Comparison chart of @facebook @edmodo @schoology from @InnovativeEdu

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) wrote a great post for Tech & Learning (@techlearning) charting the differences between Facebook, Edmodo, and Schoology so schools can be better informed about choosing a platform or platforms for learning and collaborating. Also, the best way to recognize their benefits and/or limitations is to just try them out…

The full article is here, but I pasted Lisa’s comparison chart below:

Checking out @vwindman’s recommended manipulative math apps for iPad via @techlearning

A while ago, I subscribed to receive free Tech & Learning newsletters via my email. You too could get these updates by clicking here. As per their website:

For 30 years, Tech & Learning has served the K-12 education community with practical resources and expert strategies for transforming education through integration of digital technologies. Our audience includes all job roles within the district community, with district-level technology coordinators the primary recipients. Beyond that, our magazine is often used as a professional development tool to help educators across the board get up to speed with the newest technologies and products in order to best prepare students for the global digital workforce.

A recent newsletter included the following article by Vicki Windman (@vwindman) which I immediatey forwarded to the math faculty at The School at Columbia University…

Manipulative Math Apps for the iPad to meet the Common Core Standards

The iPad offers many math apps to help students who need visual tools and manipulatives to help understand basic functional concepts to more advanced math. 

Hands on Math Hundreds Chart $1.99 – Teachers, have “green” friendly interactive 100’s chart on your iPad. It also has sound for students to hear the numbers- fantastic for ELL and special needs students. An extensive Instructor’s Guide for this app is available at the support website. Download the document and install it in iBooks to access ideas about how to use the Interactive Hundreds Chart for teaching elementary mathematics.

Common Core Standards:
Kindergarten: Know number names and the count sequence.

BaseTenBlocks $1.99 – Stop losing your unifix cubes teach place value- including Whole Numbers, reading and writing numbers, decimals addition and subtraction and regrouping. Unifix cubes cost $99.92 for 1000 at a discount. This app is $1.99 and gives you all of the unifix cubes and interactive activities built in- no more worksheets or workbooks. A comprehensive instructor’s guide is available at Base ten guide.

Common Core Standards:
Grade one and two- understand place value, use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract.

Mathboard $4.99 Here is an app to help students with four basic operations. It also includes square cubes, square roots and integers. Random problem generation (up to 250 questions per quiz). – Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Squares, Cubes and Square Roots – Includes One Step Equation style problems. e.g (6+x=12; x-8=2; 5x=25;) – Number ranges are configurable from -9999 to 9999, including the ability to require certain numbers to be in each problem.

Common Core Standards:
Grades 1-3 Operations and Algebraic Thinking

First Grade- Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.
Second Grade- Add and subtract within 20.
Third Grade- Represent and solve problems involving multiplication and division.

VM- Virtual Manipulative Free- Set the app for Percents, fractions or decimals- App provides you with a slide bar. Drag pieces such as 1/5 press and hold and your are provided with the equivalent. App includes an area for student work and a folder to save work.

Common Core Standards: Number and Operation
Grade 3- Develop understanding of fractions as numbers
Grade 4-Extend understanding of fraction equivalence and ordering.
Grade 5- Apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication and division to multiply and divide fractions.

Vicki Windman is a special education teacher at Clarkstown High School South.

ShowMe, AudioNote, LiveNotes, Whiteboard are iPad apps for notetaking, recording, sharing.

I recently read a blog post from Tech & Learning by David Kapuler (@dkapuler) about Top 10 Sites for Note Taking. While Evernote and Livescribe were absent from the list, it was still an interesting read.

For the last couple weeks, I’ve been talking with math teachers, English teachers, Spanish teachers, and members of the Technology Department (Andrew Gardner @agardnahh, Gina Marcel @fpgina, Don Buckley @donbuckley) about various tools and iPad apps that would be helpful with recording kids voices, taking notes, offering alternative assessments, populating a digital archive of student work, and moving towards a flipped classroom model similar to the Khan Academy. (See my last post about Livescribe and Smartpens in the math classroom…)

Below are some iPad apps I am encouraging teachers to use specifically to record audio, text, and handwriting. Please feel free to share more!

ShowMe

San Kim (@SanKim) came to our school yesterday afternoon to show us ShowMe (@ShowMeApp)! It is still in Beta, though may be in the App Store in a month. You can apply to be a beta tester on the site.

Pros: Free, records audio, can import an image to the background, has 6 pen colors to choose from, uploads to a shared space, saved files are embeddable

Cons: Does not [yet] have a slider to move the play head back and forth, does not allow you to click on the drawings to hear the audio synced with that moment

AudioNote

Pros: Lite version is free, records audio, incoporates a notepad where notes are input via iPad keyboard or a pen tool, syncs audio with text/drawings and vice versa, scrolls down for a longer page of notes, timestamps your notes

Cons: Premium version is $4.99 and is needed to send recordings via email or a network connection, no choice of pen colors, cannot import a background image

Live Notes

Pros: Lite version records audio, incoporates a notepad where notes are input via iPad keyboard or a pen tool, different paper styles, shapes tool, syncs audio with text/drawings and vice versa, multiple pen colors and widths, multiple pages

Cons: Premium version is $5.99 and is needed for DropBox integration, sending/printing notes via email, Lite version is limited to 3 Notes that are each 5 pages maximum and there are ads

Whiteboard

Pros: Lite version is free, multiple pen colors and widths, can create collaborative drawings with another machine over local Wi-Fi or Bluetooth peer-to-peer

Cons: Pro version is $2.99, HD version is $3.99 and either is needed to import a picture as a background image, cannot record audio at all