App Ed Review
With this edition of the Roundup, we are announcing that App Ed Review has started reviewing websites! We expanded our focus to include websites because tablets of most all varieties can access the websites, and they can be used in so many different ways. To ensure our consistency across reviews, we employ the same methodology that includes an original description of the website; 3-5 instructional ideas for using the website; a comprehensive, rubric-based rating of the website; and screenshots of the websites. To get you started, check out four of our favorite educational websites below!
- Ever wish you could insert questions into the YouTube videos you use in the classroom? EDpuzzle is exactly what you’ve been looking for! Done are the days of videos and worksheets, as teachers can add notes, audio comments, quiz questions, and more to YouTube videos. Cooler yet, teachers can set up an EDpuzzle classroom where they can assign students new EDpuzzle video assignments, pick a pre-made EDpuzzle video from the worldwide gallery, or view student achievement data. With a 9.2 in Efficiency, EDpuzzle scored an 8.1 overall on our comprehensive evaluation rubric. Check out teaching strategies and more here.
- Climate Hot Map is a go-to resource when teaching about climate change. From its main page, the map shows multiple examples from across the globe of climate change’s impact on the earth. Students can click on the different examples to learn more about what is happening. In addition, the website shares ways students can take action in order to spread awareness of the impact and work to minimize climate change. The “Solutions” section of the website lets users search the globe by region, and it explains what actions organizations in that region are taking in response to climate change. With its quality design and useful information, there is a bevy of ways teachers can use this website. Check out some of those ideas by clicking here.
- Collabedit, designed by computer coders, allows users to collaborate on plain text, html, css, and countless other code language documents. Out of all of the options on Collabedit, the plain text function has the most utility for K-12 classrooms. Students can invite their classmates to collaborate on a document via an “Invite” button, and then write and edit the same document at the same time, download documents uploaded to Collabedit, and more! Scoring a 9 in the Design category for its easy-to-use setup, Collabedit scored an 8.4 overall. For more ideas about how to use this resource, follow this link.
- Grammarly is dedicated to students perfecting their writing. Essentially, Grammarly is a word processing program that lets students write or upload text into the website. As students write, Grammarly analyzes the text for grammatical, usage, language, and spelling errors. Opposed to using Microsoft Word, Grammarly provides more detailed responses about errors, which has implications for how the website can be used by students. For example, teachers can have students write a paper in Grammarly and then share it with another student. That student can analyze the mistakes Grammarly identified and then offer additional feedback about the content of the paper. In that way, students will be able to focus on the paper’s meaning instead of getting caught up in correcting conventions. Grammarly scored high for its Engagement and Design. For more ideas about how to use this resource, click here.
That’s all for this month’s Roundup. If you would like more information about any of the apps mentioned here or that are on the App Ed Review website, please contact us at info@appedreview.com. And remember, it’s just that you direct students to a website, it’s that you teach them how to use it!
