Apps for Writing

     Every time I test an app for my classroom, I think seriously about how they will add or detract from my students' learning experience. I have a couple "go-to" apps that I have found useful over the years teaching ELA. All of my classes have responded differently to these apps, so I am constantly looking for new apps to introduce to my students. Through this project, I found two I'd like to try with my students and was reminded of one of my go-to apps.

Pre-Writing

For this category, I found a storyboarding app that did not impress me as much as one that I already use: Storyboard That. As a 4th grade teacher, I find that my students often struggle with forming sentences and spelling very simple words. They often use the speech to text feature on their Chromebooks and the administration at my school has poured lots of resources into intervention on foundational reading skills. I introduced the Storyboard That app as a way to get to know my students. My first assignment to them was to tell the story of the best day they had over the summer using this app. I could begin to assess student skills on reading and writing all while providing a fun assignment that engaged my students. They will often ask me if we can use the "app with all those people on it" for our projects. This allows for all students to complete the assignment, even if they do not feel confident in their writing. I liked this app better than the other storyboarding apps I found because it was simple enough for elementary students to use and it had a lower price tag on the subscription than the others I found.

Writing

For this category, I came across an app called The Night Zookeeper. I liked this app because it provided a game experience and was a not-half-bad stand-in for working one on one with a child to build writing skills. Many writing apps are fancy word processors that don't encourage students to write. Additionally, I find it is hard to get students excited about writing journal entries. I have been searching for an alternative to help strengthen the writing muscle. With the creative writing assignments I do, I am not looking for perfect grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. I am more looking for a way to get students excited about writing. When a student comes to you with their writing to share, the light dims when you immediately meet them with "this word needs to be fixed and there needs to be a comma here." While I believe that proper grammar and spelling is important for writing, I am always on the hunt for more informal experiences with writing. This app allows for that. Students design the characters in their story, battle with other characters by answering grammar questions, and "talk" to the game in order to write the stories. The game asks questions like, "what is the setting of your story" and "who are the other characters?" This is similar to how I speak to my students when we are planning a story. This allows students to have a more one-on-one experience in a setting where it would be next to impossible to give that to them.

Publishing

For this category, I liked Storybird the best. This app allows students to create, publish, read, and comment on stories. The creation aspect was relatively easy to use and I liked that students could use other stories as templates for their own. I do a similar thing with Canva and Google Slides presentation and I believe that students should be able to use illustrations or aspects of other stories to practice making their own. Having a conversation about plagarism would be essential before using this app. Another conversation would be important as well: How To Use Social Media Apps. This platform allows students to comment on people's stories. While the moderation was not clear to me in my demo as a user, the app clearly uses a one. It would be important for students to both understand that the potential effects of cyberbullying and the potential effects of being moderated on a social media site. All-in-all, I liked this app because it functioned as sort of a Tumblr-esque site where students can share their writing and get feedback from peers.