By Dean Reagan: I remember a time not in the too distant past when teachers did everything they could to keep their students away from their phones in class. I always thought that was a little bit odd because if there’s tech available, then I couldn’t see why we wouldn’t use it. It made sense to me that if students were engaged in their phones, then we ought to put them to use: in the right manner of course. Early apps like Edmodo were great, though I’m not sure how good its progress has been over the past seven years or so. The one good thing about COVID is that it has dragged educators kicking and screaming into the tech world.
Smart Boards are all well and good, but what did they really do that the whiteboard and projector couldn’t do? In the classrooms I have worked in, and speaking to the teachers I’ve managed, all smart boards do is to make the class look “techy and swish”. Personally, I found them a waste of money that could have been spent on proper resources , or even on more comfortable and practical desks and chairs. Getting students to use their phones rather than banning them was the obvious way of bringing tech into class. Using phones and mobile devices in class actually encourages learners to engage, and there are some great apps on the market that will aid solid, relevant learning. In no particular order, here, we take a look at some of the best free apps.
First out of the bag is Google Classroom. It’s the obvious place to begin. Google has been at the sharp end of classroom tech delivery since the education technology revolution began, and the company set their stall out years ago when they gave a whole bunch of devices to schools across the USA in order to help in class. This garnered a huge amount of custom, and Google isn’t a company to rest on its laurels, and so it makes sense that the gurus there addressed the reaching delivery, grading and assessing early doors. In a nutshell, Google Class is a virtual classroom, and teachers can send announcements, provide classes, have discussions, and as I mentioned, students can submit and have their work assessed. Having everything under one umbrella means enhanced comms between lecturer and learners, it’s easily organised and grades come back to the eager student quickly.
Udemy
This is one that few apps that teachers I have spoken to have heard of. Which is incredible! It could be touted as one of the best out there as it has over 13,000 video tutorials with a broad range of subject matter. Founded by a bunch of edutechies in 2010,it’s only taken the platform a decade to grab hold of more than 44 million students, offer 183,000 courses and provide 65,000 odd instructors teaching courses in more than 70 languages. Talk about effort! Udemy also allows you to work at your own pace, which is always a good thing, as the last thing we need is AI breathing over our shoulder. The best part of Udemy in my opinion though, is the fact that the tutors will lead you by the hand if you’ve got a great idea that you want to build into a business.
edX
Hands up who wants to study at Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology or any other top university? Everyone? Well, you can, and you can do it via edX. Get edX on your blower (phone) and no one can stop you. Even Harvard’s security guards! With over two thousand courses from a ton of brilliant unis, the best tutors the world has to offer are within touching distance, albeit cybertouching. Linguistics, business studies, IT and computer science, psychology, you name it: edX has got it. Not only that, they will also give you certificates when you complete a course. Now, how cool is that?
Sal Khan’s Khan Academy also works for adults, just ask the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, who have reaped the benefit of his brilliant app. I have! Sal’s mission is very close to ours: we want to deliver the best education we can to as many people as possible, although ours is aimed directly at the context of the UAE, which has its own quirks that we believe we are best equipped to deal with. Ayway, Khan Academy’s classes are all in video format, and you’re almost certainly used to seeing that via the plethora of blended learning courses that universities use these days. There’s a teacher (narrator) in there who explains everything you need to know, and an added onus is that it can teach you to test for things like IELTS and other exams. Go, Sal!
LingQ
I like this one because my background is in languages teaching and learning. Another reason I like it is because the guy behind LingQ, Steve Kaufmann, is a guest interviewee on our The Digest YouTube channel and he is a wonderful person, and he speaks 20 odd languages! As you’d expect from someone so proficient in learning different tongues, he knows a thing or two, and he is more than willing to share the info with you, for a very small fee, which is discounted if you follow this link.
Remind is one of those apps that some will love and others will hate. The reason for this is because it focuses on group work, and with me being a particular hater of (assessed) group work, in that aspect I might not get along with it too well. However, I love working in a team atmosphere (so long as the team pulls its weight) As a teacher, I’ve Had trouble in some contexts getting people to work together, but this is what Remind is great at. As well as students, there are teachers, parents and other communities who can get involved, and that can make learning a lot easier. I know that most of the really decent stuff I got from my first and last degrees were in the seminars and tutorials where we bounced ideas around and argued our points. Remind acts as a reminder, believe it or not, and it tells you when your class is due, and shares work, photos and handouts, you can submit your assignments and ask your buddies for help in understanding on a personal and group level.
Photomath
Anything that has math(s – without the s grinds my gears). There, I’ve said it. MATHSSSSS. It’s mathematics, not mathematic. It’s with a grudge that I include even in this this app, however, it’s not about me, it’s about you and your learning experience and so we’re going with it. Tons of people find that maths isn’t easy. Ever. This is true of all ages of learners and all the various disciplines of maths. How often do you see people having to rely on looking at the till to give you the correct change when you go shopping? It amazes me that we seem to have lost the basic skill of simple addition, subtraction and multiplication. Still. Photomath can help with that. It works by using your phone’s camera to click the problem, and Photomath walks you through the process of solving it. Youdon’t need the Internet to use it either! Good eh? Another tip here is to take up playing darts. It really sharpens those mental arithmetic skills!
Sololearn
Coding! Talk about the future, and you talk about coding. The genius of people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, my personal fave, Elon Musk and those crazy dudes from the brilliant TV comedy, Silicon Valley has made life as we know it, how it is. Sololearn is the app for you if you fancy a life tapping away at a keyboard and making things happen as if by magic. You can learn C+++, Swift, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and a ton of other mind-boggling (to me at least) programmes via tutorials from this app. Coding is the future, and if you want a piece of it, you can get it here.
Quizlet can help make learning quicker and easier, and it uses tried and trusted methods like flashcards, write, test and match and a variety of other modes that get you into the swing of learning your subjects. As you may be aware, flashcards have been in use for donkeys’ years, and as well as helping jog the memory, they’re the mainstay of Quizlet’s learning process. The app has, quite literally, millions of them ready to fire into the galaxy of expanding your mind, and what’s more, you can also create your own to test on your peers. There are games galore that also help you revisit and cement your learning.
Kahoot is a gamification learning platform that works in the format of quizzes that pit you against your classmates or groups. I used to love this kind of thing when I was a kid, but my version was Trivial Pursuit, which I was (and still am) pretty good at. The difference with Kahoot is, your teacher (or you if you are the teacher) provides on topic questions rather than general knowledge, and the game can be projected onto the whiteboard for students to get involved. I’ve used it at gatherings to break the ice, and again, a decent teacher can make good use of it for a variety of classes and subjects.
So there you have it, apart from the fact that I’d like to give a very honourable mention to Powtoon, which is a great app for encouraging your students’ creativity through video. Otherwise, these apps have all encouraged a whole load of people who would otherwise have missed out of some great tutelage. Keep up the good work, guys.