“Technology is enabling our need to be mobile. We want to ensure that learning matches our lifestyle.”- Tony Bingham
Our learners live in a connected world and daily use their devices to learn about the world around them. Unfortunately, much of the news, data, and resources our students consume online is flawed or biased. We need our students to begin to use their devices for more than consuming information. We need them to get into the practice of using their devices to evaluate information, find scholarly and primary resources, and bookmark and properly attribute their discoveries. Tons of free mobile apps engage our students in the research process, which includes planning, searching for information, note-taking, evaluating information, and disseminating their research. Below is a slide presentation (download a pdf for free) of over 20 apps to help your students become active digital researchers. To discover more attend my free webinar this Friday, September 25th, at 4pmET/9pmUK. Join the American TESOL web room as a GUEST here, Americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell.
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Tips
- The Kentucky Virtual Library has an interactive infographic that illustrates the digital research process. Use this infopic as a guide.
- Students can take photos of their research, document their findings in observation logs, and access classification databanks with these incredible apps- ProjectNoah.org (iOS/Android), Zydeco Inquiry (iOS), and BioKIDS (iOS).
- Planning a field trip and want to get your students to do research at their destination? Try iPlanFieldTrips (iOS/Android) with teacher forms and calendars to plan field trips, Hear Planet (iOS/Android) with audio tours for many destinations, and Museum Hunt (iOS) that get students to learn while playing a game.
- Students can plan their research with these apps- Bounce by Idea Paint (iOS/Android), Super Research Idea Generator (iOS), Grafio Lite (iOS), Padlet (iOS/Android/iPad), LinoIt (iOS/Android), A Novel Idea (iOS), and Popplet (iOS).
- Students can search multimedia databases with scholarly resources using these reference apps- Wikiwand (iOS/Android), ReadCube (iOS/Android), and Questria Research (iOS/Android).
- These recommended apps motivate students to take better notes- Diigo (iOS/Android), Evernote (iOS/Android), and Skitch (iOS/Android). Find more note-taking apps and tools in my post about brainstorming!
- Teach student to bookmark, curate, annotate, and tag their research in engaging ways with these recommended apps- PearlTrees (iOS/Android), Livebinders (iOS/Android), Educlipper (iOS), Scoop.it (iOS/Android), Pinterest (iOS/Android), and Flipboard (iOS).
- Students can report their research with these free digital poster and infographic apps- Easil.ly (iPad), Canva (iPad), EduBuncee (iPad), Tackk (iOS/Android), and ThingLink (iOS/Android).
- Show them how to cite their resources with the EasyBib app and RefMe app.
- Google Drive has various features and tools for finding scholarly sources and citing research appropriately. Find more Google resources here!
- Show them how to be skillful digital researchers. Find more digital research resources here!
Bookmarks
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Research Apps, by shellyterrell
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