Here are a few iOS apps that you may not think of using with your ELA classes. But they will all help to showcase your students’ reading and writing abilities.
Level: All
$ Free
Video Storytelling Tool
Are you ready to tell a story? Adobe Voice helps you create animated videos in minutes. You just talk and tell your story. Over 25,000 images are available for a student to show his/her ideas. The app then automatically adds cinematic motion and a soundtrack. Students could certainly use this app to persuade, inform, and inspire others with their voice. This app is more limited than programs like iMovie or Keynote, but sometimes, fewer bells and whistles are a good thing, allowing students to focus more on content and less on flash.
Level: All
$ Free
Interactive Images and Videos
With Thinglink, you choose or take a picture with your device’s camera. Next, add video and text to the image.
ELA ideas: Students can use a photo to create a biography of themselves or a classmate. Create an interactive report. A teacher could record samples of a student reading at different times over the year. Audio ads or video book trailers could be used in the library. Create an image of a vocabulary word and add photos, videos, text, quotations, and the dictionary definition.
Level: All
$ Free
Interactive Whiteboard and Screencasting Tool
This app is a go-to app for any subject or grade level by both teachers and students. The user creates short instructional videos which allows you to annotate, animate, and narrate any type of content. It is perfect to explain, review, or reteach a concept.
ELA ideas: Create a new ending for a story. Students could distinguish between different elements of various genres. Use the app to summarize, paraphrase, or explain the main idea. Identify elements of a story including setting, characters, and key events.
Level: 12+
$ Free
350 Pun Pictures to solve.
A great game-oriented app and the best part – no ads.
Level: Grades 3-5
$ Free
Spelling and Solving a Mystery Photo
This game app has potential, maybe not in your traditional classroom setting, but definitely for a child/parent learning time, bedtime activity, or a whole-group activity.
The app shows you a zoomed-in photo puzzle (ex: hay, money, violin). I have also heard these called up-close mysteries. Along with the photo, letter blocks are displayed on the screen. You tap on the letters to spell out the word that identifies the picture. If you are correct, the whole photo is revealed, along with coins earned which can be spent for hints.
Please be aware this app has your typical advertising for game-oriented apps. Ads pop up between puzzles and run along the bottom of the screen. Pic Pop does have in-app purchases where you can buy more coins from $.99 to $19.99. So buyers beware, you will need to turn off In-App Purchases in Settings, under Restrictions.
Featured Image: Created in Canva by TCEA staff.
2 comments
Adobe Voice is an awesome digital storytelling app. Sadly, Adobe’s Terms of Service prohibit its use by users under the age of thirteen.
That is correct, Su, and something I should have mentioned in the article. Thanks for the help!