麻豆传媒入口

You鈥檝e got every device under the sun in front of you in your bring-your-own-device (BYOD) classroom. What apps are you going to use? Here are the apps and app categories that I recommend you test for your school. There are lots of apps鈥攖hese recommendations are based on what I鈥檝e used with my students or successfully tested.

Content-Sharing Platforms

Your school is bricks and clicks鈥攜ou have a physical presence in your classroom and a digital podium through your content-sharing platform. You need a way to share your digital instruction, and kids need to know where to look.

• : (Previously Haiku Learning.) This is a full learning management system (LMS) that I鈥檓 trying to get our school to adopt. It鈥檚 multiplatform and robust, which makes it a great fit for our BYOD environment. It also works on top of Google Classroom, so I have all those features too, plus my grade book.
• : Teachers are moving in droves to Google Classroom. While it doesn鈥檛 have all the features of a full-scale LMS, teachers are giving students assignments and so much more with this awesome tool.
• : A favorite of my friend , this is a basic tool to share a lesson or two. I started with this tool before going to PowerSchool Learning. Today, if I were starting out, I鈥檇 probably go with Google Classroom.

There are many other content-sharing platforms, like , , and . The point is that you should have either an LMS or a content-sharing platform in a BYOD environment so that students can access a digital classroom.

Screencasting and Capturing What Happens in Class

If you鈥檙e going to share and interact with your students in the electronic and physical spaces (as you should), you must learn how to screencast.

In some exciting news, Apple has announced that iOS 11 (out later this year) will include and . When it comes out, you鈥檒l want to learn more.

• : This is my go-to app. It鈥檚 free, but I pay a few dollars for the pro service because I love it, it gives advanced editing features, and I can download to Dropbox. You can see that my YouTube tutorials are recorded with this.
• : Another screencasting tool many people use.
• : Works on iPads and Chromebooks. Teacher Tom Davidson from Australia recently . He and many teachers use it to assess how students are working math problems.
• : A robotic stand for your iPad, iPhone, or Android phone. When you use the app, Swivl will film and capture everything. It can also follow you without an app, so you can set another device to record and put it in the stand. Swivl lets you record speeches and helps you evaluate your own teaching. Just put the controller with the mic in your pocket or around your neck to record yourself as you move around the room.

Cloud Syncing

• : If you shoot video and need to get it onto your computer, Dropbox is essential. I also use it to make my classroom .
• : This tool goes with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I require my students to sign up for it over the summer. It鈥檚 great because they can open their documents in free versions of these Microsoft programs when they鈥檙e away from home.
• : This sync tool, underlying Google鈥檚 G Suite, is a must for the collaborative classroom.

Expression

Students need multiple ways to share and to express themselves, particularly verbally and with pictures. This is part of . Many teachers who are using tools that capture voice, photos, and videos are also constructing their own DIY soundproof boxes like this one from Justin Bell.

• : This tool is admittedly a little clunky on Chromebooks and some web browsers, but it鈥檚 a must-have for tablet devices. Teachers are using it for and even in . This is the most popular tool these days when I ask teachers about transformative tech.
• : This incredible tool helps younger students build e-portfolios.
• and : I love these iOS apps from Brad Wilson for kids of all ages.
• : Educators who work with special-needs kids swear by this tool. It鈥檚 web-based, but comes as an app.

Blogging

A personal blog is one of many ways for students to have a voice as blogging gives them a chance to interact with an audience and their peers. While I presently use Ning with my eighth graders, I鈥檝e used all of these blogging tools at one time or another.

• : Ning looks like a social media site because it is. I have a private Ning network that I use to teach my students blogging because it鈥檚 so easy and flexible and feels like Facebook. But the prices have gone up recently, so I may be moving to another option soon.
• : This gives you blogging, sharing, and assessment, plus extensive libraries of assignments that you can join and share with other educators. Even if you don鈥檛 use Edmodo with students, it鈥檚 worth joining just to be part of the massively useful educator communities. If you鈥檙e collaborating between classrooms, Edmodo is one of the easiest ways to do it.
• : This platform lies on top of the familiar, easy-to-use Blogger platform and is set up especially for schools.
• : This blogging platform uses WordPress in a powerful way, with each student linked to the teacher鈥檚 blog and to each other. You have lots of privacy settings, and you get a very professional look.
• : Many schools are setting up their own self-hosted WordPress blogs. Doing so is easier than ever and gives you lots of flexibility for sharing.
• : This is a website that feels sort of like a blog. Teachers can run competitions or let students participate in competitions around the world. This is a fantastic, free way to help kids build their own audience.

Written Expression

• : Has an app on every platform, and some are free. I teach my students to dictate to Dragon and paste into their other apps.
• : A perennial favorite. While you鈥檒l need a school-wide subscription to edit on the iPad, you can always use OneDrive for iPad editing if necessary. Students will have to sign up for the free account at home, as Microsoft lets only three people per day sign in at one location.
• : Students should know how to collaboratively edit. Make sure they understand the difference between commenting and chatting鈥攐ther collaborators won鈥檛 see the chat, and it isn鈥檛 saved. Students using Chrome can voice type, and they should also install , which has other features for improving literacy.
• Wikispaces: Wikis are a vitally important tool for knowledge collection as a group. My favorite is Wikispaces. To see it in action, check out this Gamifi-ed project that my students did with teachers in Alaska.

Special needs: Students with special needs have many tools available in the Google Chrome browser. After you use , try out and install the Speech Recognition add-on, which Jennifer Cronk, a special needs expert, . Take time to figure out the tools and accessibility options available on your devices for any child who needs them.

Presentations

I rarely assign a specific software program for presentations. These are my top six that I recommend to students. I expect them to know how to move their presentation slides between these programs. When they鈥檙e doing a massive online presentation , some may create slides in Keynote and others in Haiku Deck, but they all have to export and insert their slides into the group Google Presentation file the day before we present.

• : This is one of my favorite presentation programs for kids because of its tight integration with Creative Commons photos. They鈥檙e easy to share. You can try it free for basic presentations.
• : Integrate with Microsoft OneDrive, and it鈥檚 perfect for those kids who will edit on multiple devices. This tool is a plus in a PC-heavy environment.
• : Works with iCloud and picked by students who use Mac and iOS devices.
• : This online tool also has apps to create very interesting presentations that start off as mind maps.
• : If we鈥檙e presenting online as a class, this is our go-to app. It鈥檚 the easiest way to edit together. Just know that once you鈥檙e in presentation mode, students can鈥檛 change slides. Sometimes students will create in PowerPoint and upload to 鈥淕oogle Prez.鈥�
• : An excellent platform for sharing presentations and embedding them in the class website or wiki.
• : This tool easily takes a PowerPoint and turns it into a neat online website presentation. I鈥檝e had students present using Sway exclusively.

Electronic Note Taking

There are three front-runners in this category, in my opinion:

• : With a school subscription, you can share notes school-wide. Evernote does well at recognizing handwritten and scanned notes.
• : If you鈥檙e a Microsoft shop and have admins supporting you, they can configure some very cool sharing abilities in this robust note-taking app鈥攖he only synchronous note-taking app that works.
• : Teacher Crystal Koenig told me how she and have students request what they want her to teach. You can easily link to-do lists to Google Docs or create a Google Doc from a shared note.

Graphic Design, Infographics, and Color Selection

• : For graphic designs of all kind. to redesign the header on my blog and to promote my school鈥檚 events.
• : Educators love this handy tool so much that I鈥檓 including it even though it鈥檚 just for iOS devices.
• , , , and : infographic makers of choice these days.
• : I purchased the subscription to be able to do storyboards. You can鈥檛 beat it for making cartoons and movies.
• : I can鈥檛 say enough about this free site made by teacher Russell Tarr. I don鈥檛 even know where to classify it. Students can make graphic organizers, vocabulary or math video games, fake Facebook-like profile pages for historical figures or chemical elements, and fake Twitter-like tweets. There are so many things you can create, download, and embed鈥攖ake some time to tour the site.

Now that students are creating so many graphics, we have to help them understand how to pick colors. You can introduce kids to color wheels, or just teach them how to use Paletton. Then teach them how to enter the hex codes in the apps and tools that they use.

• : This tool lets you determine whether you鈥檙e going with a monochromatic, adjacent, triad, etc. Comparable to a color wheel.

Link Sharing

• LessonPaths: Think of it as educational playlists. (Previously called MentorMob EDU.)
• : I see this used heavily by elementary teachers, who set it as the start screen for kids. It has large buttons that will take kids to websites.
• : When my son was in fourth grade, I used this to create a study platform for sharing material with other parents.
• : See to get a sense of the power of sharing links in this way.
• : Diigo is my must-use social bookmarking tool (I even use it to ). Students share research in groups (you don鈥檛 need an email to sign up), and you can link it to blogs and other sources, which automatically pull from it.
• : While just on the iPad (for now), this platform is a great way to create of resources for your staff.

Formative Assessment

See my article 鈥�Fantastic Formative Assessment Tools鈥� for more detail on these. All of these work on all devices.

• : My all-time favorite app for formative assessment. It cut my time teaching binary numbers from five days to three because I didn鈥檛 move forward until everyone understood each concept.
• : This fantastic tool lets you see students work math problems live and more.
• : The fast quiz-game assessment tool people love.
• : My friend Jon Corrippo swears by Quizizz and . It has the advantage of being self-paced even as students play together.
• : This tool has several pieces. lets teachers have interactive games, while the app helps kids develop their own study plan.
• : Smart Lab runs on the teacher鈥檚 computer but lets you run quiz games and activities on your touch-screen projection device at the front of the room. It also works with BYOD. (The assessment portion is BYOD.)
• : This tool works on multiple devices and lets you synchronize lessons across them.
• : This gem lets you include questions alongside videos.
• : This tool lets teachers gather questions from students to share with the whole class, and lets students use video to respond.
• : You can create self-grading Google Forms for formative assessment.
• : This tool integrates with just about any platform and is one of my . It helps you provide rock-solid, multisensory feedback on student work.

Multiple-Choice Assessment

If you absolutely must do multiple choice (and if multiple choice is all you do, be warned that you鈥檙e missing out), spend as little time as possible grading. These apps make it a snap. You create the quiz, students bubble in the answer, and you snap a picture on your mobile device, which is your own personal Scantron. If you鈥檙e going to do multiple choice, at least give students immediate feedback. There鈥檚 no excuse not to.

• , , , and WISE are all available on iTunes and Google Play, and there are more.

Kinesthetic Learning

Some fascinating things are happening with physical motion using BYOD. Perhaps the most widely used tools are video delay apps, which let you set a delayed-start for your video camera so that you have time to get in position and film yourself doing a physical activity. This helps with coaching and improving form but can also be used with performance arts. Here are a few apps that phys ed teacher :

• ReplayIt: This is a video delay app for Chromebooks and laptops.
• : There are other video delay apps for the iPad, but this one comes highly recommended, though it is pricey.
• : Select the type of activity you want to have students do and the app picks music for that activity. This keeps kids focusing on the workout instead of picking out their music. It can be used for physical motion activities in the classroom.
• : This tool is helpful in any classroom where you want to make teams. Just load your students鈥� names in and go. You can even put in a few constraints鈥攆or example, you might want to make sure two people don鈥檛 get put together.

These are just some of the many tools available for a BYOD environment. As you鈥檙e implementing BYOD, learn more about the so that you can get past replicating what you鈥檝e always done with new digital tools into truly redefining what you do in your classroom.