Apps for Journal/Independent Writing
1:03 PMMost classrooms I visit have a time when students are asked to write. Sometimes it is a free writing time, sometimes it is a writing exercise based on a genre, sometimes it is journal writing. Often the students I work with have difficulty accessing these activities because of difficulties with fine motor skills, spelling or related literacy skills. This, however, does not mean that they don't have ideas to share and stories to tell. My favourite apps to recommend to help students at these sorts of times are Book Creator, Explain Everything and Clicker.
All three of these apps are easy to learn and simple to use. They allow for the sharing of ideas and knowledge to come first.
Book Creator
Book creator is exactly what is sounds like...an app for creating books. But it is SO more! Students can add pictures, video, drawings, typing and sound to pages. The books can be exported as iBooks, PDFs or videos making them available on any iPad, iPod or iPhone.
You can add multiple pictures, text boxes and sound buttons to each page which makes it an excellent app for students who have difficulty reading instructions or writing the answers.
Here are some ideas to try with Book Creator.- have students take a picture of a drawing they did and record themselves talking about it
- have students draw a picture and record themselves talking about it
- have students take pictures of something that interests them and have them record themselves talking about them
- record a video of the student doing something and then record them talking about it
- create a fill in the blanks journal entry. book creator will allow students to fill in those blanks with text, drawing or sound buttons.
This student used Book Creator to do their journal orally.
Explain Everything
Explain Everything is a screen casting app that opens up many possibilities for students. The tools within the app allow you to insert pictures, video, web materials, etc. Students can then draw, type, record their voices to show their thinking about the material. Finished files can be exported as photos, PDFs, videos or saved as files to be viewed in the app at another time.
A tutorial for Explain Everything can be found here.
You might want to...
- have students take a picture of a drawing they did and record themselves talking about it
- have students draw a picture and record themselves talking about it
- have students take pictures of something that interests them and have them record themselves talking about it
- record a video of the student doing something and then record them talking about it
Here is an example of a student using Explain Everything to reflect on a video of themselves at a piano recital.
Clicker
Clicker has four apps that I would recommend checking out. Each does something a little different and some are more suited to students with specific skill sets.
Clicker Connect
This app allows you to create word banks and pictures that students can use to build sentences.
Word Banks can contain words or pictures. Students can have access to both banks while writing.
Clicker Docs allows you to create word banks without a sentence structure to support writing in other curriculum areas.
When you download the app you are able to register for free to The Learning Grids online sharing database and take advantage of grids that other people have already made.
Follow these links to see videos about the 4 Clicker apps.
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