We live in a digital world and smartphones are used by all students. They expect online training to be exciting, engaging and fun. Some online tutors don’t know how to handle the digital knowledge and blend it in their class. This article is helping you learn how to include apps in your assignments. You will be able to use gamification and to offer the best experience possible to your online students, making your online training meet their expectations.
Why use smartphones in the classroom?
First of all, smartphones are a natural complement to our daily routine. Additionally, they can offer us extra learning resources. Smartphones should not be viewed as an enemy. On the contrary, you should make the most of them and include them in your online training.
The virtual classroom needs gamification in order to improve the rate of engagement. There are certain smartphone apps that can challenge every online student.
You can use these apps to take a break from a serious learning module or to practice what you have just gone over. Also, you can include some apps in the next homework assignment or use them as a revision of a lesson.
Figure out which apps you like and find out more about them – OS, prices, age restrictions, etc.
Create rules for the use of smartphones
Although smartphones can help your online training, they can also be a distraction that could lead to you having to take disciplinary action. Before you consider including smartphones in your practice, make sure that you have clarified their rules of use.
Creating these rules it’s up to you, but you need to know your audience and your subject matter. Also, use your imagination and create educational challenges that your students will enjoy and remember.
For example, you can decide that the volume of the smartphones should be turned off. You can create a usage limit in the classroom. Moreover, you can update your students’ parents (especially if you are teaching little children) about your ideas. Keep them informed since some of them need to give their permission to use apps.
More importantly, involve the students themselves when creating these rules.
VEDAMO’s top picks
Kahoot
Kahoot is a game-based learning platform that can be used to review student knowledge, to assign educational tasks, or to take a break from some of the other well-known online teaching methods.
This app is probably one of the most popular edtech tools on the market today. It offers plenty of benefits for both students and teachers. You can use it to create a competition in the virtual classroom or to just assign homework. Moreover, you can be sure that whatever you use it for will be awesome. The app encourages students to create kahoots, thus reinforcing what they have already learned. It also gives you an opportunity to save time on correcting assignments. Plus, students get instant feedback. Kahoot makes it possible to learn in real time and from anywhere.
BookWidgets
With this app you can create engaging exercises in minutes: worksheets, games, quizzes, maps, timelines, and much more. Even if you are a technophobe, it is easy to use to share a wide variety of different activities outside your virtual classroom. Your widget can be shared privately with a simple link, or embedded in any learning management system, and it works across various devices. BookWidgets is great for blended learning, flipped classrooms, as well as more traditional classrooms. The app can be combined with other educational apps, too.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization that produces short educational video lessons. Its website includes extra practice activities and materials for online tutors and is completely free to use.
The tool places thousands of videos and articles at your fingertips in math, science, economics, computing, finance, grammar, history, government, politics, and much more. Your online students can practice questions with instant feedback and step-by-step hints. Furthermore, you can instantly bookmark your favorite content or even access various learning materials offline. Flip your virtual classroom – your students can watch Khan Academy videos to gain new knowledge and then practice, discuss, and collaborate with the other students during the virtual classroom sessions.
Aurasma
Aurasma is an augmented reality platform that changes the way we interact with the physical world. Their image recognition technology uses a smartphone’s camera to turn everyday objects, images, and places into new graphics, animation, video, audio, and 3D content.
Aurasma includes a powerful cloud-based studio for creating, managing, and tracking your students’ augmented reality projects.Students can build Auras using their own photos and videos, or select from thousands of digital animations available on the platform. The most popular user-generated Auras include adding 3D dinosaurs to your street, sending a video message on a greeting card, leaving hidden clues in a treasure hunt, or adding information to classroom materials.
Photomath
With Photomath, students can learn mathematics at their own pace when a teacher goes toо fast or can’t go over every exercise. It is a great supporting tool that can be used as a type of practice game. Point your camera toward a math problem and the app shows the result with detailed step-by-step instructions.
Photomath supports arithmetic, integers, fractions, decimals square roots, algebraic expressions, linear equations/inequalities, quadratic equations/inequalities, absolute equations/inequalities, systems of equations, logarithms, trigonometry, exponential and logarithmic functions, and derivatives and integrals.
Evernote Scannable
This app scans anything you want and saves it directly to your account, or to any place where you want to store it. It allows you to share files and give access to other people.
With Evernote Scannable your online students can quickly scan their assignments, projects or any visual ideas using nothing more than a smartphone and its camera. The scanned files can be uploaded and shared on the online whiteboard, thus creating more time for teacher feedback. Additionally, Evernote Scannable is very well designed and simple to use.
Seesaw
This is a student-driven digital portfolio that inspires your students to do their best work and saves a lot of time. The app lets your students hand in assignments with just a few clicks. They can add a photo or video, make and record a drawing, upload a photo from their camera roll, and add a note, link or file. Teachers control who can see what, and whether students can add comments. It’s an easy and speedy way to gather articles and important things for a project. You can leave a comment and approve your student’s work on the go. Additionally, the app translates notes, comments, and captions into 50+ languages.
