I´d like to take a moment of your time to talk about an app called Book Creator from Red Jumper Limited.

Since many schools have Ipads for ther pupils this is an easy app to make your own presentations or books. It allows pictures, sounds, Youtube clips and films in the books you make. Young pupils can write with their fingers or draw pictures. You can even make comics with it.

You can download the free version or use the full version for schools. There are no in-app purchases and it´s being used in over 90 countries. For support they have a website www.bookcreator.com  with webinars and twitterchats if you want to learn more.

I´ve used it with pupils in special needs classes and they have been able to make their own books within their first try. Since it is easy to administer it soon becomes the pupils favorite way to make diaries and communication books to take home.

When you first get started there is a short tutorial in the app that shows you how to get started.
You make your book and then save it in  iBooks on your iPad. Once in iBook you cant make changes by mistake. You can email or print out the book or just have it on your iBook.

The only limit is your imagination.

SVAAPP - Listening to books in different languages, answer questions and voice record answers!

The SVAAPP is designed for teachers and students to use in the classroom! You can't even login if you don't register a school user. It doesn't matter much right now since I've seen the tutorial online on how to use this app in practicality. Below is the link and I hope it'll work for everyone to watch!

So, I searched online and have tried very many language apps on my smartphone. I think it's very difficult to find a good language app that has a good variety, different levels and interesting material for the little older language learner than the very beginner and with a focus on meaning and communication. I might be a little picky but I think quality is important!

My goal was focused on grades 4-6 and I think this app is very interesting and would target that range well. The students can hear English books being read, they get questions read out loud to them and can also voice record their answers. It seems like a good quality app, especially designed for education. Teachers have the ability here to send out different tasks to different students and if you want them to get different reading material with different levels and even in different languages, it seems easy to do that. This app could also be used in parallell subjects as well!

I don't think it costs anything, it says it's free to download, but then you never know if it's a free trial or if some of the features costs. In any case, I think it's better to pay for an app you would have great use for and I would pay to use this one. Not to say free apps aren't good, there are many good ones out there too and in the end, it's the students that are going to use them and needs to like to do it, so I think being open to their input and ideas is important too!

SVAAPP was spot on for what I as a teacher was looking to use it for. It gives a great overview of all students' tasks, what books they have completed, what books they are working on and what they have recorded! Watch the link and tell me what you think!

Thanks for reading ;)

/Patricia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYkv8QYplo

Use the app "Fun English" in your classroom

Hi colleagues out there!

In this blog post I want to share information about an app you can work with in your classroom. It is called “FUN English”, by Studycat, (you can download it from app store) and it is made for teachers who teach english as a foreign language, and it is suitable for children from age 3 up to 10. There is a free version to download in appstore with lots of material to use. It is also possible to pay for more material and lessons inside the app - if you want.

The good thing about this app - and that is why I think you are going to like it - is that it is developed for and by teachers. Every day approximately 4.500.000 pupils around the world use it. Now then, how can you use this app in your classroom and why should you?

“Fun English” provides lessons with different themes, for example colours, and there are games within every theme to help pupils acquire new skills. The lessons aim to teach vocabulary, listening, speaking, singing, spelling and grammatics in a fun way. For example if you want your students to practise colours you can use this app in various situations. You can let the whole class take part in playing a game on your smartboard or in pairs on an ipad. You can play memory with colours and every time a student turns around a brick the app says the name of the colour. There are many songs you can sing in the class. In some exercises pupils get to hear and see the colour at the same time as it engages them in a game. Another thing you can do with this app is to record your own voice inside games. That is very clever if you ask me. The pupil first hear a voice that says the name of the colour on different things in the picture. The voice says “it is red” and then it is time for the student to copy this phrase which get recorded in the game. Later in the game the pupil hears its own recorded voice again and shall choose the right picture as belongs to the phrase. I think this is genius because it lets pupils train their producing skills with no risk of feeling anxious about talking in front of others. The student can take an ipad to a private space and play this game and then I (the teacher) can hear the recordings. You can also do it in front of the whole class and record when the class repeat words in chorus.

In summary this is an app you can use as a complement to the ordinary teaching. I don´t mean that it can replace your english book, but it can be fun and rewarding to try out. The best thing about it is that the pupils get to speak, which are a rare activity in most lessons. The pupil can hear their own recordings in the game and play recordings to the teacher and classmates. If you like to involve the parents it also has a user guide just for parents and most games and lessons in the app are free. At last I just want to say - thank you for reading and keep inspire those young stars.