Subtext iPad App: Share, Annotate, and Discuss Texts with Students Instantly

Before writing a review of an app, I usually withhold my verdict until my students have used it. This time, I cannot wait to write a pre-emptive review of Subtext, another free app that will enhance students' interaction with texts through annotations and class discussions. Learning how this app work takes some time, at least it took me a while to navigate through the features, but once I discovered how to choose a text, create groups, and share the texts and assignments with students, I was inspired to think about its application in my class.

The first step to creating an assignment in Subtext is to choose the text. Using "Tap to add books & articles," I found an article through our school's links to reliable sources and then added the page to the app library. Then I created a group (I could have done this first) for one of my classes. I shared the article with this group and then shared with them an assignment that instructs them to highlight and discuss details that support the main idea.
At first glance, this app seems to be a great enhancement to text annotations and group discussions. I will post my reviews after using this with my students.

Note: The features for annotation are similar to Nook and Kindle apps.
Have you used this app with your students? Leave a comment with examples or suggestions!

More free iPad eduational apps

Five educational apps recently caught my attention. Three are by McGraw-Hill: Grammar Wonderland 1, Grammar Wonderland 2, and Word Wonderland. Two are from exploratoriaum.edu: Sound Uncovered and Color Uncovered. All five apps require students to read and interact with the app, and they should hold students' attention.
McGraw-Hill Wonderlands

Word Wonderland challenges players to match phonetic sounds with words (such as matching "shop" with short "o."). The title "Wonderland" refers to the maps students move along in different worlds. If you are teaching students phonetic spelling strategies by using a program like Reading Horizons, for example, this would be a fun review activity.

Word Wonderland

The Grammar Wonderlands are similar--players choose a character and world, and as they win each level, by flying a plane into plural nouns or feeding a polar bear the common noun, etc., they progress across a map. These games are obviously aimed at young readers, but with older students who struggle with reading and writing, this would be a fun review of basic grammar.

Exploratorium
The Exploratorium is "an interactive museum of science, art, and perception located in San Francisco." Their brilliant apps are educational for any age. One of my favorite Sound Uncovered interactive articles is "How Old are Your Ears," which allows students to measure their hearing on a sliding scale and then encourages them to read more about how loud music and age contribute to hearing loss. Color Uncovered also has several dazzling optical illusions and surprising facts.

Favorite Free iPad Educational Apps

It's been much longer than I had realized--about a year--since I posted my first review of free educational apps. Since then, I've sorted through dozens of others, mostly word games, that are entertaining enough to keep even my attention. I'm not even close to being what my students call a "gamer"; the only video game I could ever master was Nintendo 64 Mario Kart, which I still play on occasion. I think this is why I'm picky about which educational games I download. Some are inane or require such little brain activity it can't keep my attention for more than a minute. Also, I don't know if I'm not very savvy at searching online for educational apps, but I have yet to find a blog by a teacher with entertaining educational apps that are really free--I know about Evernote, Lino, etc. by now, thank you very much--can you tell me something new?
Each of these apps requires spelling, reading, or listening, and each has proven to hold my students' attention for at least half an hour. Here they are, from least to most popular with my students (according to their preferences, not mine).

#7: My personal favorite is Word Jewels! and all its variations (Word Jewels 2, Word Jewels Spin, Word Jewels Rally). Time is unlimited, so while it exercises your spelling power, it doesn't leave you stressed. Players may spell words of three or more letters by connecting adjacent letters. I classify this game as fairly addictive.

#6: Word Gems is similar, but as a timed game, it's not as enjoyable, in my opinion. Rows of letters scroll toward you while the timer counts down from three minutes.

#5: Jumbled Sentences, available in six versions, has the appearance and sound (tinkly music and a child-like narration) of a kindergartener's game, but it's actually more challenging than you might expect. For students whose sight word recognition is a little slower than average, this game will definitely keep them occupied. Words rotate in a circle while the timer pushes the player to choose the correct words and place them in a sensible order below. A narrator reads each word as the player places it in the boxes, and when the sentence is complete, she reads the entire sentence. Try this game out, and you'll be surprised at the level of concentration it requires. One note of caution: This is British English, so you'll find the games use vocabulary that necessitates some explanation, such as the British word for "eraser" in Jumbled Sentences 6.

#4: Bussuu language apps are so engaging and effective, I still can't understand why they're free. ELL students could use the English bussuu app, but when I allowed my Spanish-speaking students to try the Italian app, they loved it! They understood the connections between these two Latin-based languages, a lesson that lends itself to developing English vocabulary with Latin roots. Illustrations and audio prompt quick learning, while quizzes and exercises strengthen long-term memory.

#3: The Cambridge Phrasal Verb Machine is the strangest, most British app I've seen to date. Its short, highly stylized animations illustrate the meanings of phrases that are difficult for learners of English. These artistic animations and the sophisticated soundtrack make it entertaining for anyone, though. It's unlike any other app.

#2: I wish more apps were as interactive as Futaba. My students quickly tire of any app, no matter how engaging it is at first, because many apps don't capitalize on that quality essential for any educational activity targeting teens: competition. Futaba pits two (or three or four, with upgrade) players against each other in a race against the clock to be the first to identify the spinning image and select the corresponding word. It's challenging not only for readers with slow sight word recognition, but even for the fastest readers.

#1: My students' favorite word apps are those with four images or an image-reveal. Find at least half a dozen of these apps by typing "word picture" in the iStore. These include 4 Pic 1 Word, What the Word? and What's the Pic?

 Leave your comments about your favorite free educational apps!

Using Toontastic to Write Short Stories

Toontastic has surprised me with its potential to inspire students' narrative writing. Teaching writing is never an easy task, and any resources that will help me not only teach the process more effectively, but actually make it more enjoyable for students, is invaluable. Although I rarely ask students to write fictional stories because the pressure to prepare students for standardized tests demands that we focus on expository and narrative essay writing, I had to reconsider my approach after hearing children's author Matt Glover's presentation at the Arkansas Reading Recovery Conference in Hot Springs last October. Glover emphasized the importance of training students to have more independence in choosing topics and stressed that when students improve writing in any mode, such as creative writing, they will improve in the modes that are required on standardized tests as well. In other words, if students can practice the writing process and improve their writing style in short stories, we will see them improve in all their writing.

With this in mind, I asked students to brainstorm an idea for a short story using the Toontastic app, which allows them to choose a setting and characters or to create their own. After selecting a setting and characters, students begin recording their animation and their narration by moving the characters and telling the story. Most students choose not to record their voices, so instead, they will tell their story to the class when they present the completed animation. When they are satisfied with the animation of a scene, the app allows them to choose a music track that fits the mood of the scene (see Mood below). At this point, the scene is complete, and the students repeat the process to animate the next event. One of the advantages of Toontastic is that it moves students through a story arc, a visual representation of plot, including the rising action, climax, and resolution (see Interactive Story Arc below). 

Mood

Interactive Story Arc

As students are planning their story, they complete the the plot chart I upload onto our class fusion page. This requires students to describe the setting, characters, conflict, mood, and events with great detail; they must also choose at least five words from their vocabulary folder that they will include in their writing.

This ensures that they are doing more than just animating the scenes or being too distracted by using the app's many intriguing options, such as changing the colors of characters or drawing an elaborate setting. I give students one class period to decide on the basic plot and characters, and then they must submit a completed plot chart and typed short story before making additional changes to their animation; otherwise, it is tempting to work on the animation indefinitely without doing any writing. 


When they have finished their Toontastic animation, they present their stories to the class, reading the story first, then showing the cartoon that can be projected onto a Smart board or Promethean board.

Completed Animation

Variations: Because students can create their own settings and characters, the possible variations of stories are endless. Teachers could ask students to re-tell a fairy tale or an alternative ending for a story they have read recently. Once students have written their stories, teachers could use this as an opportunity to focus on revising style.
Modifications: ESL and other students who need modifications will benefit from the app's clear visual representation of plot sequence. Students could be paired to create the animation and then write a story, with reduced requirements, independently.

Word Game Apps

One of the advantages, and disadvantages, of using the newest technology in the classroom is that I am only one step ahead of my student's knowledge--and sometimes a step behind. My students often enter class enthusiastically asking me to download a certain app onto our iPads, but oftentimes, the apps are not ones we could justifiably use during class time (Angry Birds and Temple Run come to mind as prime examples).  We teachers who are lucky enough to have iPads should not despair, however; plenty of free apps are both entertaining and educational, able to keep students engaged for an entire class period.


At first I was skeptical: Would the word game apps I downloaded really fulfill the objective--to help students focus on vocabulary and spelling? I was pleased to find that the games achieve both of those goals, especially if students write or type a list of words they encountered as they used the apps. 


All of these apps seem to be equally interesting for students, although everyone tends to gravitate toward one favorite game or another. Words HD Free was the first word game app I introduced to the class. First semester, the students had so loved playing Scrabble (the "real" board game, not the virtual version), that I was sure they would be at least a little interested in Words Free, which is a nearly identical game. It was immensely popular, much more than I expected. One of my students told me, "This is the first time I've ever had fun with words!" What more could a teacher want to hear?


Letris 2 also interests students in spelling. The player can choose a one-player game, two-player split-screen, or online games. If playing solo, the students can choose Letris, Acronyms, or WordMatrix settings; if playing against other students, they can choose either Duel or Endurance. While this game pushes students to choose letters quickly to spell words accurately, I've noticed two disadvantages: The game seems to accept abbreviations of words, something that doesn't help teachers who are battling the proliferation of texting lingo in students' writing; and because the two-player split-screen game is fast paced, students are encouraged to spell shorter, usually three-letter words.

Word Solitaire is one of the more challenging word game apps, and I warned my students they would not enjoy playing unless they completed the tutorial. This game encourages students to spell longer words. Because it is more difficult, fewer students choose to play this app more than ten minutes, but a few students who normally struggle with writing were surprisingly successful with this app.

Word Warp Xtreme is the most popular app among students in my classes. I like that this game introduces students to new words and challenges them to discover these new words by spelling them from a restricted list of letters. They especially love the Head-2-Head setting, which allows two teams or players to compete simultaneously on their iPads using Bluetooth technology. Whirly Word is a similar single-player game that challenges students to spell words with a limited list of letters that are arranged in a circle.

There is no shortage of crossword apps, but some are better than others, such as Ultimate Word Search and Word Search+, because their word lists offer more challenging words than games such as Word Search Party.


Although it's hard for students to interrupt their games, I have asked students to post a list of new words and definitions on lino before the end of the class period. When they "accidentally" spell a word without realizing it was a word, I ask them to pause, open the Lino app, and post their word (and they can highlight and define the word at the same time in Lino). I have to remind them to do this, of course, because once they are involved in their game, they are not very keen about taking their focus away from winning.

My quest to find the best iPad apps continues, so I will post my reviews as I see which ones are the most successful with my students.