Three favorite apps for language arts: Portaportal, No Red Ink and Readworks

Erin Fosher, a graduate student at the Millicent Atkins School of Education at Northern State University and Language Arts Instructor at Simmons Middle School, shared a great screencast about some of her favorite tools for teaching and learning including portaportal, No red ink and Readworks. Enjoy (5:55)!

EdTech for SD Teachers Podcast - Episode 23: Teachers Share their Favorite Digital Media Apps and Websites

This week, South Dakota Teachers share their favorite websites and apps that relate to digital media. These websites and apps allow teachers to create media projects.  The teachers also share some examples of how they use these websites and apps for learning activities. Here are the websites and apps discussed in this podcast:

Garage Band - iPad app

iMovie - iPad app

Weebly

Wix

Google Sites

PicMonkey

EdTech for SD Teachers Podcast - Episode 18: Teachers Present their Favorite Classroom Management Apps and Websites

This week, South Dakota Teachers share their favorite websites and apps that relate to classroom management. They also share some examples of how they use these websites and tools for classroom management and other activities. Here are the websites and apps discussed in this podcast:

GoNoodle

Class Dojo

Doodle Buddy

Youtube

Youtube Schools

LiveSchool

Too Noisy

Some Websites Suggested by South Dakota Teachers

Recently, I asked a group of South Dakota teachers (who are Master's degree students in my class) to share their favorite website or app. The responses were great and I found that almost every teacher has a unique website/app that they like to use for teaching and learning. Over the next few weeks, we'll be sharing these websites and apps. To start out, here are a few that were suggested:

Reflector
Have you ever wanted to show your iPad on your Smart or Promethean board without having to hook it up with wires? Reflector is a computer program that runs on a Mac, PC or any android device and allows you to show your iPad on this device. As an alternative to reflector, other teachers have used AirServer to do the same thing.

Draggo
Do you need to save links to websites for later? Do you want to save links on one computer but access these links on another? Draggo will help you do this. You can create a page of links to different websites and also organize them into groups and categories. You can also share a page of links with others online.

GoAnimate
With GoAnimate, you can create some very nice educational animations with cartoon-like characters. Perhaps the greatest possibility with these types of animations is having students create their own!

ESGI 
ESGI is simple assessment software for early childhood education. You can create, share and use other tests that were created on this site. You can also schedule conferences with this tool.

That's all for today. We'll continue on with more favorite websites and tools from South Dakota teachers in the future!

A List of Free Mobile Apps for Learning About Which Teachers Should Definitely Feel Sort of Ambivalent

Here is a selection of recommended apps for learning that I have used and that I feel ambivalent toward (in an intensely burning sort of way)! This is a list of apps that I think every teacher should definitely sort of know about because of their somewhat universal applicability over more or less of a variety of subject areas, with the exception of some or many of these :). 

Okay, so that was my attempt to be humorous and make fun of app lists out there that show nothing but love for apps and how cool they are. The reality is that apps are only tools, and they help us to do specific things. If they fail to help us do these things with more efficiency, then we should discard them for something else. Also, lists like these cannot replace a good search by a goal-oriented teacher, so really the best way to find free mobile apps for learning is to search on app stores such as Google Play, the Windows App Store, or the Apple App Store. These app stores have education sections featuring apps specifically designed for learning. 

The apps listed below are also linked in my book, Educational Technology for Teachers, where we discuss appropriate uses of apps for the Information Age to help teachers be more efficient and effective in teaching. Heres the list: 

• Adobe Ideas - (Apple IOS devices only) - An illustration app for drawing.
• Comic Book Creators (Apple IOS and Android) - Tools for creating comic books on a variety of subjects. 
• Educreations - (Apple IOS devices only) - A tool for recording and sharing lessons on a whiteboard. 
• Evernote - (Apple IOS and Android) - Save and share notes and pictures across all of your devices.
• Haiku Deck - (Apple IOS and web) - An alternative to powerpoint for creating engaging presentations 
• Idea Sketch - A free concept mapping and diagramming tool. 
• iTranslate - A language translation app. 
• iTunesU - (Apple IOS devices only) - An app for accessing many free educational materials from higher education. 
• Learn with Homer - (Apple IOS devices only) A learning app for children aged 3–6.
• Monkey Math - (Apple IOS and Android) - A fun game for learning math. 
• Piano apps - (Apple IOS and Android) - A multi touch Piano app for learning music and notes.
• Prezi - (Apple IOS devices only) - An app for creating online presentations. 
• Reading apps - (Inkling, iBooks, Kindle) - Tools that support online, interactive and E-book reading. 
• TeamViewer - An app for teachers that allows you to control a computer with a mobile device. 
• Toontastic - (Apple IOS devices only) - A tool for creating, animating and recording fun stories.

There it is. I hope you feel an intense ambivalence toward these apps after testing them out. :) Let me know in the comments if you have used one of these apps, or if there are any additional apps that you feel definitely maybe should be on this list.