App of the Week: Stack the States/Countries

Teachers of elementary school students must find ways to engage their students while still teaching them pertinent information. This is especially true when teaching Social Studies. As geography can become quite boring and there is a significant breadth of information, many teachers struggle to properly engage their students thus the students find the topics “boring”. Stack the States and Stack the States lite are U.S. geography apps designed for the iPad. The purpose of the app (lite is simply the free trial version) is to engage the students in recognizing the shape and location of states as well as important facts related to each state. The students are asked a question and given four states as possible answers. When the correct state is chosen the state becomes a Tertis like piece which then must be stacked. When the students reach the desired height (it varies) they are awarded a badge in the form of a state. The goal is to collect 50 badges. An amazing feature of this app is the when the students choose the correct answer, the state resizes itself so that it is the correct size in reference to other states. For example Delaware would be a tiny piece where as Alaska is quite large. 

Cost: Free (Stack the States Lite version) $1.99 full version. 

Grades: 3-8

Stack the Countries

This app is the same as the aforementioned app expect it substitutes countries for states. 

Cost: Free (Stack the Countries Lite version) $1.99 full version. 

Grades: 3-8

App of the Week: U.S. Westward Expansion

Social Studies teachers are always looking for fun ways in which they can can engage their students. U.S. Westward Expansion is an app designed for the iPad and is a great way to aid students in the acquisition of content area knowledge about U.S. westward expansion. It challenges the students to apply the information they've learned about the content area. The app is designed as a game for the students. They can choose from focusing on the Louis and Clark Editions, geographic awareness (called Territories), or the Industrial Revolution (called Cause and Effects). Recently I shared this app with colleagues and even as educated adults, they found it entertaining. 

Cost: Free 

Grades: 5-8

App of the Week: Nearpod

Nearpod is a push application which allows for educators to push the images on their screen their students' screens. After using this app, I feel as though it can and potentially will revolutionize teaching using Powerpoint.

Nearpod comes in two forms Nearpod Teacher and Nearpod Student. The Nearpod teacher app is designed for the educator, it is the "pusher" for lack of better terms. The Nearpod Student app is designed for the student/ anyone wishing to view the presentation. Nearpod Student simply allows for a viewer to link to the the presentation you've created. The way the app works is quite simple, once you've uploaded your presentation( I will explain later this process because it's quite cool) you are given a code to which you present to your students. They "sign in" with their first and last name and can see everything that you share from your version of the application.

Now, the information you've all been waiting, the Nearpod Teacher explanation! As I mentioned earlier in the post, the teacher version of the app is pretty cool. First, you must create an account, you have a few choices for free versions, so don't worry about budget constraints. Once you've signed in, you upload a PDF format of your chosen presentation. Then, you have the option to add in cool assessment tools such as a DrawSomething like activity in which students draw something representing an idea mentioned. You can also choose standard multiple choice questions or short open response among others. The best part, you get realtime updates as to performance.

The downfall of this app is that students needs access to an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad. Additionally, districts may not possess the aforementioned items. However, that opens us up to BYOT days, which is a discussion for another day!