Thursday, January 24, 2013

There's an app for that! But is it right for my student?

How many apps have you downloaded that you've only used once? An average of 26% of apps are only used once! With thousands of apps available for education alone, how can you sort through and find the right ones for your students? I just ran across this article that provides some great tips to help you decide if an app is appropriate before downloading or buying it. Besides the common sense tips like reading reviews and finding YouTube videos that show the app in action, here's some other thoughts to consider:

  • Are additional in-app purchases necessary to make the app functional?
  • Do advertising messages pop up during use?
  • What privacy policies are connected to the app? Are you agreeing to share information with the developer?
  • Before updating an app, check if the update is useful. Some updates remove important features that you may have depended on. 
There's plenty of sites that review apps and provide more on this topic. While writing this post I came across a Blog, Apps in Education, with a link to a Google doc that you can add to and re-share! It's a collaborative guide to what apps do what. Many thanks to all that have contributed!
 What apps do what ??? Collaborative classroom guide  - - -> PLEASE ADD YOUR IDEAS AND RE-SHARE!!

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