we might use in our classroom. Some of the suggestions
were
I googled social network for teaching and
learning (google actually facilitated my key words for me, I was going to
google for social networks and education). One of the first few hits was to a
list of top 15 or something of recommended social networking sites (I had to
find a current list, the first hit was from 2009) and was tempted to choose
Edmodo, which I know a lot of school teachers use in my school district.
Instead, I choose Edshelf (www.edshelf.com).
I spent about twenty minutes just trying to
figure out how the site works (I spent just an hour overall on the site and did
watch the Youtube tutorial, which I recommend. It’s only 4 minutes). Basically,
it’s “A discovery engine of websites, mobile apps, desktop programs, and
electronic products for teaching and learning.” What caught my eye were all of
the cool app icons. Now, I don’t have a smart phone or an ipad or a tablet, so
I’ve never owned an app, but these weren’t really so much apps, I guess, as
icons (like Facebook, twitter, etc). So, I clicked on an app called “write
about this”. That led to a site with a Youtube video describing and
demonstrating this app that allowed children to take pictures of things that
they were interested in and write about them. There’s a free version and a
$3.98 version. And, I began to wonder if this was simply an online catalog. But
it’s not. After some additional exploring, I decided it went beyond that. It’s
a resource for those interested in finding apps that are working and engaging. Users
can share resources, read and write reviews, and the site does seem to allow
for the democratic features of social media—anyone can join and contribute for
free.
The only apps I ever for education were a
multiplication one (which was a simple flashcard system for the phone and I
wasn’t impressed) and a pitch pipe one (for singing). But I’m interested in
checking some of these out, including math v. zombies.
I might just have to buy an ipad after all. What educational apps do you use?
Most of the educational apps are geared towards K-12 (K-5 in reality), so finding ones that are useful in a collegiate setting is rarer. Rarer still are finding good educational apps that are free or, at the least, affordable. Evernote has a nice flashcard app called Peek that works in conjunction with the iPad's smartcover. Users can lift the edge of the smart cover to see the question, then open it further to see the answer. I used it when studying for my statistics exams and found it quite effective. Apps for educational sites, such as Khan Academy, are nice additions and make it easy to catch a quick lesson when passing the time in the car, in waiting rooms, etc. I have also used the Notability app for classroom note taking, which is a skill in which I am admittedly lacking. Notability not only allows me to take notes, but I can also record the class while taking notes. I have tried many other apps, but the three mentioned above are the only ones that I have found of any real use thus far.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestions for the college students. I'm going to check out Notability and perhaps use it this summer.
DeleteI'm mostly familiar with the elementary school apps because my daughter's teacher uses Edmodo regularly. He also uses Manga High, which my daughter loves, but is more of a website than app. I used Comic Life when I was teaching high school and had some success with it from a simple story telling standpoint. It's not really an educational app, but I found a way to use it in class and the kids liked it. The one app that we use at home for "fun" on the iPad is Duolingo, a language app that is really simple to use. There are multiple languages available, but we are using it for Spanish.
ReplyDeleteI've just requested access to a teacher's Edmodo site--but I bet Emery will love Manga High!
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