There’s an app for pretty much everything, but these are the ones I come back to again and again (and why I love them):
Google Apps for Education: I’m cheating with this one, because it’s really a suite of apps, but the collaboration, the version history, the fact work basically can’t get “lost” or deleted within Google Apps makes it perfect for so many different things. If your school has a Google Apps for Education account, once you start using it, you won’t want to stop!
Flipboard: Flipboard markets itself as a news reader, but it’s really so much more. It’s actually the perfect place to store absolutely anything you find on the internet that you might want to come back to later, in a pretty magazine style format. What I love about Flipboard is that it is seamless between mobile and desktop, so I can find links in one place, add them to a magazine and then look at them anywhere.
Flipboard also allows you to create collaborative magazines so teachers can collaborate on a real-time, constantly updated, developmentally appropriate virtual “textbook” for their students – and then get students to collaborate too, or create their own, or even create a magazine filled with student work! Flipboard is like Pinterest for Type-A people (aka: me). If you want to see what I use Flipboard for, check out all my magazines here.
ScreenFlow: Whenever I make tutorial videos (or sub-plans) for my students, I use ScreenFlow. It’s pricy, but it’s worth it. You can record your screen as you talk, add text, annotate the screen, and so much more. Even though I’ve been using it for years, I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. My favorite thing is also very simple, I love being able to record my screen (or have content video on the “main” screen) and have myself in the Picture-in-Picture box. Perfect for when you want to “be” there, but you can’t…
Here are a few more that I’ve organized by purpose, but haven’t had a chance to summarize yet:
Video / Audio Recording:
- iMovie (iMovie Trailers)
- VoiceThread
- Adobe Spark Video (perfect for Chromebooks)
- FlipGrid
- voiceover
- hit record (collaborative video)
Online Publishing
- Medium
- Adobe Spark Webpage
- Blog
- Book Creator
Curating Content
Video Tutorials:
- Explain Everything
- Screencasting
Images with text / Infographics:
- Adobe Spark Post
- Canva
- Comic Life (creates comics)
Collaborating / Sharing
- Google Apps
- Flipgrid (video version of Padlet)
- Padlet (virtual pinboard)
- Google Draw
- VoiceThread (like a combo of Flipgrid + tutorials + screencasting + iMovie)
- Seesaw
Mapping / Measurement / Understanding the world around us:
- Google My Maps
- Google Earth
Graphing / Simulations / Equations (Math)
- Desmos
Adobe Spark is like the Google Apps for more creative tools – here’s an overview