30Hands allows a user to make pictures, annotate them, record a voice explainer and then packages it all into a video. Luhtala likes it because it’s intuitive and easy to use with no training. Its simple interface and ease of use make it great for young students, like kindergarteners. One downside is that the teacher has to manually enter individual student accounts.
Knowmia is a free presentation tool alternative to ShowMe or ExplainEverything. While these tools have similar functionalities, some teachers see them as progressing in sophistication with ScreenChomp best for elementary school teachers, ShowMe a good choice for middle school, and ExplainEverything a better option for high school students. Knowmia includes a class roster list and some learning management system functions in addition to the presentation tools.
Nearpod is a participatory presentation tool that allows students to interact with the content while keeping control with the teacher. Luhtala says it’s as a good tool to transition middle-schoolers into appropriate behavior online. They can practice by interacting with the teacher first.
Socrative offers free versions of its app for students and for teachers. It’s an easy polling app that gives teachers an instant assessment of whether students are understanding concepts in class. Teachers can also create short answer questions in the app.
Ask3 is a tool for quickly sharing text and audio between teachers and students. It allows a user to turn an iPad into a whiteboard, record voice and text to either ask a question or get feedback. It’s a good way to have an interactive conversation with another student in the class. Students sometimes send Luhtala an Ask3 video and she can record comments or annotate and send it right back.
BiblioNasium is not a mobile app (yet) but Luhtala finds it to be a great way for younger kids to engage socially around reading. Similar to GoodReads, but aimed at a younger audience, the platform allows teachers to pose reading challenges in a set time period. Students can add books they’ve read and post reviews. Some librarians have found this gamification approach can make reading more fun and can inspire young readers.
Book Creator is only available for iPads, allowing kids to easily create their own iBook by importing images, multimedia, text, and audio. Its simplicity makes it good for kids of all ages. Even though it has been around for quite some time, some educators still call it their number-one tool. One downside is that the output can only be viewed on iOS devices.
Subtext allows teachers to upload PDFs and embed questions to help students be close readers and understand point of view: “This has been the one thing that has wowed our English department to get them on board with iPads,” Luhtala said. The department is using it in single articles, to compare to articles and with e-books. It also prompts readers to write comments at the end of each chapter, creating a reading journal. It is free.
Tellagami is a tool to share quick animated messages. Users pick a character, record an audio message or type text and send it to someone else. It can be used in conjunction with other tools to make it even more powerful.
Haiku Desk is a free presentation tool with many themes and Creative Commons images to choose from. Users can import photos, make charts, and generally tailor a presentation to their own style.
EduClipper is a popular portfolio tool that allows teachers to manage the portfolio for a secure environment, but still allows kids to work independently. Students create their own content, use online resources and mash it all together to create projects.
ThingLink is a free app that lets a user tag images with audio or video and share them widely. “It’s one of my favorite go-to things,” Luhtala said. She uses it to feature book awards or other things she wants students and staff to notice.
Remind101 is an easy way to text students through a distribution list. They can see the message, but have no access to the teacher’s cell phone number. “I’m all about finding ways to reach out to your kids,” Luhtala said.
Adobe Voice is a recently released education product from Adobe that allows students to narrate a story over an array of digital images. It doesn’t require any video, rather the tool moves images forward in a cinematic fashion. “It has gorgeous templates in terms of storytelling and a huge library of copyright friendly music and images,” Luhtala said. While schools often want to teach students about good digital citizenship, including copyright laws, having a pre-reviewed library can be useful for quicker projects. It can be seen on any platform since it is web based.
Digital PassPort is one of Luhtala’s favorite tools for teaching digital citizenship lessons. Created by Common Sense Media, a non-profit that has been creating digital citizenship content and curriculum for schools, it comes highly recommended.
Kidblog offers a free, safe place for younger students to blog. Teachers have control over all the publishing features and student blog entries are private by default. Despite the sanitized environment, many teachers feel their student write better for the larger class audience than they do when they know only a teacher will read their work.
iStopMotion is a fairly simple tool for creating animated videos. Students can record or import audio and match it up to their visuals. One teacher used this app in conjunction with Aurasma to create a live diorama in the library. It’s pricier than most education apps at $9.99
iMovie is still the preferred tool for many teachers using school issued iPads or other Apple products in their classrooms. It comes preloaded on the devices, is a powerful tool and can be used in conjunction with other apps like Green Screen or Tellagami.
Evernote is a note-taking and organizational app that has become common in and outside of education. One nice feature allows users to upload handwritten notes to better enable users to keep all their thoughts in one place. Luhtala suggests that the more users tag their notes the more effective this tool can be.
ExplainEverything is another tool for creating video like tutorials. Students or teachers can take photos or images, annotate them, record voices over them and explain different concepts that way. It could be good for giving students directions or for having students explain what they’ve learned.
PDF Expert is an app that allows students to annotate, highlight, place bookmarks and in other ways mark up digital texts. Luhtala recommends using it with smaller classes. One frustration is that it doesn’t integrate well with Google drive, which many schools are now using for student work. It’s also a bit pricey at $9.99.
SnapSpeed is a free photo editing tool which, in conjunction with a camera phone, lets a user select a part of a photo and highlight that without discoloring the rest of the person. It’s a good way to call attention to different parts of a photo.
Chromville is a free app that is part augmented reality experience and part game. Focused on younger students, it’s centered around a world in a galaxy far away where the colors are fading. Students download a blank coloring page, fill it in with color and then hover over the images to make them come to life.
edWeb.net is a community of educators discussing tips and trends through online discussions. While the site hosts webinars that teachers can attend for continuing education credits, Luhtala uses the mobile app to keep tabs on different evolving conversations with her professional learning community throughout the day.
Notability is favored by many schools for note taking. It allows teachers and students to share notes and annotate PDFs. Luhtala wishes it allowed her to grab a document out of a student’s document folder, comment on it with her voice and send it back. But using the app so fluidly is a bit tricky. The app costs $1.99
PaperPort Notes offers a free alternative note taking tool to Notability. Luhtala likes it because she almost never writes text notes to students, preferring to record herself explaining comments and attaching the recording to specific parts of a document. This app does allow for text notes too.
Storify is a way to archive social media. Some educators are finding it to be a good way to archive a school’s backchannel over a day or week. There’s no app yet, but this could be another powerful tool for adding transparency to the discussions taking place online.