Nominate Your Favorite Apps!

The IEAR community is happy to announce the opening of nominations for the 1st Annual IEAR App Awards. We are looking for community input as we seek to identify the appsolutely best apps in the following categories:

• Best Science App
• Best Math App
• Best Language Arts App
• Best Social Studies App
• Best Note-taking App
• Best Art App
• Best Music App
• Best Foreign Language App
• Best Teacher Productivity App
• Best Administrator Productivity App
• Best Web Browser App
• Best Special Ed App
• Best PLN App
• Best Children's Book App
• Best e-Book Reader App
• Best Educational Game App
• Best Online File Storage App
• MVP App
• Student’s Choice App (Have students nominate)

The deadline for nominations is 12:00AM PST, 12/9/2010. To nominate your favorite app in any or all categories, please use our IEAR App Awards Nomination Spreadsheet. We request that you only nominate apps that you have experience using in your particular content area. When nominating an app, please provide the App Name and iTunes link in the appropriate spreadsheet column. We are trying to limit nominations to 5 apps in each category, however, if needed, please feel free to create additional rows to the spreadsheet.

Remember, IEAR is a grassroots community dedicated to providing high-quality information about effective app utilization in the instructional setting. Please do not use the IEAR App Awards as a place to promote your app. Any blatant misuse of the IEAR App Awards for monetary or commercial gain is cause for elimination from the award proceedings.

Get your nominations in quickly and watch for voting to begin on December 12, 2010. Also, remember to tweet and tell all your friends about the IEAR App Awards Nominations! Thanks!

Techcon 2010 - Presentation - I Education Apps Review by Scott Meech

What do teachers really want in an "Educational App"?

When you look at the majority of app reviews done through the IEAR community, there are some very common trends that stand out.  The problem with the majority of educational apps is that they are created are created by non-educators to make money.  The vast majority of apps are really "drill and practice" apps.  The educational value of these apps is very debatable.  As a result, some of the very best apps that have made an impact in education are not even within the education category.  They might fall in the gaming, productivity, lifestyle, and navigation categories. 

Educators are clamoring for the following types of apps:

1. Teachers want apps that teachers can input their own "curriculum" into the app in some fashion.  The majority of apps are locked down with regard to content and they can not be manipulated enough to meet the teacher's specific needs.
2. Teachers want the ability to pull "data" from the apps in some fashion.  They want to see progress, chart trends, or see areas of need that the students might have. The trick is to make sure that data that gets pulled is easily manipulated by well known tools already in existant as they don't want a new format to have to convert in some fashion. 
3. Educational apps in general are too focused on "drill and practice" and there needs to be a greater emphasis upon "constructivist" types of activities.  Additionally, there needs to be a convenient way to port over content that is created on these devices to other devices.
4. The greatest area of need for a creative app would be in the form of "programming".  For whatever reason, Apple has disallowed apps that have functionality like MIT's application "Scratch".  Apps like a "Scratch" app would allow students to learn the foundations of programming by scaffolding the ideas and techniques in grade appropriate ways.
5. There is a growing trend for apps to allow multiple mobile learning devices to work in conjunction. This needs to continue.  For example, teachers want to use a central app on their mobile device such as an iPad that allows them to connect with students individually on their mobile learning devices.  The trick is that these applications need to connect seamlessly without a need to troubleshoot the connection regularly.
6. Teachers want to feel in control of their students "freedom" to provide a safe and secure learning environment.  Teachers would like to provide more access and allow their students to learn independently more but within a "safe and guarded" environment as well.  
7. Apps need to continue to be developed that allow students and teachers to access their cloud computing resources. Specifically, Google Education Apps are making a big impact in schools and yet mobile learning devices struggle with accessing that information effectively and efficiently.As new initiatives come online, they need to work well with multiple platforms.
8. Finally, teachers and district technology coordinators need better systems in place to control school owned mobile learning technology from a management standpoint.  LanSchool has an Edapp initative that has been rolled out but it is still early. Additionally, Apple themselves are trying to clean up the educational volume licensing but at first glance, there are more questions than answers at this point.   

These are the areas that I have heard most from the IEAR community.  While the IEAR community is growing, it is very difficult to keep up with the growth of the new app paradigm.  The app paradigm is an example of how technology is changing and reinventing itself faster than schools can keep up with.  We need more educators to share their thoughts about apps, what makes a good one and how to improve the existing ones.  Please join our community and think about becoming an app reviewer. 

The last question I have for you all is, "Are there other areas of need?"  Am I missing an area of need or trend?  What would make the "app paradigm" more educational for education? Your comments are greatly appreciated!

Related articles by Zemanta:

• IEAR - Mobile Education Apps Review
• Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 07/18/2010
• LanSchool Releases Classroom Response App for the iPads, iPods and iPhones
• LanSchool Announces New LanSchool EdApp Student SDK and Certification for iPads, iPods and iPhones
• The future of education: reboot required
• Pearson Helps Johns Hopkins Launch Eval Tool

IEAR Presentation - NICE - 1/30/2010

Resources will be linked at the bottom.  I will add voice comments shortly.  Please feel free to add your own comments as well.

Presentation Link: http://jss38.ed.voicethread.com/share/879879/

Links and Resources in Order of Appearance (I will add this evening):

End of the School Year updates...

This is the busiest time of year for most "Teachers" so bear with us as we move forward.  We are working hard on how to organize ourselves as we move forward.  Your support has been fantastic so far. 

Volunteers - Anyone? Just one review a week could help make a huge difference!

Volunteers Anyone?

Just one review a week could help make a huge difference... Additionally, you don't have to have a video review as we would love to take written entries as well...

I Education Apps Review is very interested in finding volunteers to help review the numerous categorized education apps and educational games apps. App developers are sending us redeem codes pretty frequently now so we can really start to produce a nice library of reviews. It would be nice to see educators who are using these apps in classrooms as reviewers to give credible reviews.

Volunteer Requirements to do IEAR reviews:

1. You must be a licensed and certified teacher.
2. You will keep a similar format to the current IEAR.org review format.
3. You will use IEAR images as part of the reviewing proces (feel free to include images related to your site as well).
4. You can cross-post any of your reviews but you will link to IEAR with your cross-posts.
5. You will examine the application individually but also with a student (not necessarily in a formal class setting).

Additionally, we would be very happy to have you cross-post or guest blog entries that focus on the educational value and use of these types of devices and applications. If you are interested in reviewing apps, getting the "free" redeem codes, and or cross "guest" blog posting, please email scott@iear.org or contact Scott Meech via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/iear.

Additionally, here is another left over egg from the past holiday... First come first serve!

A few left over Eggs from the holidays...

Happy holidays to everyone celebrating this past weekend.  We gave a few baskets away in the NING and have some additional "eggs" left over that we have been hoarding... Here is a free Egg for anyone reading our blog ... The first come first served!  Enter the following redeem code in ITunes and get "Flags iLearn" for free from Lima Sky.