Our Top 5 Applications for the classroom

Education is a massive part of what we do here at KRCS. We are always trying to introduce new and exciting opportunities for students and teachers to not only experience themselves but experience together. So we thought we’d introduce some apps (in no particular order) that our education team think are perfect for the classroom and often recommend on visits.

iTunes U & Books

iTunes U and Books are just two of the many apps that Apple have created for education, that come free with every iPad. Incorporating technology that students love to use in their time outside of education, into the classroom is a great way to get students engaging in tasks that will help them grow.

iTunes U offers a great way for students and teachers to manage assignments, interact with students and set individual or group targets and tasks. It is also the worlds largest repository of free education content. Think of it as a school within an iPad

Teachers have the ability to create curriculum content, send assignments and mark work all within iTunes U. Students and Teachers can interact with each other with a one-to-one messaging platform directly attached to a piece of work. Which is a great way for teachers to monitor progress or help students in need. Assigning and sharing content with pupils, such as PDFs, books, apps, images and documents.

Moving on to Books. A simple but still very important application to have in the classroom. It’s a platform that allows classes to have instant access to the books they will need for the upcoming term and other additional material they might find useful. However the difference between Books and a regular ebook is interactivity, a lot of the Books now have animations, videos and interactive presentation. Using the power of iPad or other Apple devices, learning now becomes a much more immersive experience for students.

With Books Author on a Mac, creating your own iBooks for existing materials is as easy as drag and drop.

Books no longer have to take up space on your shelf and fill cupboard space. Although one or two won’t hurt.

We love Books here at KRCS so much so we have our own, which you can download here. We created it in Books Author, collating all of the great education content in one book, from case studies, educational content from apple and details on Apple products in the classroom.

Price: Free
Find out more here: iTunes U & Books

Seesaw

Interaction between teacher and pupil is one of the most important lines of communication in educational life. App developers have created applications that allow teachers and pupils to interact with each other in a number of great ways using iPad.

Introducing Seesaw, a great assessment app that allows the student to have a freedom when learning with the added confidence that the teacher will always be there to help. Within the app students can demonstrate what they know in multiple different ways, whether that be via a video, text or a website link they’ve found.

Students have the ability to upload work to their own personalised folders and journals, which is then immediately accessible to the teacher, who can then mark the work directly on the app. Teachers and students can then review the work together and can even include voice feedback. They can then demonstrate easily where development is needed but also show where there has been progress.

Seesaw has a great way of integrating the classroom and home. Parents and families can be included by being invited to see their child’s latest update to their journal, via any web browser. I know when I was young I used to love showing my parents and grandparents some of the artwork I had produced, no matter how bad it was.

Price: Free, (Offers in app purchases)
Find out more here: Seesaw

PicCollage

PicCollage offers something a little different, a little more light hearted but still an important way to show understanding and learning in the classroom.

I personally used to love creating collages of historical figures or famous cities from around the world. The only problem was using messy glue and cutting out pieces of paper always left a bit of a mess. PicCollage allows students to create these same collages but without all the mess. Downloading images through their integrated search engine which filters out any bad images, allows the students to be really creative, adding not only images but gifs and stickers too. This is again, this is a way they can demonstrate their understanding of the subject.

The ability to share these images with other applications is a great tool to have in the classroom. Using PicCollage as a way to create an image, then integrate that with another application to add some interactivity, is a great way to bring some students out of their shell and interact with others. One of the applications our education team like to pair it with is Telagami.

Price: Free, (Offers in app purchases)
Find out more here: PicCollage

Tellagami

Tellagami is a an application that allows a student to create and customise their own character. Students can change features like hair and eye colour, the clothes the character wears but also the characters emotion. Here’s one I created, using a picture I took at Wembley Stadium.

The unique thing about Tellagami is that the it allows students to record up to 90 secs of their own voice and attach it as a message. Our education team think this a great way to get children interacting and conversing in a way that is creative and fun. It can give a voice to those that sometimes would not normally feel comfortable interacting in a classroom.

You can combine such apps as PicCollage and Tellagami by simply creating a collage or even just a nice image. Then by importing that straight into telagami, students can give the character a nice environment to live in.

Price: Free, (Offers in app purchases) or £4.99 for Tellagami Edu
Find out more here: Tellegami

Trilby TV

Trilby TV allows students, teachers and other members of the school to share work and important information across the digital signage throughout the school. It offers students a platform to easily showcase image and video based pieces of work that the whole school can appreciate.

All uploaded pieces of work are immediately checked by an approved moderator on the app. Before being viewed on the Trilby TV app, that can be connected to many forms of digital signage.

All you need is a TV with an internet connection or something like an Apple TV or an iPod and with the Trilby TV license and any school/college/University can be up and running.

Price: Various subscriptions from £450+vat annually.
Find out more here: Trilby TV

We hope we’ve given you some food for thought with our selection. There are so many more great educational apps out there that ready to be downloaded!

Visit our education page on our website at KRCS Education

Email us at edsales@staging.krcs.co.uk

Call us on 0115 9851797

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