5 Great Apps Students Can Use to Demonstrate Their Learning

May 24, 2015
Below are some of the best iPad apps students can use to demonstrate their learning across different subjects. Apple has recently released Apps in the Classroom series featuring the apps listed below (except Book Creator)  in separate visually explained guides for teachers to use with their students. All of these guides are available for free download with iBooks in Mac or iPad or with iTunes on your computer.

1- iBooks Author

“Use iBooks Author to create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad and Mac. Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more. Preview your book on your iPad or Mac at any time. Then submit your finished work to the iBooks Store in a few simple steps. And before you know it, you’re a published author.”

Download : iBooks Author Guide

2- Puppet Pals HD

“Create your own unique shows with animation and audio in real time!Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later.”

Download : Puppet Pals HD Guide

3- Explain Everything

“Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere. Create slides, draw in any color, add shapes, add text, and use a laser pointer. Rotate, move, scale, copy, paste, clone, and lock any object added to the stage.”

Download : Explain Everything Guide

4- Stop Motion Studio

“Create beautiful stop motion animated movies anywhere instantly on your device. Everything you need is right at your fingertips. No computer needed. It's simple to use, deceptively powerful and insanely fun to play with. Create fantastic movies your friends will enjoy or share it with the world on YouTube, Facebook and other sites. Cool themes, titles and sound effects are easy to add, too.”

Download : Stop Motion Guide

5- Book Creator

“Book Creator is the simple way to make your own beautiful ebooks, right on your iPad. With over 10 million ebooks created so far, Book Creator is ideal for making all kinds of books, including children's picture books, photo books, journals, textbooks and more.”

 Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

Excellent Qualitative Formative Assessment Toolkit for Teachers

February 10, 2015
I just came across this timely poster shared on a Google Plus post by Mickey McFetridge. This visual, titled Qualitative Formative Assessment Toolkit, features four practical ways to document learning using mobile technology. Two days ago I shared here a list of some of the best iPad apps to help students document and show their learning and this poster  clicks in perfectly with that post.

What I liked the most about this poster is the last line in it which reads “the process is the product”. This statement sums up the essence of using technology in learning. The emphasis should be placed on the process, the procedures and the ways students use technology in their learning. Any preoccupation with the product per se can not see the forest for the trees. As I was reading through this poster I thought of some good iPad apps to add to this work in order to provide students with more options to choose from when documenting their learning. Here are some of them :

iPad apps for creating Screencasts:

• Explain Everything
• Educreations Interactive Whiteboard
• Show Me

iPad apps for filming videos

• WeVideo
• Knowmia
• YouTube Capture
• Animoto
• Magisto

iPad apps for taking screenshots

• Skitch
• Screen Grabber
• Screenshot Maker Pro
• Screenshot Frame Maker

iPad apps for making photos:

• Instagram
• Pixlr Express Plus
• Photo editor by Aviary
• Photogene
• Snapseed
• Process

Qualitative Formative Assessment Toolkit is a work realized by Reshan Richards ( co-creator of Explain Everything app). Richards published a post on Education Week in which he explained in details the workings of this toolkit.

Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .

3 Apps Students Can Use to Document and Show Their Learning

February 8, 2015
There are several ways students can display and document their learning from creating digital portfolios to posting in a blog or a wiki. Creating digital mashups is also another potent strategy to use in this regard. The strength of this practice, besides enabling students to capture and document their learning processes, is the fact that it initiates them into the world of multimodality and allows them to express their voices through different modes.

Below are some of the iPad apps I would recommend for this purpose.

1- Seesaw

“Seesaw empowers students to document and share what they are learning in class.Students (as young as 5!) can independently create, capture, and store artifacts of learning in their private learning journal.Parents (after teacher approval) get notified of new items, giving them a glimpse of their child’s day and an opportunity to support learning at home.”

2- Educreations 

Students can use Educreations app to create animated videos explaining the things they have learned.”Educreations is a unique interactive whiteboard and screencasting tool that's simple, powerful, and fun to use. Annotate, animate, and narrate nearly any type of content as you explain any concept. Teachers can create short instructional videos and share them instantly with students, or ask students to show what they know and help friends learn something new.”

3- Explain Everything

This is another powerful app for documenting learning. Explain Everything allows students to create screencasts and step-by-step guides. They can annotate, animate, narrate import and export a wide variety of multimedia materials.Students can “Create slides, draw in any color, add shapes, add text, and use a laser pointer. Rotate, move, scale, copy, paste, clone, and lock any object added to the stage.”

 Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .