Maybe you teach in a school in which all students are provided with mobile devices. Or maybe your school, like the school where I teach English language learners (ELLs), provides very few devices and you make do with sharing your smartphone and the few smartphones some (perhaps even most) students bring to school. Maybe you're in a situation somewhere between those two.
Regardless of how many devices you have available and how easily your students can access apps and learning platforms for mobile learning, the right apps—used in the right way—can enhance the learning environment in your classroom. But with well over one million apps available for learning, how can teachers know which are the right ones?
That answer, of course, will depend on every teacher's grade, subject, technical familiarity, teaching style, and access to hardware. But there are helpful criteria. I use three simple criteria to determine the quality of a mobile app and whether I'm likely to use it in my teaching. I ask whether this tool
- Will add value to my students' learning experiences—a value that's not available through using less techy resources or methods.
- Will be easily used by my students—and by me—within two minutes of "playing around" with it.
- Is available free or at a very low cost.
The 11 apps I share here (not in order of my preference) fit these criteria. My students and I have successfully used them all, and so have many other teachers. This isn't an exhaustive list. With a million apps out there, even the most sophisticated ed tech user isn't going to know all the possibilities for useful tools. And thousands more new apps will likely be unveiled between the time this article was written and the day it's published. But this Top 11 list is a good start.
1. Duolingo. I would be surprised if any teacher disagreed with my assertion that this free app is the best one available for someone trying to learn another language. Although my students use Duolingo to help them learn English, it can be used for learning any—or multiple—languages. (I use it periodically to reinforce my Spanish.) Its game format can be irresistible to both students and adults.
2. Google Translate. This is another indispensable app for language learners, although it's important to openly discuss with students that it's best to use the app as an occasional helper in speaking a nonnative language, not as a constant crutch. It can be a lifesaver for a new immigrant student with next-to-zero knowledge of English, not to mention for his or her teacher! Both the text and audio feature of Google Translate also help with communication between parents and teachers.
A person can type or say words into a device to almost immediately find the equivalent of those words in any chosen language. A recent update makes possible a quasi-seamless rough audio translation of a conversation (the app can often automatically identify the language being spoken) and provides translation of text images (hold your phone up to a sign and the app will show the words on that sign in the language of your choice). Using this app provides an ELL with invaluable support when he or she is reading text. It's easier and more accessible to find words in the app than by using an abridged paper dictionary—which might not even list the word.
Machine translation can be very challenging (although Skype is moving toward a program that would work as a universal translator, reminiscent of the one on Star Trek). But it can help you get your main points across to a student or parent—and vice versa. When parents see that you're trying to communicate, it makes a big difference for relationship building and support.
3. Booktrack. We've all had students who aren't eager readers and who insist they'll only read if they can listen to music. This creates a conundrum for teachers because there's plenty of research on the challenges presented when a person listens to music or otherwise multitasks while trying to concentrate on a learning task. Many schools (like mine) prohibit listening to music during classes.
Instead of getting into a power struggle with students, I offer Booktrack. This app lets a user read books with an accompanying "soundtrack" of music and sound effects that correspond to the text. For instance, when reading a story that starts with a drive to a vacation spot in the rain, the reader might hear car engine sounds and rain pattering. The app lets a reader adjust the speed of the soundtrack and text presentation, and students can create their own soundtracks. Students mostly love it. Plus, offering Booktrack demonstrates your willingness to compromise and builds up capital in your "relationship bank" with students.
4. Shadow Puppet Edu is my favorite app for content creation. I don't think any other app lets you create something useful so quickly and so easily. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can create an audio-narrated slideshow with images taken from their phone or tablet or grabbed (appropriately, of course) from the web. The creator can type text and draw on the slides, too.
Taking turns using my iPhone, my students, including very new English learners, have made Shadow Puppet presentations, such as slideshows of sentences and drawings that highlight irregular verbs or other language learning work. I've made slideshows for my class explaining various features of the English language.
5. Seesaw. This app, from the same company that created Shadow Puppet, enables students to create a digital journal of their learning, embed examples of their work into it, and then easily share it with parents or others.
6. Remind. Speaking of parents, Remind lets teachers easily and safely send texts or voice messages to parents or students. This app is particularly timely in light of recent research on how texting learning tips to parents resulted in those parents' children showing improved academic performance.
7. Animoto and
8. Replay are very similar tools that help a user almost automatically create attractive video slideshows with selected music. I use both tools often to document a special field trip or our class's work on a major project. I then post the video of this experience on our class blog. When I show my class the three- or four-minute clip, they recognize their hard work. It only takes a few minutes for me to create the videos, and they come out looking so professional that students think I spent hours!
9. Explain Everything. This app is one of the most popular and powerful apps for teacher- and student-created presentations. A user can import just about any kind of document or multimedia objects; move, draw, and animate them; and annotate everything. The app's only drawback is that teachers and students can get overwhelmed by all its bells and whistles.
10. Subtext enables teachers to add questions, text, highlights, and so on to e-books, websites, and other texts from just about anywhere—and lets students read and annotate those teacher markings. Having students annotate the text to demonstrate reading strategies promotes engagement and provides accountability.
Students can also use Subtext to see what their classmates are thinking and writing, which provides opportunities to demonstrate higher-order thinking as they react to one another.
11. Desmos. I'm no math teacher. But I asked many math teachers what they thought was the best math app, and Desmos was the easy winner. The app's site says it lets you "graph functions, plot tables of data, evaluate equations, explore transformations, and much more."
This list is just the tip of the iceberg. For lengthier lists that are continually updated, visit Common Sense Graphite or APPitic.
