Apps For The Classroom

  This week we are looking at preparation, presentation, and story apps.

The preparation applications I looked at were My Spelling Test and Merriam-Webster Dictionary. My Spelling Test is an app that a parent/guardian, teacher, or tutor o help improve a students spelling ability, but I can also see a ESL teacher using this to help a student with basic words. The app can be used for all levels.

How it works is you type a word, then you record you saying the word plus you can say a sentence that uses the word. When the student is ready to take the test they tap the "My Tests" button and they can chose which test to take. This enables the student to move at his or her own pace, and they are given a score at the end of the test. Additionally, when they misspell a word they are shown how to correctly spell the word. This immediate feedback enables the learner to see the correct way to spell the word as they are studying. I know as a student and now as a parent, by the time you get feedback/score on your spelling test it is the end of the week or the next week and the class has already moved on to the next chapter.

The days of needing a huge, heavy dictionary are gone, thank goodness. Now you can have a dictionary on your mobile device. The next app I look at is Merriam-Webster Dictionary, which I already use on my iPad on a regular bases, plus I have a dictionary app on my iPhone. I confess that I am not the best speller so it is nice to have a dictionary handy. My daughters also enjoy the dictionary apps when they are doing homework.  Many times at work someone will ask me how to spell a word and I had them my phone to use the dictionary app. The app has where you can search by word, either typing it or saying it, and it has tabs on the side of the screen just like a paper dictionary.

The entrees' look just like a paper dictionary with the word and the break down of the word; the part(s) of speech; definitions; also it may the word used in a sentence, the origin of the word, when first used, and synonyms. Something that is also nice about this app is you can tap the sound button and hear the word being said.

Now lets look at the presentation app Show Me, this is a whiteboard app. This application is a portable whiteboard. You can search presentations that have already been done, or create one of your own. To create a presentation you see a plan screen (a whiteboard), the tool bar across the top has a variety of colors, a way to insert a picture, eraser, and a record button so you can record your presentation. (Here is a picture of a drawing I did in Show Me.) The tutorials were helpful and informative. The one said there are about 1 million presentations already stored in Show Me, which can ad a teacher in not having to do a new presentation. You can follow a topic so you can know when new presentations are posts to this topic. 

Here is a simple whiteboard "page" I did.

Comic Life is a fun why for a class to create a story. I can see using this app to have a class do a history report, book report, or any type of visual presentation. This is a fun and creative app. There are templates or blank pages, speech bubbles, shapes, change colors or size, everything one would need to do a comic book. When typing a title or captions/bubbles, there is an auto correct feature. You can change the size and location of the pictures, captions, title, and bubbles.There is the ability to email the comic book as a PDF or a photo. I had fun creating a page about my dog. I used one of the templates to create the comic page below. 

Below are some apps we were asked to review and how we would use them in our classroom, my focus of study is K-6.

Social Studies:

I looked at the Lincoln Telegrams and History Tools. Both are something that I hope to use in my class. I can see using the Lincoln Telegrams app when discussing the Civil War. The students can see telegrams that Lincoln wrote during the year of 1864 of the Civil War. (My father calls the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression.) As a person who grew up with a history buff, especially the Civil War, this app is very interesting to me. I like how they "translate" the telegram, tell the you a little history (the summary/context), and they give you a page of what may have been going on at the time (inferences). My youngest daughter is fascinated with Lincoln and will enjoy this app; she would have loved to have had this when she did her Wax Museum presentation on Lincoln.

The History Tools app is a fun way to engage the students in what happened on a certain day. It would be fun to do this on the day of a students birthday, when studying a certain person in history, or a certain event in history. When you pick a day you see a calendar with the date, a summary of historical events, who was born today, who died today, today's events, feast day of saint, holidays, (I won't use these is the classroom unless appropriate), and then my events. The my events area is where I would be able to add a students' birthday.

Science:

3D Sun is an app that lets students look at the sun and see solar flares. This is a great app to us when studying the solar system and/or the sun. There are news updates, and you can even sign up for news alerts when there are big flares, geomagnetic storms and auroras. There is a Solar Dynamics Observatory Gallery, this has a variety of pictures for the students to see the sun in different stages, plus you can zoom in and see specific areas. Some of the images are movies, like the mothers' day flare. There is a description of each picture at the bottom of the picture. Then there is the 3D sun that shows the sun spinning on its axis's. You can see the earth-side and the far side of the sun.

Google Earth is another great app to use when studying science or social studies. I won't discuss this app since I have already done a presentation on this one. I just thought it was worth mentioning in this particular area of apps for the classroom.

Math:

I wish I would have had Math Drills Lite when my daughters were learning their multiplication tables and learning division. The app also has addition and subtraction. There are preset problems for drills or you can customize to the student. There is a place to label a different drill for a different student. (This appears to only be on the full version, which is $1.99.) The problem is presented, then at the bottom is a number line that will help the student with the problem. On the timed section if the student doesn't put an answer in then the number line will slowly start to automatically help the student until the correct answer is entered. At the end of the drill and questions that have been missed are reviewed so the student will immediately know how to figure out the correct answer. If I was going to use this in the classroom, I would purchase the full version in order to put pictures of the students with their drills and to have the other personalization options. I feel that these extras will make it fun and more engaging for the students.

Language Arts:

Vocabulary – I looked at the Jumbo Word Search app. I liked how the word search can be customized to a certain subject matter, like animals, astronomy, geography, etc. There are three settings: easy, medium, and hard. I can see this as something to use when a student finishes their work and needs a distraction so as not to disturb the rest of the students. It could also be a fun thing to do when on a trip to pass the time. I like how once you find a word the word disappears from the list. The words can go in all directions, just like a paper crossword puzzle. Once you find all the words a little window pops up and says, "congratulations you found all the words."