Some Good iPad Apps for Showcasing Students Learning

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One of the best ways to show students that their work is valuable and important is through displaying it in public. Showcasing students work has several benefits: knowing that their hard work is going to be recognized and shared with others, students push the envelope and invest more of their skills and efforts into it. It becomes a source of inspiration, empowerment and motivation. Also, putting up students work for others to see  can boost students self esteem and ‘academic and artistic confidence’. Most importantly, recognizing students efforts provides them with a rewarding experience whose influence can positively shape the rest of their academic or even life journey. Recognition in this sense is not synonymous with praise, it is much more than that. ‘To affirm or recognize students work’, as Schlechty stated, ‘is not to approve or to disapprove; it is to declare that what happened matters and is important’.

There are several ways you can showcase students work. Some of these include using classroom displays or bulletin boards in school, inviting other teachers or students from other classes to come view students achievements, or through using a digital platform. Check out this post to see a some real world experiences of how some teachers to work the concept of recognition of students work. For tips on how to go about applying this concept in your own classroom with your students, check out this page from Responsive Classroom and this resource from Intel.

In today’s post we are highlighting the digital part of showcasing students work and are providing you with some very good iPad apps you can use in this regard.  We have divided these apps into four main categories: apps you can use to display students work in the form of video animations, in visual and graphic representations, in boards and webpages, and through digital portfolios. You can also check this great visual from Tony Vincent feature a number of mobile apps and web tools for displaying students work.


1- Interactive whiteboards and video creation apps

A- Educreations
Educreations is a unique interactive whiteboard and screencasting tool that's simple, powerful, and fun to use. Annotate, animate, and narrate nearly any type of content as you explain any concept.

B- Explain Everything
An interactive whiteboard that allows you to ‘create slides using an infinite canvas, use a laser pointer, draw in any color, add shapes, text, math equations, videos, images and audio files, and record everything you do within the app’

C- Adobe Spark Video
Great for creating video stories. You can use images, add video clips, select your favourite soundtrack, add cinematic effects and design a beautiful video to share with others

D- iMovie
This is another powerful video making app. It provides you with all the features to create stunning videos documenting students learning.

2- Apps for creating webpages, boards and docs
A- Weebly
This is a simple and easy to use editor to create a website for your students

B- Padlet
Padlet is a digital canvas where students can showcase their work. They can include videos, text posts, upload documents and many more

C- Book Creator
This is an excellent app students can use to showcase their learning in different book formats. It can be a picture book, comics book, a journal.. etc.

D- Adobe Spark Page
Adobe Spark Page allows you to create visual web stories using a wide variety of curated designs, text fonts, color and magazine styles.

3- Making graphics, posters and photo collages
A- Piktochart
An excellent tool for designing posters, printables, presentations and infographics. It provides a wide variety of free templates that you can customize the way you want.

B- PicCollage
PicCollage lets you create beautiful collage using photos imported from your photo library.It provides you with tools to work on your photos to rotate, resize, delete scraps, create doodle drawings, add frames and many more.

C- Thinglink
With Thinglink you breathe life into your visuals. It lets you hyperlink and embed a wide variety of multimedia materials including videos, notes, music, and images.

D- Adobe Spark Post
Provides you with professionally designed templates to create graphics and visuals. The app is simple and easy to use, no design experience is required.


4- Digital portfolio apps
A- Seesaw
Seesaw is a student-centred digital portfolio that helps students record and capture the learning process as it happens. It offers built-in creation tools including ‘photo, video, recordable whiteboard, drawing, voice recorder, web link and PDF.Students use built-in audio recording, drawing and labeling tools to reflect or explain. Teachers can control who can see what, and whether students and families can add likes or comments.’

B- Google Docs
This is an easy way for students to set up a page, populate it with their learning materials, and share it as a web link.

C- Easy Portfolio
Easy Portfolio lets you create electronic portfolio where you can record and showcase learning materials in different forms including: audio recordings, music files, web links to online work, notes and text entries, digital documents from Dropbox or email and many more.

D- Evernote
Evernote provides you with an easy and practical way to ‘organize your personal and professional projects. Dive in: take notes, create to-do lists, and save things you find online into Evernote.’

This visual is available in PDF format from this page.

16 Good iPad Apps to Showcase Students Learning

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