Tag Archives: Best Apps for Teaching & Learning 2019

School Media Specialist, Tech

AASL Recommended Apps: ICivics Suite

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. “

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.

“iCivics is a suite of apps ranging from “Win the White House” and “Your Bill of Rights” to “Immigration Nation” and “Executive Command”. There are a total of 11 apps in the iCivics Suite. “Win the White House” will help students to explain the electoral process, identify the influence of the media in forming public opinion, and analyze how parts of a whole interact to produce an outcome in complex systems.”

Platform: iOS & Android
Cost: FREE
Grades: 6-12

The app has a specific page for teachers with curriculum units and a way to search lessons by state standards.

Check out this article from their blog about how to use iCivics to teach the 2020 election. Tech Learning has this article about using the app in the classroom. Finally, read a review of the app from Common Sense Education.

Watch this trailer to get an idea of the ways this app can help your students learn about democracy:

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AASL Recommended Apps: Green Screen by Do Ink

Green Screen by Do Ink makes it easy to create incredible green screen videos and photos. The green screen effect works by combining images from multiple sources into a single video. These images can come from photos or videos in your camera roll, or from the live video camera. With Green Screen by Do Ink, you can tell a story, explain an idea, and express yourself in truly creative and unique ways.

Platform: iOS
Cost:   $2.99
Grades: All

Read a review of the Green Screen app on Common Sense Education. Teacher Cast has this article about how to use Green Screen on iPads in both a makerspace and classroom. This article on Smore has tips for getting started with Green Screen as well as activity suggestions and videos. And this post on Makerspace Education has free downloadable guides for the app, plus student challenges and resources.

Watch this video (1 min 30 sec) for a kid-guided tour through the app:

School Media Specialist, Tech

AASL Recommended Apps: EarthViewer

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. “

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.

“EarthViewer allows students to visualize changes to Earth’s surface over its four billion year history. Students can interact with a moveable globe, similar to Google Earth, and animate four time scales – modern, ice age, paleo, and ancient Earth. Overlays can be added to show the locations of current borders and cities, important fossil finds, and impact craters. Animated charts comparing temperature, oxygen, carbon dioxide, day length, luminosity, and biodiversity allow students to investigate relationships between these variables over geologic time. EarthViewer also features in depth articles and videos as well as a detailed list of external references and a teacher quick guide are also included.”

Platform: iOS & Android 
Cost: FREE
Grades: 6-12

Read teacher reviews of this app on the Common Sense Education site. EarthViewer is included in this article sharing some of the best free Android apps for STEM and in this article describing ways to incorporate science apps for the classroom by Fizzics Education. It is also included in this article about suggested apps to use when teaching geography from Supporting Education.org.

Watch this one-minute video to see how one educator incorporates the app into her lessons about plate tectonics and continental drift:

School Media Specialist, Tech

AASL Recommended Apps: Quizlet

Create digital flashcards and interactive games!

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. “

Quizlet is a free app “which enables teachers and students to create digital flashcards. Quizlet can also automatically generate interactive games and even tests of the material you enter into it. Five or ten minutes of typing (or pasting=) upfront can yield literally hours’ worth of automatically-assessed activities inside and outside of the classroom. “

Platform: iOS & Android
Cost: FREE
Grades: All

The Quizlet site has a blog where teachers can contribute posts sharing how they’ve used the app in their classrooms. This post discusses ways to use the app in a math classroom.

Check out this review of the app from Common Sense Education. This article from the AES Educator blog shares some pros and cons of using the app in the classroom. And this post from We Are Teachers gives six ways to incorporate the app into your classroom!

Watch this video to see some of the ways to use Quizlet:

School Media Specialist, Tech

AASL Recommended Apps: Figment AR

Figment AR encourages exploration and engagement

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. “

“With Figment AR you can “turn your world into an augmented funhouse” as the developers share on in the description on the App Store. This fun app lets you create scenes filled with imaginative objects out of the world around you.  Add interactive animals, objects and emojis to make your scene come to life. Students can create “portals” to step into another dimension while adding environmental effects like rain, fireworks, snow and more.”

Platform: iOS & Android
Cost: FREE!
Grades: All

This post from the Immersive Technology in Education blog has some screenshots and ideas for using the app in your classroom. And this article from Mr. P’s ICT blog describes how to use the app as a storytelling prompt to help students with their writing techniques!

Watch this quick video to see how the app works: