Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

App of the Week: A personalized learning profile for every student

Ed. note: App of the Week picks are now being curated with help from the editors of Graphite.org, a free service from Common Sense Education. Click here to read the full app review.

Mindprint Learning

What’s It Like? 

To fully engage in what Mindprint Learning offers, students first take an online assessment to measure strengths and challenges. This research-based assessment was developed by the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. For a fifth-grade student, it tests different types of memory, processing speed, attention, flexible thinking, verbal and abstract reasoning, and spatial perception using game-based and timed tests. The entire battery takes about one hour and allows students to max out on tests that are too difficult or if they struggle to finish a task. After completing the assessment, users wait about one week for a psychologist to review the data and formulate the student’s profile.

Price: Paid, but free to try…Read More

Appsmashing guide: Let students show what they know with these gorgeous slideshows

Shadow Puppet EDU lets students demonstrate understanding in creative ways

Ed. note: This post is the second in a series exploring AppSmashing with a core set of Evergreen Apps. The articles focus on the ability of students to create multimedia content that showcases their learning through a performance or demonstration of understanding.

Powerful Evergreen Apps strike a great balance between flexibility and ease, and can be used in many different situations for a variety of purposes. Take Book Creator, for example.

Book Creator facilitates the easy creation of multimedia books, reports, stories, and many other variations of written, visual, and audio communication. Yet, there are creative limitations to the app that can only be overcome by appsmashing other app content directly into its pages. As I discussed last article, Tellagami enables students to create speaking avatars and these can be inserted directly into Book Creator pages. Appsmashing Tellagami into Book Creator is one useful strategy to enhance the creative possibilities of a single Evergreen App and enable students to express what they know in different ways.…Read More