More On Apps: Third-Grade Faves

With all that “love” already on everyone’s mind, it seemed like the perfect time for those of us in 3^rd grade to share a few of our favorite classroom apps with parents and friends!

“Explain Everything”, one of our more frequent go-to tools, is a whiteboard app into which typed text, pictures, self-made drawings, videos, and self recordings can be imported into and then used to explain a specific topic.

This particular app was one of several we employed as part of our app smashing when constructing our plot comic strips. First we used an app called “Comic Life” which contains all of the major elements found within a plot, and then we called upon “Explain Everything” to help us explain our comic strip to Miss Schmit.

The advantage to using an app like “Explain Everything” is that it reinforces the concept being taught while also allowing the students to demonstrate exactly what it is that they know about the chosen subject matter. It is especially useful in Science, because students can videotape an experiment that is being conducted in class and then later, after importing the video itself, they can further explain, on an individual basis, what they actually observed.

“Nearpod” is another favorite app of ours. It is highly interactive and can be used by students during class presentations, allowing each student to watch the presentation independently and at their own individual pace. It can also be rewound, if necessary, and watched again. This app is also great to embed quizzes in and has the built-in added bonus of being able to provide immediate feedback to each student as well.

The third-grade class, as a whole, absolutely loves the app called “Kahoot”, which we also use in quiz situations. In this case, a given question is projected onto the whiteboard located at the front of the room. Students then use their own ipad at their desk to answer the selected question. While doing this, the amount of time it takes for all of the students in the class to submit their answers as well as the total number of students who answered the question both correctly and incorrectly--without openly disclosing individual student answers--is projected in real time on to the whiteboard, so everyone can track the class’ progress. Once all answers have been logged in, we follow up with a short class discussion and review before moving on to the next quiz question.

“Kahoot” is a great motivational tool, which always generates a lot of classroom excitement and energy, with each student trying as hard as they can to answer the posed questions correctly. Honestly, they cannot wait to use this one and request it almost on a daily basis! Of course we don’t use it every day, but when appropriate, it is a fantastic resource that meets our needs in a fun and exciting way.

We have also used the “I Movie” and “Yak It” apps in conjunction with a couple other classroom projects as well. We have engaged the former to put together book trailers and the latter to make our Santas come to life and talk. Both were a resounding success that left all the students clamoring for more!