EDPuzzleA free mobile app which can enhance engagement, check comprehension, and support peer learning through interactive videos. Deliverable as homework, flipped classroom instruction, and in-class activities.
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EagleA free mobile app which allows civic minded people to engage in a social network platform through voting, debating, researching, and engaging with other members. This app will promote civic engagement amongst students by providing an accessible, interactive and overall enjoyable experience!
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PlickersA free mobile app which enables collection of real-time formative assessment data without relying on student devices. The app allows teachers to dynamically engage students, to assess student learning, and to adjust instruction based on data.
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EducreationsA free mobile app which allows students and teachers to record and share videos. The videos allow inclusion of annotation, text, pictures, and animation. Educreations works as an interactive whiteboard and provides the ability to screencast.
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About Us:
As educators and designers, these apps are some of our top recommendations for mobile learning opportunities. These four in particular can provide effective, engaging learning opportunities for an audience of high school students.
The examples were designed for Plearn Academy, a fictional high school. The lesson examples provided include artifacts and ideas for civics/history classes, math classes, and Spanish language classes.
The examples were designed for Plearn Academy, a fictional high school. The lesson examples provided include artifacts and ideas for civics/history classes, math classes, and Spanish language classes.
Pedagogical and Research Background
Researchers are reporting the learning benefits of mobile apps more and more strongly. Keengwe writes in his book, Pedagogical Applications and Social Effects of Mobile Technology Integration, that "Informal mobile learning has great potential in areas such as...active citizenship...", the goal of Civic Eagle. Other researchers state mobile learning is not only valuable, but vital: in Chapter 46 of the Handbook of Mobile Learning, Berg and Muilenburg describe "why and how student-centered teaching supports, and indeed requires, increasing use of mobile technologies" in a class of students in learning Spanish. Other articles refer to the learning benefits of mobile apps like Plickers clickers as matter-of-course: "It has already been shown (Crouch & Mazur 2001) that such a voting system when used as part of a particular pedagogical method (called ‘peer instruction’) in a particular disciplinary context (teaching first year mechanics classes in universities) produces large and statistically significant improvements in standardised test results" (Draper & Brown).
Educational leaders and innovators like Salman Khan have touted the benefits of brief, interactive videos for student learning (see his TED Talk). Students can pause and repeat videos to confirm their understanding, unlike a live lecture in which students may not grasp new concepts easily in the moment. Students may need to hear a lesson repeatedly prior to comprehension; by embedding instructional activities in video, students can control the pace and repetition. Digital video activities allow students to engage in deeper thinking and problem solving through active viewing (see more in this Pedagogical Benefits article). Once teachers have developed the videos, they can reuse them from year to year and spend more time working with students and less time creating activities.
Critics state learning by video is a form of passive absorption; however, by embedding multiple choice questions, open response questions, and audio notes which students must respond to before proceeding with the remainder of the video, student interaction is guaranteed. Often one problem of practice is how to easily include these response opportunities into video without being a multimedia specialist. Educreations, EDpuzzle and other mobile apps like these allow educators to develop, send, and track interactive videos rapidly. Problems of practice like these are gradually reduced as educators, app creators, and instructional designers pool their collective content, pedagogical, and technical knowledge to reach a nexus, as reflected in the TPACK framework.
Educational leaders and innovators like Salman Khan have touted the benefits of brief, interactive videos for student learning (see his TED Talk). Students can pause and repeat videos to confirm their understanding, unlike a live lecture in which students may not grasp new concepts easily in the moment. Students may need to hear a lesson repeatedly prior to comprehension; by embedding instructional activities in video, students can control the pace and repetition. Digital video activities allow students to engage in deeper thinking and problem solving through active viewing (see more in this Pedagogical Benefits article). Once teachers have developed the videos, they can reuse them from year to year and spend more time working with students and less time creating activities.
Critics state learning by video is a form of passive absorption; however, by embedding multiple choice questions, open response questions, and audio notes which students must respond to before proceeding with the remainder of the video, student interaction is guaranteed. Often one problem of practice is how to easily include these response opportunities into video without being a multimedia specialist. Educreations, EDpuzzle and other mobile apps like these allow educators to develop, send, and track interactive videos rapidly. Problems of practice like these are gradually reduced as educators, app creators, and instructional designers pool their collective content, pedagogical, and technical knowledge to reach a nexus, as reflected in the TPACK framework.