One of my favorite apps that I use daily, which does not pertain to my content area is "class dojo". Class dojo is an online behavior management program which allows you to give your students rewards for positive and negative behaviors. I love this app because whenever I carry my IPad, I can quickly reward positive or negative behavior in the lunchroom, the hallway, etc. The percentage of positives and negatives are linked to my rewards for my classroom. Each class receives a percentage, therefore if they reach 80% positive, the students then receive some type of classroom reward.
Another app that I use a lot on my IPad is the "This Day in History". Many of the times when I am teaching I will use this app as an introduction to whatever it is that I am teaching or if I have already taught something that happened on a specific day, this is a great way to spiral back and review old material and spark a class discussion.
Since I teach 2 Georgia History classes during the day one interesting app we use in the classroom is "GA Markers" which will provide famous Georgia Historical Markers throughout the state. This was a great app to reference when I wanted my students to create their own historical markers about the significant people from Georgia during the American Revolution (Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnett, George Walton, Nancy Hart, etc.. ).
I also teach 4 World History classes a day, which can becoming challenging especially when talking about various battles, wars, etc. I enjoy the "History Maps" app which allows me to access map of various battles throughout world history.
Other apps I use for education constantly is "Power Teacher" this is the system our school uses for our gradebooks. This is so easy to grab my IPad and head into a parent conference using this app. I also enjoy "Pick Me" this allows me to select my students at random and give a thumbs up or thumbs down, similar to a formative assessment app. I also use One Note (yes, the Microsoft program) to create lesson plans online. I share my lesson plans with my principal using a SkyDrive, in which she can access my lesson plans at anytime if she has internet access. I carry the One Note app on my IPad and IPhone so I am constantly in touch with my lesson plans. (One Note is a notebook application).
Let me know if you have any questions or are interesting in viewing my OneNote notebooks, I can share with you too via Skydrive! :)
The History teacher that used to be in the class next to me used "This Day in History" everyday as his bellringer. I was so fascinated I found myself in his class everyday, toward the middle of the year, watching the videos!
ReplyDeleteI love that idea Dustin. I actually wish I used "This Day in History" more in my classroom.
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