Thing 25- App-palooza!

I wanted to look at Thing 25 this year to find apps or programs that I can incorporate for my collaborative lessons with high school teachers that requires some for of presentation tool or other tool. My school is very small with an approximate total of 350 students PreK-12. We do not have a lot of technology readily available to us so I try to incorporate what I can when I can in the library. I find it really important to stay up to date on the technology and try to introduce students to new means of tools when I can.

One particular tool that I found interesting is Seesaw. I plan to complete more research on this tool and possibly begin to implement it with one of the teachers in Morristown. I know a couple of the middle school level teachers that would like to go paperless but without the technology we are not able to do that just yet. I would like to introduce the teacher to seesaw though so that they could in the future use it with their classroom. It seems like it would be a seamless tool to use and very effective for what the teacher desires.

Another tool I found useful was ABCya! We are currently looking into creating elementary typing classes since our students in 3-5 will be taking computer based testing this year. We are hoping to add an elementary typing program and I found that ABCya! was a great option to use because it increases as their skill levels change. It is beneficial to have a program like this because it will allow students to work at their own paces. There are many other games on this site as well that would allow students to learn and excel. There are many games that I could also use in the library to assist with library skills such as ABC order games. The site is very colorful and interactive. This too will be a site that I will share out with my PreK-5 teachers. Many of the classrooms have SMART boards in them so the teachers could pull the interactive games up on the SMART board.

As I've been reading through many of the articles I noticed that a few of them point out Goodreads. I myself use Goodreads for my faculty book club and for my personal reading. I like that at the beginning of each year you can set a reading goal and try to achieve it. I keep track of the books I read with my 4th and 5th grade book clubs as well if they are books I'm choosing that I haven't read before but were recommended to me from another librarian for my book clubs. I also keep track of my faculty book clubs and two of the members of my faculty book club also keep track of the books they are reading on Goodreads. I still only use the web based version of this because I do not find the app version as user friendly as the web based version.

Many of my middle school classes that I work with use Google Drive, slides and docs. We use it to help keep items organized and so when students are doing group work all members of the group can be working on the project at the same time. The seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher and I have  had a lot of success with this, this year. The students are loving that they can work together at the same time as their partners.

There are many apps and websites to consider when designing a curriculum or project. I look forward to continuing my education with different apps so that I can always continue to introduce new and improved apps to my students. One web based resource  I love to use is Smore and I find that every class I introduce it to loves it as well. I'm looking forward to trying out some new apps and continuing to learn from my co-workers and other members of this workshop.