Tag Archives: AASL Best Apps for Teaching & Learning

AASL Recommended Apps: Chatterpix Kids

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their picks for Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2019. “Apps recognized foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. “

“Give your photos a voice with ChatterPix! Chatterpix can make anything talk — pets, friends, doodles, and more! Simply take any photo, draw a line to make a mouth, and record your voice. Use ChatterPix whenever you’re doing a video project with students on the “no photo” list. They can take a picture of whatever they want, record their voice and still participate.”

Platform: iOS & Android  
Grades: All
Cost: FREE

Journey with Technology has this article about several different ways to use ChatterPix Kids in the classroom. This page from Common Sense Education has tons of lesson plans that incorporate the app. The Digital Teacher has a detailed description and more ways to use the app in the classroom in this article.

Watch this EdTech tutorial to find out how to use the app (approx 3 min video)

If you are interested in the best apps for your library, media center, or classroom, you can read our 2019 series here or find all past apps discussed in our archives.

AASL Recommended Apps: Sora

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their picks for Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2019. “Apps recognized foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. “

Like last week’s featured app, Sora is an app that will definitely be great to use in your school library or media center!

“Sora is the school library companion to Overdrive and Libby. With Sora students and teachers are able to access audio and e-books through a digital platform customized for school library users. Sora is able to be connected to a school library collection, and given the school district permissions, the local public library collection. Educators are able to assign texts to students to read and students are able to self-select. Badges can be awarded to readers for various achievements.”

Platform: iOS & Android 
Grades: All
Cost: FREE

This link is for a PDF document from a Sora Training Specialist that will go over a variety of ways to use Sora in your classroom. This article from Publisher’s Weekly explains the history of the app and how it hopes to continue working with schools and teachers in the future. And this article from Granite Media has step-by-step instructions for getting started with Sora.

Watch this 1 min video to see how Sora works:

AASL Recommended Apps: Wakelet

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their picks for Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2019. “Apps recognized foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. “

We love to learn about all the exciting apps that AASL recommends, but we especially love it when we find an app that will be particularly useful to school libraries!!

Wakelet “is a one-stop shop for curating resources for your school library.  As an app on your mobile device, you can send links directly into a Wakelet collection for personal or public use.  You can create a collection of resources together with teaching teams for students to use for reference on projects. Collections can be made up of websites, links, notes, tweets, pictures from your device and more.”

Platform: iOS & Android
Cost: FREE
Grades: All

This article from Primary Tech explains how Wakelet lets you create collections of content from around the Web. It has several links to examples of Digital Citizenship topics. The site Ditch That Textbook has this post with several suggestions and videos for ways that students and teachers can use the app. Check out this review of the app from Common Sense Communication. Finally, this article from the UMass.edu blog shares resources, learning activities, and videos for ways to incorporate the app in your classroom.

Watch this 2 min video to see how Wakelet works:

If you are interested in the best apps for your library, media center, or classroom, you can read our 2019 series here or find all past apps discussed in our archives.

AASL Recommended Apps: Sites in VR

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their picks for Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2019. “Apps recognized foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. “

Sites in VR is an interactive virtual reality experience where learners can immerse themselves in places around the world! From tourist attractions to landmarks to cultural and religious centers, there are SO many options that learners can explore.”

As a reminder, CMLE has ClassVR headsets you can bring to your school library FOR FREE! More information and the application can be found here.

Platform: iOS & Android
Cost: FREE
Grades: All

The site Free Tech for Teachers featured the app on their website along with a presentation for using AR/VR in the classroom. Sites in VR is included in this article about virtual reality field trips. Since the app allows students to “visit” famous landmarks, it was included on this list of the top VR apps that are changing education.

If you are interested in the best apps for your library, media center, or classroom, you can read our 2019 series here or find all past apps discussed in our archives.

AASL Recommended Apps: Tynker

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their picks for Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2019. “Apps recognized foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. “

“Tynker empowers students to learn to code through play. Solve engaging puzzles, modify Minecraft worlds, program robots and drones, create custom games, make drawings, and build and animate characters. Students can unleash their creative potential through this fun, interactive introduction to computer science.”

Platform: iOS & Android  
Grades: K-8
Cost: FREE

Tynker’s Educator page offers free training, coding curriculum, and classroom management. Common Sense Education has this review of the app. Edutopia recommends the app in this article about ways to incorporate coding into any classroom subject. Finally, Cision writes about the app in greater detail in this post.

This one-minute video shows tons of ways Tynker can work with any subject:

If you are interested in the best apps for your library, media center, or classroom, you can read our 2019 series here or find all past apps discussed in our archives.