I may have ADD. I probably do. My wife diagnosed me.
Thus, I have trouble sticking with one ed tech tool long enough to allow students to become proficient in it, let alone myself. What this boiled down to in my classroom was limiting student creativity by hopping from new app to new app. Sometimes the best app to bring out student creativity and critical thinking is the one they enjoyed two weeks before. So here is a list of apps and websites you should allow your students use more, even if you use them a lot already. 1. iMovie (Or WeVideo) iMovie is still the most accessible video editor out there. It’s free on all Apple devices, and relatively easy to learn. We, myself included, need to allow students enough time to learn this well enough to move on from the trailers feature. I am a self professing trailers junkie. 2. Flipgrid I literally cannot imagine a scenario where a teacher uses Flipgrid too much. It is FREE now, it allows students to use their voice through video, connects your students to each other and the world, builds community, showcases learning, provides space to reflect and share passions, and so much more. 3. Clips Clips is an even easier video creation app than iMovie. Its showcase feature is live titles that captions your video while you talk. Pan and zoom while recording, animate text and emojis of all different styles, and add music from your library or from free soundtracks. Don’t miss the boat on this one. 4. Adobe Spark Adobe Spark is actually a suite of three apps/sites that are incredibly easy to use. Spark Post makes it easy to design amazing graphics, Spark Video helps students create beautiful narrated slideshow videos, and Spark Page is the easiest way to create a simple web page to showcase learning. Graphics, video, and the web, all three are essential design skills for modern life. 5. Garage Band Let’s be honest, we abandoned Garage Band a long time ago. We need to bring it back! I give a presentation on podcasting and I am constantly on the search for FREE audio editors to share that work in Chrome or Windows. Quality options don’t exist! Soundtrap is the next best thing but it costs $$$. Music and podcasting are hallmarks of the creativity coming from this generation. Our students need to be able to hone their skills in our classrooms. Apple has made it much easier to get started with Loops, which give you pre-recorded bits of music you can combine to create an original song without much musical talent. 6. Scratch With the impending arrival of Scratch 3.0, it deserves a fresh look. The new Scratch will allow students to code completely random and incredible projects from any modern device, iPads and Chromebooks included. Coding CANNOT be isolated to one hour in December. Our students need time and freedom to stretch their critical thinking and creative muscle while coding something they thought up in their own heads. 7. CAMERA AND PHOTOS All caps was necessary. The world in 2018 is visual, our brains are visual and increasingly so. Our students should be taking a plethora of pictures every day. Doing something cool in science? Take a pic. Have a friend explaining a confusing math problem? Video it. Reading an epic passage in your book? BookSnap it. Find a great source for your writing project? Screenshot it. Finally, don’t forget you can save any image you find, as long as you follow copyright laws, by long tapping on an iPad or right clicking on a computer. Pictures are the absolute best way to document learning. Sometimes we feel guilty when our students aren’t using the newest app. This is driven by social media, just like consumerism is. By all means give your students access to the new stuff, but let’s not abandon the free and easy to use tools that allow our students to become the content creators they need to be.
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AuthorKyle McClure is an Integration Specialist in Buhler, KS. He specializes in iPads and GSuite for education. Archives
November 2018
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