Here are 10 apps that I think will help you in teaching your content area to your students.
1. Content Area Reading in Social Science
The Light Sail Education app is an interaction reading software that allows students to be engaged with the content and builds the student’s reading ability. The cool part about this app is that it has an interactive portal where a teacher can build a classroom and sign-up all of their students. The teacher can then track reading data and assess the students comprehension of leveled works or general reading topics. The app is available through Android, Chrome and Apple products. They are also now partnered with the Washington Post to allow students to read current event articles.
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3255360/View
2. Accomodations
This app is one of the best note taking apps available. I find it beneficial for students who have disabilities or trouble with listening to lectures or directions, as well as taking notes or transcribing lectures. The app allows students to voice record or take notes digitally. There are also functions to annotate those notes and organizer them by topic or key terms. The AudioNote Lite is a FREE version, you can also purchase the full version AudioNote. This app is available on MAC, iOS, Windows and Android.
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3102329/View
3. Scaffolding
Accelerated Reader 360 (AR 360)
This app allows teachers to build reading levels and scaffolding different reading material to enhance student abilities and interests in reading. You can search for reading material by content area or by reading level. AR 360 makes it easy for educators to find articles at the right level. Search by ATOS level, Lexile® measure, or grade level.
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3296894/View
4. Unit Organizer
This app allows teachers to organizer their entire classrooms, units, lessons and anything else through the use of Google. If you use Google Classroom, then this little organizational hint with allow you to easily share and collaborate with your entire class. Students will be able to easy find key pieces of information and assignments at any time. Also, student work can be accessible to you and share all in one place. Check out the blog below on how he used Google Drive to organizer his entire unit of study for the year and how you can too, especially if you format your Drive in the Unit Organizer platform.
Educational Technology Guy Blog
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3102361/View
5. Cooperative Learning
This website is an awesome resource to have students cooperatively learn and work together on projects in your classroom. Live Binders allows students to share different pieces of information, research or other key information and organize it all in one place. I have also found that this website would be great for any other collaborative environments that you might have at school, such as department meetings, curriculum, school information or even connecting with parents.
Check out an example of a Live Binder:
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3297382/View
6. Graphic Organizers
This app is an interactive graphic organizer software that students can use to build informational maps, fill-in key parts of information or create other collaborative works. When you allow the students to use technology they might surprise you will what they can or will create. This app allows them to do that. There is a FREE and paid version. Users can only use the FREE version to build one organizer at a time. The paid versions allows for multiple organizers or maps to be completed at one time. Check out the iPad demo below.
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3374559/View
7. Content Area Text in Social Science
This is a free app that allows users to take a snapshot on a smartphone and quickly pin it on the map to capture a modern event. Users can capture modern moments in history, compare and contrast these images to the past, and learn about the geographic area they are in. The app provides contextual clues and background information accessible through a world map and time lines.This is a highly collaborative software that can allow students to collaborate and learn from other from around the world or within your own community, but definitely outside of your classroom. Check the possibilities of this technology in the video below.
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3102452/View
8. Strategic Lectures
This app allows students to get more out of your lectures than to just take notes. They can take pictures with their phones or tablets of our slides or whiteboard to store the pictures into their lecture notes or categorize their notes into topics. It also allows students to record your lecture in audio files an store the files all together, so that they can be better at studying for test and recall more information. I find this app to be a great tool for student who might struggle with listening, paying attention or need help in note taking. It is also a great study aide for all students. You can also use this app to make your lectures more interesting by incorporating more medias and technology into your lectures and the students have a way to capture it all and study again later. This app is only available on iPad.
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3412057/View
9.Time and Project Management
This app works as a day-planner that can help your students keep track of homework assignments, due dates, and more. Students can even receive homework reminder notifications on their device, sync with myHomeworkapp.com, and access Time & Block based class schedules. This app help with teaching students time management and allow those students who are not very good at completing or remembering to complete assignments. This app is FREE and available online and on the iPad.
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3408678/View
10. Transition Planning
This app is great for those students who are in transition into independent living or adult programming. It can also be used with younger students who might be learning how to shop at the grocery store or making a shopping list. The app is super interactive and allows the list to be synced with others with the app, such as teaches, caregivers or parents, as well as import lists from recipes, pictures and it also learns the persons shopping habits and needs. There is also an option to incorporate coupons. This app is great for teaching students independent habits and living skills. It is also great for students to use in the classrooms that shop for a school store or teaching healthy shopping or nutrition skills.
Below is the link to the CEP 842 link (not available to non-MSU people)
https://d2l.msu.edu/d2l/le/content/312833/viewContent/3102492/View
I hope a few or all of these apps or technologies help you to better teach your students and give you a stepping stone to using other technologies in your classroom to differentiate your instruction in the content area in which you teach. Feel free to share any apps or technologies that you have found to be effective in your teachings.
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