Quick maths Junior is an App to reinforce K to year 1 maths skills.  The App is particularly useful to reinforce place value, subitising and initial addition skills.  One advantage is the ability to replay the App multiple times.  Each activity is also linked to the Australian curriculum and a report of the student’s activity can be sent through to the teacher.  One disadvantage is that is does not provide any teaching around mistakes made and students could continue to add the icons into the spaces to eventually get the correct answer. 

Chatterpix is an iPhone application that requires students to take a photo of something, draw a ‘mouth’ on it, then record their voice for 30 seconds which can be sent and played back as a talking object. Suitable for all ages, this app can address various curriculum areas including literacy, as students practise speaking, listening and viewing skills, e.g. talking about the features of a mammal. An advantage of using this application is that writing and reading skills can also be incorporated, as students can create short scripts (writing) and proof read them, before recording their voice, which develops their fluency. A barrier for learning could be technological difficulties. 

It is useful for the conclusion of a lesson to see the retained knowledge of students. You are able to see the data for correct or incorrect answers. However, it is anonymous so you are unable to see which students are answering incorrectly. Students could guess without knowledge and may not have retained any understanding. It is also limited to close ended questions, which cant explore student understanding. 

Quick maths Junior is an App to reinforce K to year 1 maths skills.  The App is particularly useful to reinforce place value, subitising and initial addition skills.  One advantage is the ability to replay the App multiple times.  Each activity is also linked to the Australian curriculum and a report of the student’s activity can be sent through to the teacher.  One disadvantage is that is does not provide any teaching around mistakes made and students could continue to add the icons into the spaces to eventually get the correct answer. 

 

It can be used across all curriculum areas. For example it can be used in numeracy to identify the probability of a given coloured spinner. 

 

Benefits of Kahoot include: teacher can instantly see students’ results and miss-answers, it is highly interactive and student focused and it adds an element of fun into the classroom. 

 

Disadvantages include: it is competitive, it is time based and answers are irreversible making it hard for the teacher to discern between intentional and accidental mistakes. 

Activity: The website provides activity ideas which align with the Australian Curriculum, and promotes discussion in the classroom. For example: this resource may be used when using a specific book during a unit of work (provided it is on the website) or for daily reading. 

Advantage: Local stories, huge variety, quality literature

Disadvantage: $$$$ the subscription can be costly… 

Successful story: STORY WRITING: the website provides examples of sentence starters and images which students can use to write a creative story.

SeeSaw is used in many classrooms of a large range of ages as a source of sharing and presenting work from all curriculum areas for teachers, students, peers and parents to see. I have seen app used successfully for student to follow a link to a website, answer questions that were given to them, submit this to the teacher and the teacher is able to provide timely and relevant feedback. 

The advantage to this app is the opportunity to share and receive feedback as well as the important factor of peer-learning; I have even seen student post videos teaching their peers about an overseas holiday whilst still on holiday. One of the disadvantages is that it needs to be closely monitored for appropriateness as it is almost like a class social media. 

Duolingo is a language learning program that allows the learner to develop their vocabulary in a specific language. It can be used as a tool to develop vocabulary in a specific area of language such as family or animals, in conjunction to a relational means of using that vocabulary within the classroom through varying means of communication. Duolingo is highly successful in developing retention of words in hearing and reading in a new language. It is not effective at developing the learners speaking of said words as there are no effective methods for the program to support the learner to improve their pronunciation. It also does not allow for the words learned to be used in a wide variety of sentences or contexts. Overall, Duolingo is effective at developing vocabulary that is understood when read or heard, but the learner needs supporting resources for them to effectively be able to speak. 

 

This application is aimed at every age/year group, it is designed to assist students in strengthening either their english skills or mathematical skills by providing activities relating to specific topics as well as thorough explanations for those who lack the understanding of the concept being looked at.

if looking at the concept of sentence structure in year 3, this app has a range of activities that helps the student to familiarise themselves and gain an understanding. It goes from working out if the sentence is either a statement, question, command or exclamation to whether or not the sentence is either simple or compound.

Designed for students to practice and develop math skills, usually after instruction from the classroom teacher previously. This app would be useful for Maths rotations across the grades. The variety of activities is beneficial because once students are familiar with Mathletics, they can use it with other mathematical concepts. Students may become distracted by activities online which they perceive to be more fun, so clear expectations and goals will need to be set by the teacher. 

Purpose – Mathletics is an educational app which provides children with educational activities and challenges based upon the mathematics curriculum content for all years from foundation to year six.

Activity – Mathletics can be utilised for whole class instruction though the use of activities such as addition and subtraction on the number line for the foundation year (as an example); where students can see the number line on the IWB and count the necessary amount and choose the answer to the question.

Advantage – It can be a very versatile app as it can be utilised for whole class activities, group work and for students to work individually as well; which can provide useful insights into the students understanding of the topic being taught.

Disadvantage – It does not explain the ‘why’ if an answer given is incorrect, it merely leaves the answer as wrong and the person using it moves on; which is confusing if a student is independently utilising it as they are not having potential misconceptions addressed.

One advantage is the ease of use and student control. Students get to control the layout, background images and everything that is on the page. With this comes the disadvantage that on the app, many components cost money to use, including images, backgrounds, text styles and a limited upload capacity.   

IXL is an app which provides a variety of mathematic questions that align with the Australian Curriculum. There are a range of questions for each year group. 

One advantage of this app is that it enables students to use it independently.

One disadvantage is that it can be difficult for students with English as a second language to use as they may find it difficult to understand the questions. 

This app can be used for students to practice the specific numeracy skills that were looked at in a unit.

IXL is an app which provides a variety of mathematic questions that align with the Australian Curriculum. There are a range of questions for each year group. 

One advantage of this app is that it enables students to use it independently.

One disadvantage is that it can be difficult for students with English as a second language to use as they may find it difficult to understand the questions. 

This app can be used for students to practice the specific numeracy skills that were looked at in a unit.

One advantage of this app is that it enables students to use it independently.

One disadvantage is that it can be difficult for students with English as a second language to use as they may find it difficult to understand the questions. 

This app can be used for students to practice the specific numeracy skills that were looked at in a unit.

One advantage of this app is that it enables students to use it independently.

One disadvantage is that it can be difficult for students with English as a second language to use as they may find it difficult to understand the questions. 

This app can be used for students to practice the specific numeracy skills that were looked at in a unit.

One advantage of this app is that it enables students to use it independently.

One disadvantage is that it can be difficult for students with English as a second language to use as they may find it difficult to understand the questions. 

This app can be used for students to practice the specific numeracy skills that were looked at in a unit.