Choosing+the+Right+Apps

No one particularly likes the term //Rubric,// so I am going to try to avoid this term when talking about how to choose the right apps for the learners. It is important to provide the students with appropriate apps or else learning will not be achieved. Apple offers hundreds of thousands of apps for the iPad, so sometimes it can be difficult to choose. Teachers need to develop some guidelines for what they want the apps to be used for and what they want the outcome to be. Of course, we are not on our own when doing this, there are lots of blogs and articles out there to help come up with these guidelines.

There are hundreds of sample guidelines out on the web, I have found one that I find to be pretty well-thought out. The key to these "rubrics" is to alter them in a way that works for your students. Always keep the students in mind when choosing an app for them. This guideline rubric comes from Harry Walker, Principal of Sandy Plains Elementary, where his students are using iPods in the classroom. ([|Evaluation Rubric for Educational Apps], 2010).

Most importantly, DO NOT let an app rubric/guideline influence you or your students too much. iPads allow students to be creative and take risks, never take the fun out of learning. With this said, I have provided several links to some great pages with "Favorite Apps" listed and what not, most of these come from the people I met at a conference on iPads.


 * [|Hillary Brumer's Appolicious Site] - she has done some tremendous work with iPads and stays up to date with the best and latest apps!


 * [|Bonnie Blagojevic's Appolicious Site] - active learner with new technologies and has some great apps to share!


 * Susan Addis App Info. - check this one out for sure, lots of apps, and lots of information on each one! Find out which apps are free! [[file:S_Addis_iPodsoftware08Apr11.pdf]]