When I reviewed these apps, I really enjoyed using most of them and felt that most would be helpful in a classroom setting.
Preparations:
My Spelling Test is an app that would be very beneficial to use in the classroom to have students practice spelling words. I have seen similar apps used in my previous ESL experience in the classroom. I like that it has the voice feature and the teacher can record him/herself saying the word or sentence that goes with the word. This would work well with ESL students especially so that they can hear how the word sounds, as well as , recognize it. I like that it has the function that would allow the teacher to go back to see what was missed so that the words can be retaught or studied. The tutoral made the app seem simple to use, but I fear it may be limited to doing just a few tasks. There may be other apps that would allow teachers and students to have more functions.
The dictionary apps were both very similar, but I preferred the functionality of the Dictionary.com app and have used it before. I liked that this app also had sound so that students could hear the words and see them. I like the idea of the word of the day, and as a teacher I could use this in the classroom as a daily word study. Using a dictionary app, and having it available when working with devices, would be convenient for the students when they need to look up a definition of a new word, or need to find a different word to express themselves in the thesaurus. This is a very practical app and I did not see much or have not experienced anything with this app to see any negatives. I do know it does take up quite a bit of storage to download and needs frequent updates.
Visual
My favorite visual app in this category was Drawing Pad. The best part of the app is that is seems very simple to use and could be used by younger children in the classroom. There are so many ways this tool could be used in the classroom other than just allowing children to have some creative fun. The students could use this app to illustrate stories, demonstrate their understanding of concepts through drawing, and it could even be used as a simple whiteboard to creatively answer teacher questions. I could see where it could be used inappropriately by students who were more interested in playing than listening, but with the right students it could be fun. I would also make sure students were drawing appropriate material in the class as well. I can see that it would be more difficult to do on a small screen and would be better used with a larger screen iPad if available. Otherwise, I do not see much that is negative about this tool. It would be fun if the artwork could be saved, downloaded and printed for students to keep. It would also be fun to share the art on limited social media so that parents and other could see work their child is doing.
Stories
My favorite stories app was the Puppet Pals and Puppet Pals 2 apps. I can see so many uses for this app in the classroom and it also seemed fairly simple to use. I would probably use the app for younger students, but I think older, even high school aged, students would find this funny and enjoyable. It would be a great way to open the day by using the tool to do announcements or as a hook to start a lesson. It would be a great creative tool to allow students to demonstrate something they learned during the day, perhaps as a ticket out the door. Stories could be created in just a few minutes and shared with the class. Again, the teacher would have to be responsible for making sure that appropriate material was used and created. One negative is that the Puppet Pals 2 app requires payment in order to get more functions, characters, etc. It would have to be used by students who have some background with computers and experience with similar tools and functions.
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