Focusable is a free app and website that I started using at the start of this school year. It's a tool that anyone can use to teach themselves to focus on completing difficult tasks, to ignore cheap social media distractions, and to recharge after completing a stressful task. Since September I've used Focusable as a progress journal and I've used Focusable as an aid to avoid procrastination.
Throughout this school year Focusable has added new features and refined existing features to make the user experience better for everyone who uses it. One of those new features is the ability to use Focusable without registering for an account. Those who do register get access to even more free features like recording progress reflections and keeping track of focus streaks. In the last couple of months Focusable has also added more guided "recharge" activities. Recharge activities are breathing, stretching, and similar relaxation exercises you can do at your desk or anywhere else you like.
In the new video that is embedded below I provide an overview of how you can use Focusable without an account and how you can use it with a free account.
When an email about SplashLearn splash landed in my inbox last week I didn't give it much thought because I get dozens of pitches every morning and because at first glance I thought it was just another rote practice app. It turns out that I was wrong about it just being a rote practice app.
At its core SplashLearn is a service that provides a free and ad-free environment in which students can practice their math and ELA skills. Students can use it in the web browsers on their computers or use the free SplashLearn mobile apps.
The way that students access the SplashLearn games and other activities is through your free classroom account. As a teacher you sign-up for SplashLearn then create accounts for them. Creating accounts for your students is quick and easy. You can manually enter names (or just initials), import a spreadsheet of names, or import a Google Classroom roster. The students are given little avatars to represent themselves. Students then access SplashLearn by going to the link that you give them and then tap their avatars followed by the image that represents the class password. (See my screenshot below for details). Alternatively, students can open SplashLearn then select "student" and enter the class code.
As you might have guessed by now, because your students access SplashLearn through the classroom account that you create, you can see their progress in your teacher dashboard. It's in your teacher dashboard that you can find standards-aligned math and ELA activities to assign to your students. To find activities to assign to your students you simply pick math or ELA then the grade level followed by the standard for which you want to find activities. Activities can be assigned to the whole class or to individual students within your class.
Applications for Education
The value of SplashLearn is found in the teacher dashboard. Specifically, the way in which you can find activities and assign them to your students as needed is where SplashLearn becomes valuable. Through that dashboard you can quickly find activities to help your students practice and strengthen their skills while also monitoring their progress.
Disclosure: TinyTap is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com
TinyTap is an educational game creation tool that I've been using and writing about since its launch as a free iPad app many years ago. In my recent series about creating games with TinyTap I’ve focused on using the web-based game creation tools. Today, I’m going to highlight some of the cool features available when you create games with TinyTap’s free iPad app along with a neat feature available in the web-based version of TinyTap.
Today, I’m going to use TinyTap to create a little game that answers some of the questions that my preschool-age daughters have asked me over the last year (I keep a list in my phone) then asks them to answer questions that I ask. To do this I’m going to use TinyTap’s free iPad app and incorporate videos, audio, voice input, and a neat feature called Houdini mode. The game that I’m building is based on the model used in this TinyTap activity about learning sign language.
Creating a Game With TinyTap’s Free iPad App
Starting the process of building a game is the same on the iPad app as it is in the web-based game creation tool (click here for details on using the web-based version). The first step after signing into my account is to tap “Create” and design a cover slide.
The cover slide design tools include creation packs in which you’ll find styles, layouts, and thematic artwork to apply to your cover slide and subsequent slides in your game. After choosing the style and layout I added some text. In this case, “Questions from my Daughters” and then used the drawing tools available in the app to draw some stick figures representing me and my daughters. By the way, those drawing tools are currently only available in the iPad app.
After adding my cover slide I recorded a short video to introduce what the game was all about and how it would work. That was really easy to do in TinyTap’s iPad app. All I had to do was add a new slide then tap “Set Activity” and pick “Play Video.” When “Play Video” is chosen you can then tap “Add Video” followed by “Capture” to record a video with your iPad’s camera and instantly insert it into your TinyTap activity. You can even trim the video if you need to (I did). The GIF below shows all of the steps to record and insert a video into a TinyTap game.
After adding my video the next step was to create a slide that taught a little lesson. To that slide I added a picture of a snowflake because the lesson is about why snow is white. Adding a picture can be done by uploading an image or by using the integrated image search. I used the integrated image search to find a royalty-free image of a snowflake. Then with the image added to the slide I set a new activity type of “Say Something” to record a short audio lesson about snowflakes. A GIF of that process is included below.
With my video introduction and my audio lesson completed it was time to add a game element. To do this I created a new slide and with another picture of a snowflake. Then I chose the activity type of “Talk or Type.” By using that activity type I could then block out the snowflake itself and ask the question “how many points does a snowflake have?” Players have to answer the question by typing the answer or by speaking the answer.
Another question that my daughters have asked me is “why do the leaves turn red in the fall?” To add that question into my game I repeated the step of adding a picture and recording a little audio lesson by using the “Say Something” activity type.
Then to add a game element to my lesson about leaves I decided to use something called Houdini mode for the pictures on my slide. By using Houdini mode I could set pictures to disappear when they were tapped on. I then just recorded myself saying “tap the pictures of leaves seen in summer.” The pictures for which I had activated Houdini mode then disappeared when tapped. The setting for Houdini mode is found when you insert a picture and tap on it for additional options. See my GIF below for details. Another example of Houdini mode in use is found in this TinyTap activity about forms of transportation.
Creating my game addressing questions from my daughters incorporated one other feature that is only available when using TinyTap’s iPad app. That feature is adding background music to the whole game. Doing that was a simple matter of opening the game editor then tapping on the music icon. TinyTap offers a selection of royalty free music that you can choose to play in the background. I chose a track titled Sun and No Clouds.
One last difference between a game created with the iPad version of TinyTap and the web version is that on the iPad you can have seamless transitions so that the game automatically advances without needing to tap on a “next” button. In fact, it’s so seamless that TinyTap refers to it as not having a transition. When implemented correctly it could even be used to create a stop-motion animation as is the case when this game is viewed on an iPad and as is demonstrated in the video clip below.
More Video Options in TinyTap
In my game I used the built-in option to record a video with the camera on my iPad and insert it into the game. It is also possible to search for a YouTube video and insert it into your game. You can also simply add the URL of a YouTube video into your TinyTap activity by using the “Play Video” activity type. It should be noted that the search function is only available in the iPad version of TinyTap but the URL option is available in the web and in the iPad versions of TinyTap.
More Ways to Use Videos and Houdini in TinyTap
Thanks to Lior at TinyTap I learned about some other good implementations of the video and Houdini tools.
Getting Started!
To summarize, TinyTap offers a free iPad app and a free web-based game creation tool. Both are easy to use. The iPad version currently has a few more features than the web version. Those additional features are recording a video, drawing tools, and Houdini mode.
To get started creating a game with either version of TinyTap just sign-up for a free account and hit the Create button. You can follow my tutorial in this blog post or use some of the tutorials built into TinyTap to create an educational game customized for your students.
NBA Math Hoops is a free iPad and Android app for practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. The app can be used by students who don't have email addresses. There is also an option to create an account to save games in progress.
NBA Math Hoops pits players against NBA and WNBA players in a contest of math skills. Players score points by correctly answering a series of arithmetic questions. Incorrect answers result in a turnover and the other team getting the ball. The ball is also turned over to the other team if questions aren't answered before the shot clock expires. Players can try to steal the ball by identifying the incorrect answer to a question.
Applications for Education
NBA Math Hoops could be a fun way for elementary school students to practice their math skills while competing against their favorite NBA and WNBA players. This is the kind of app that I'd install on classroom iPads or Android tablets for students to use for independent practice when they have a little unscheduled time in class.
Math Learning Center is a resource that I've shared in the past. The last time I wrote about it was a couple of years ago. Back then it offered ten free apps containing virtual manipulatives for math lessons. Since then MLC has expanded to offer twelve free apps. Ten of them are available for iOS, Android, and Chrome while two are currently Chrome-only.
Math Learning Center apps are designed for teaching elementary school mathematics lessons. With the exception of the flashcards app, all of the Math Learning Center's free apps are designed to provide you and your students with virtual manipulatives. By the way, the flashcard app is available in English and Spanish.
Geoboard is one of the oldest and most popular apps offered by Math Learning Center. It is a good example of how all of the apps are intended to be used. Geoboard is a free app on which students stretch virtual rubber bands over pegboards to create lines and shapes to learn about perimeter, area, and angles.
Applications for Education It is important to note that except for the flashcard app all of the Math Learning Center apps are really just virtual manipulatives designed to be used as a part of lesson plan not as stand-alone practice apps. You will need to provide your students with feedback when they are using these apps.
For the last few years the Google Science Journal app has been one of my favorite apps to incorporate into outdoor learning experiences. Earlier this week I got a notification that the Google Science Journal app is becoming the Arduino Science Journal app. On December 11, 2020 the Google Science Journal app will stop working and you'll have to use the Arduino Science Journal app instead. The Arduino Science Journal app is available now for Android users and for iOS users.
The Arduino Science Journal app does all of the same things that the Google Science Journal app does. The only exception is that the Arduino Science Journal app does not yet support saving data to Google Drive. You can read Google's full announcement about transferring the app to Arduino right here.
Five Observations You Can Make With the Science Journal App
1. Decibel Levels Ask your students if a basketball clanging off of a rim is louder in an empty gym or a full gym? Have them make a hypothesis then test it in your school's gym. (Check with your physical education teacher to make sure it's okay to borrow his or her classroom).
2. Speed. Have students record how quickly or slowly they walk down the hallway.
3. Speed and Sound Correlation Have students record the speed with which they walk down the hallway. Have them record the sound at the same time. Ask them to try to identify a correlation between the speed with which they walk and the amount of noise that they make.
4. Light Today, whenever I look out of my office window I am nearly blinded by the reflection of the sun off of the frozen snow. It was brighter earlier today when the sun was hitting the snow at a more direct angle. Students can use the Science Journal app to measure and compare the brightness of one place throughout the day.
5. Light and angles correlation The Science Journal app has an inclinometer function. Have students use that function to measure the angle of the sun to a fixed position throughout the day. Have them use the light meter whenever they use the inclinometer. Then ask them to determine the correlation between the angle of the sun and the brightness at the chosen spot. They might be surprised at the results.
An iPad isn't the ideal device for practicing coding and programming principles. I prefer to have students use a full-size Windows or Mac computer as they can split their screens to see lessons and practice in side-by-side windows. But if an iPad is the only device your students' have to use, there are some free apps your students can use to learn programming and coding basics. Here are three that I've used in the past and still recommend.
Daisy the Dinosaur Daisy the Dinosaur is a free iPad app designed to introduce young students to some programming basics. The app asks students to create commands for Daisy the Dinosaur to carry out. There is a free play mode in which students can make Daisy do whatever they want. But to get started you might want to have students work through the beginner challenges mode.
PBS Kids ScratchJr PBS Kids ScratchJr is a PBS Kids-themed version of the popular ScratchJr app. PBS Kids ScratchJr is available as a free iPad app and as a free Android app. The app is designed to help five to eight year old students learn basic programming concepts through a drag-and-drop interface. In the app students program a story or game by selecting background settings and characters for each frame of the story. Then in each frame students select the actions that they want their characters to take. Students snap programming pieces together to make characters move and talk in their stories and games.
The difference between PBS Kids ScratchJr and the regular ScratchJr app is found in the character and background choices. In the PBS Kids version students can select backgrounds and characters from some of their favorite PBS Kids programs including Nature Cat, World Girl, and Arthur.
Grasshopper Grasshopper is a free app that teaches JavaScript coding through a series of easy-to-follow tutorials. The free app, available for iOS and Android, starts off with an introduction to the basic vocabulary of coding before moving into the coding lessons. You have to pass the vocabulary quiz before your can jump into the lessons. Each lesson has a tutorial, a practice activity, and a quiz. You have to successfully complete each lesson before progressing to the next one. If you need to stop a lesson, Grasshopper saves your place until you can resume. Grasshopper offers an optional reminder service that will encourage you to practice on a daily schedule.
We have a bunch of bird feeders hanging outside of house. My daughters love seeing the various birds that visit our feeders. I particularly enjoy seeing orioles come to one of our feeders. My daughters (2 and 3 years old) are curious about the names of many of the birds that come to the feeders. Orioles, robins, and chickadees are easy for me to identify. There are many birds that visit our feeders that I can't identify right away. That's why I've installed the Audubon Bird Guide app on my Android phone (an iOS version is also available).
The Audubon Bird Guide app is very helpful in identifying the birds that you see but don't know the names of. When you open the app tap on "identify bird" and you'll be taken to a screen where you then make a few selections to narrow down the list of birds that are possibly in your area. Those selections include your location, the month of the year, the relative size of the bird, the color(s) of the bird, and activity of the bird. After making those selections you'll see a list of birds with pictures. My favorite part of the app is that you can listen to recordings of bird songs/ calls to further help you identify the bird that you saw.
Applications for Education
I think that a fun assignment for students of all ages would be to try to identify as many birds as possible in their neighborhoods. I'd consider either creating a "bingo" sheet with the names of birds for students to identify. Another option would be to have students submit their observations in a Google Form then use that information to create a map of observations (here's a video on how to do that). In either case the Audubon Bird Guide app will be helpful to students as they try to accurately identify birds.
By the way, the Audubon Bird Guide app does offer the capability to record and share observations, but out of concern for student privacy I wouldn't recommend using that function.
This afternoon one of my students asked me what my daughters are going to be for Halloween. That question reminded me that Halloween will be here soon. If you find yourself starting to look for some Halloween-themed math or science lessons for elementary school, take a look at the following items.
PBS Learning Media also has a collection of Halloween-themed science and mathematics lessons. PBS Learning Media's Halloween collection includes lessons that can be used in elementary school, middle school, and high school classrooms. One of the elementary school Halloween-themed lessons is all about the historical traditions that contributed to the creation of Halloween. The materials for this lesson include a short video, video discussion questions, and a vocabulary sheet. The middle school and high school resources in PBS Learning Media's Halloween collection are videos without any other supporting materials. In the collection you'll find videos about why things sound scary, flesh-eating beetles, and supernatural elements in Macbeth. All of the items in PBS Learning Media's Halloween collection can be shared to Google Classroom where you can add questions for students answer after watching the videos.
SciShow Kids has a playlist of videos covering topics that are frequently connected to symbols of Halloween. Those topics are bats, spiders, skeletons, and the changing colors of leaves. In the video about bats students learn how bats use sound to find their way at night, how and why bats hang upside down, and how they rear their offspring. In the video on spiders students learn about the role of spiders in controlling flying insect populations and how spiders create webs. In the video about the human skeleton students can learn about the functions of the skeleton as well as how bones grow and heal over time. Finally, in the video on leaves students learn about the correlation between chlorophyll, sunlight, and leaf color.
Coding with Monsters is an activity from Tynker. It can be used to introduce some basic coding concepts to elementary school or middle school students.
If you can get through the obtrusive advertisements 31 Days of Halloween STEM activities offers some good activities for teaching basic engineering, biology, and chemistry concepts.
Number Chase - Math vs. Zombies is a free iPad game with a Halloween theme. The game is has three virtual worlds each containing ten levels of basic math problems. The object of the game is to correctly solve as many math problems as possible before the zombies catch you. The math of the game is basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Last week's most popular post was Dozens of Apps for Physical Education. In that post I highlighted the work that Kevin Shephard at Support REAL Teachers has done to develop apps through the free Glide service. Glide enables anyone who can create a Google Sheet to create a mobile app. You can start building an app from scratch or you can use one Glide's free templates to get started.
One of the templates that Glide offers is for building a staff directory app. The directory template can be used to include pictures of staff members, contact information, and brief bios of staff members.
Applications for Education
My first thought when seeing the directory template was to create a staff directory app that included not only the basic contact information for staff members but also where students and parents can find teachers' websites and supply/ materials lists. Depending upon the school you might also add teaching or course schedules to the directory app.
Glide is in my top five favorite new tools in 2019. Glide makes it incredibly easy for anyone who can make a spreadsheet to make a mobile app. We had fun using at the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp and many other people have shared their apps with me over the last few months. Perhaps no one has shared more apps made with Glide than Kevin Shephard at Support REAL Teachers.
Kevin has created dozens of apps through Glide. Many of the apps are designed for use by physical education teachers. In the Support REAL Teachers list of apps made with Glide include apps for equipment check out, exercise routines, golf scoring, grading, and a directory of mentors for physical education teachers.
If you would like to learn how to make your own mobile app through Glide, watch my short tutorial video that is embedded below.
Veescope Live is a free iPad app for creating green screen videos. Of the free iPad apps for making green screen videos that I've tried, including all of the most popular ones, Veescope Live is easiest to set-up and use even with the annoying quirk of menus not always closing on the first tap (and that might be a reflection of my iPad and not the app itself).
Even though it is a green screen video app, you can actually use the Veescope Live when recording against any flat, solid color backdrop. I was actually able to use it against the beige wall in my office, although it did work better when I used an actual green screen backdrop.
To get started with Veescope Live you do not need to create an account nor do you need to use an email address to use the app. Simply open the app and follow the clear directions to set-up the app for recording your green screen videos. Setting-up the app for recording is easier if you have your iPad standing up in a case or set in a tripod. That is because the app needs to take a steady image to set the color keying for your videos. The other part of the set-up that you should be prepared for is setting the white balance. Veescope Live will automatically set the white balance for you, but you do have to hold a blank white paper in front of the camera for a few seconds (tip: if you have white card stock, use that because it won't wiggle while you're holding it the way that standard paper does).
Once you have Veescope Live set-up on your iPad it's time to start recording. But before you hit the record button, select the background or backgrounds that you want to appear in front of. Veescope Live provides a gallery of background images and videos that you can use. The app will also let you import images and video clips to use as backgrounds (check out Pixabay or Pexels for free images and videos). After selecting your background you're ready to record your video. Recordings are automatically saved to your iPad's camera roll.
Veescope Live is free to use to record and to trim your videos. The free version of the app will put a watermark on your video (small, but noticeable). The paid version of the app ($2.99) removes the watermarking. Since all of the videos you record in Veescope Live are saved to your iPad's camera roll, you can quickly import them into iMovie to combine them with other media clips that you have on your iPad.
Applications for Education
Green screen apps like Veescope Live are great for students to use to create their own newscast videos or weather report videos. The app could also be used by students to create "world tour" videos in which they place themselves in front of landmarks and report on the places that viewers see in the video.
Google's Science Journal app is one that I regularly feature in my presentations and workshops about blending technology into outdoor lessons. With the app (available for iOS and Android) students can record data about acceleration, location, sound, light, and barometric pressure. Those are just a handful of the things that students can measure and record with the Science Journal app.
Today, Google announced that the data and observations students record in the Science Journal app can be synced and saved in folders in Google Drive. This means that if your students use the Science Journal app on a classroom iPad and later want to access their observations or edit their observations on a laptop, they can do that.
Observations & Experiments
Google offers a couple of dozen suggestions for using the Science Journal app with students. You can see those suggestions right here. The five examples that I often use in workshops are outlined below.
1. Decibel Levels
Ask your students if a basketball clanging off of a rim is louder in an empty gym or a full gym? Have them make a hypothesis then test it in your school's gym. (Check with your physical education teacher to make sure it's okay to borrow his or her classroom).
2. Speed.
Have students record how quickly or slowly they walk down the hallway.
3. Speed and Sound Correlation
Have students record the speed with which they walk down the hallway. Have them record the sound at the same time. Ask them to try to identify a correlation between the speed with which they walk and the amount of noise that they make.
4. Light
Today, whenever I look out of my office window I am nearly blinded by the reflection of the sun off of the frozen snow. It was brighter earlier today when the sun was hitting the snow at a more direct angle. Students can use the Science Journal app to measure and compare the brightness of one place throughout the day.
5. Light and angles correlation
The Science Journal app has an inclinometer function. Have students use that function to measure the angle of the sun to a fixed position throughout the day. Have them use the light meter whenever they use the inclinometer. Then ask them to determine the correlation between the angle of the sun and the brightness at the chosen spot. They might be surprised at the results.
Bonus item:
I plan to use the Science Journal app on my phone to record the cries of my baby in relation to the speed at which I walk and bounce her. Maybe I will find the perfect speed at which she always stops crying.
Eat & Move-o-Matic by the Learning Labs Game at New Mexico State University is a free iPad app intended to help teachers and students get a better understanding of the impact of their food choices.
Eat & Move-o-Matic is based on a simple premise. That simple premise is calories in, calories out. The does this by showing students how many calories are in their favorite foods and how many minutes of an activity they need to do to burn those calories. The app shows students common activities like riding bikes, jumping on a trampoline, and doing homework. Students can scroll through the food menus and activity menus until they find their favorites in each category. The app provides tips nutrition tips about each food including how to make a snack a little bit healthier.
Applications for Education Eat & Move-o-Matic could be a good app for increasing students’ awareness of the healthiness of their favorite snacks. Likewise, it is good for showing students the benefit of regular exercise.
Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp is an educational game produced by the Smithsonian. The purpose of the game is to help children recognize the movements of animals. In the game children move through a virtual zoo with a zoo keeper. As they go through the virtual zoo the zoo keeper will ask students to take pictures of animals who are demonstrating running, jumping, stomping, and other movements. Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp can be played online, as a free iPad app, and as a free Android app.
Applications for Education Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp can be a fun little game for pre-K and Kindergarten students. The game reads the commands displayed on the screen to help students learn to read the words they're seeing. At the conclusion of the game students can print out coloring pages of animals they took pictures of during the game.
Last weekend I received an email from a reader named Shayne who had experienced a problem with Google Keep notes randomly disappearing. Shayne's research indicated that other people had the same problem. So if you're someone who has run into glitches with Google Keep, here are some other task management tools that you might consider trying.
Wunderlist is a task management service that will synch across all of the devices that you use. Creating task lists in Wunderlist is an intuitive process. Just click the "create list" link or button and start typing out your list of things to do. You can create as many lists as you like within your account. You could create a list of things to do at home and things to do at school. Or you could create lists for the week, the month, and the year. You can set a due date for each task in all of your lists. All lists can be made collaborative by sharing them with other Wunderlist users.
As reviewed earlier this week, Taskade is a task management tool for individuals and teams who need tools for communicating with each other about their tasks. When you create a list in Taskade you can set a deadline for each item within the list. Files can be attached to each item in the list. And you can write comments on each item in the list. If you invite others to view a list, they can comment on list items too. Taskade users who are working in teams might enjoy the options to be notified whenever a team member updates a list. There is also an integrated text, voice, and video chat that you can use to communicate with team members about list items.
Randomly Remind Me is another task management tool that I reviewed earlier this week. Randomly Remind Me is only available on Android devices. It does not have any collaboration features. It's simply a good app for setting reminders for yourself to complete a list of tasks. My full review of Randomly Remind Me is available here.
Flask is a simple tool for making to-do lists and sharing them with others. To create a to-do list on Flask just go to the site and start writing your list. You don't have to create an account to use Flask. Unique URLs are assigned to each list that you create. To share your lists click the share button to send the link to your list to others. Watch my new video for an overview of how to use Flask to manage task lists.
OneNote has a task list function that you can use. While I enjoy using OneNote for bookmarks and sharing of notes, I don't find the task list function to be as user-friendly as some of the other tools on this list. That said, it could be the option for you if you're already a OneNote user and you don't want to add another app and corresponding account to your phone.
Bonus Option:
Use a paper notebook and pen. That's what I do every morning. The really important tasks then get copied into Google Keep on my phone.
Randomly Remind Me is an Android app for scheduling reminders to appear on your phone or tablet at intervals you set or at randomly intervals throughout the day. Reminders that you create on the app can contain text and or pictures. If you snooze a reminder or ignore it, Randomly Remind Me will log that for you so that you can adjust your reminder schedule. If you grant the app access to location services, you can get location-based reminders.
To get started with Randomly Remind Me simply open the app and tap the green "+" icon to create your first reminder. After giving your reminder a title you can add a description and add a picture. You have the choice of having your reminders appear at random times during the day (you choose how to define your daytime hours) or you can specify when you want to be reminded. For example, I set a reminder to randomly remind me to drink water eight times during the day.
When a reminder appears on your phone you can snooze it or check it as completed. At the end of the day you can view a log of your reminders to see how many you snoozed and how many you completed.
Applications for Education Randomly Remind Me was created to help people form new habits that they eventually work into their lives without needing a reminder. In the example that I gave above, Randomly Remind Me is sending me reminders to drink more water during the day. If you're trying to do the same as a New Year's resolution, you might want to try the app too. As I wrote on Ed Tech Fitness, when we feel better, we teach better.
Last week I wrote a review of the Kids U.S. Atlas iPad app. That app offers an interactive map of the United States that kids can tap on to learn about 25 animals that are indigenous to the United States. Kids World Atlas is the companion app to the Kids U.S. Atlas. Kids World Atlas uses the same format as Kids U.S. Atlas.
Kids World Atlas features a map of the world that students can tap on to learn about forty animals around the world. Students simply tap an animal on the map and new window pops-up with a picture of that animal and brief text passage about it. The app has videos about some of the animals on the map. Unfortunately, unlike Kids U.S. Atlas, Kids World Atlas doesn't offer narration of the text passages.
Like the Kids US Atlas app, the Kids World Atlas app is a freemium app. The animal map is free. There are other maps available through in-app purchases at $1.99 a piece.
Applications for Education
Just like the Kids US Atlas app the Kids World Atlas iPad app to learn some basic facts about animals. A follow-up activity to students exploring the app would be to have them chose a favorite animal on the map and then research the characteristics of that animal that make it suited to its habitat.
Kids US Atlas is an iPad app that features an interactive map of the United States. On the interactive map you will find twenty-five animals that are indigenous to the United States. Tap on the animals to read about them, to hear about them, and to watch videos about them. The text passages about the animals are accompanied by a picture and a narrator who reads the text aloud. The videos show the animals in their natural habitats. Each video is roughly thirty to ninety seconds long.
Kids US Atlas is a freemium app. The map that features animals of the United States is completely free to use. As you can see in the screenshot below, there are some interactive maps in the app that are only available through in-app purchase.
Applications for Education Kids US Atlas provides a nice way for elementary school students to learn about animals indigenous to the United States. A follow-up activity to students exploring the app would be to have them create their own maps of other places in the United States that their favorite animals live. For example, if a student chooses the Moose that is depicted as being in Maine he or she could then make a map that shows the other states in which Moose are regularly found.
Synth is a new service from Swivl. Synth is a free service that you can use to record short podcast episodes that are up to 256 seconds long. When you record your episode you post it publicly for others to listen to and record spoken responses. In that way it is somewhat like VoiceThread without pictures. But Synth will automatically transcribe your spoken words and display the transcript when your recording is played.
Synth has a public gallery of recordings that people have made. You can also have your own small channel of your recordings. All recordings can be embedded into blog posts and web pages. Listen to my first recording as embedded below or click here to listen and reply to it.
Applications for Education
Synth was designed for use in education. In fact, the developers have a list of seven ways to use Synth education. That list includes making audio exit tickets, language practice and feedback, and presenting evidence of thinking. Check out the public gallery of Synths to listen to other teachers share their thoughts about how Synth could be used in their classrooms.
You can use Synth on your iPad, iPhone, or in the web browser on your computer.
