Technology has increasingly become an integral part of the education of children from preschool to the university level, and teachers often search for ways to integrate apps to meet state benchmarks and keep students engaged and interested in the material. There are thousands of education apps for Android devices available for teachers that are good resources to use in the classroom, including Edmodo, Splashtop Whiteboard, and TED.
Edmodo
Social media has taken over practically everyone’s spare time, and children are no different. Edmodo gives teachers a secure, professional format that mirrors the social media tools students are so in touch with in order to get students interested and engaged in discussions and polls.
Student progress can be easily tracked, and assignments can be posted and scored within the program. Classroom management resources such as calendars and syllabi can also be utilized, and Edmodo gives parents an additional resource for staying connected with schoolwork, their child’s progress, and the classroom.
Educators can engage in networking with other teachers, administrators, parents, and publishers. The additional access to resources is beneficial to the entire classroom. Teachers can find resources to customize each student’s experience and education with additional apps run through Edmodo to supplement lesson plans or reinforce a concept a student has particular interest in or difficulty with.
Splashtop Whiteboard
A teacher at any grade level needs is the ability to be mobile and walk around the classroom. The days of standing up front, lecturing with a chalkboard are long over, and Splashtop Whiteboard gives teachers the flexibility needed to control the lesson presentation from anywhere in the room. After connecting from a tablet to the computer with Wifi, teachers can control Flash, video, audio, and computer (Mac or PC) applications.
The annotation tool allows teachers to use gestures to control different colors, shapes, text, and lines to enhance lessons. All of the changes run from a tablet to the computer, through the project and onto the classroom whiteboard. The screen shade and spotlight tools allow teachers to only show specific content at a time or keep student attention on one element.
TED
Technology Entertainment Designs (TED) is a library full of lectures, conference talks, and presentations in video and audio format. Industry leaders and experts in various disciplines deliver the TED Talks. Particularly for secondary or collegiate level classrooms, utilizing this app gives students an industry perspective on important concepts and ideas, which can be helpful in reinforcing the necessity of a particular lesson or tying in what is being learned in the classroom with practical use in the workforce.
Another way TED is useful is the ability of teachers to access this material themselves. By keeping up-to-date with emerging trends and new findings, teachers are able to keep lessons and material current and relevant for today’s students.
More Education Apps
There are a lot of apps to choose from for teachers looking to find ways to aid with presentations, lesson plans, and everything else they need. The Center for Research on Teaching Excellence at University of California-Merced has a helpful PDF for “Must-Have Apps for Teachers” at http://crte.ucmerced.edu/sites/crte/files/public/documents/MALL/Must-Have%20Apps%20for%20Teachers-1.pdf.
