Khan Academy
The Khan Academy app is great for learning a variety of subjects on many levels through instructional videos and practical application. The app’s content is free, easy to navigate and also available online at www.khanacademy.org. Click here for a tutorial on how to use the app. The math section of the app is probably the most accessible for youngsters as it starts with pre-K topics like counting and shapes. Advanced students will be able to access algebra, geometry, calculus and other topics. Each topic links to a series of videos and descriptions that teach the concept through drawings and explanations. Each topic also has problems and exercises for the students to solve. The science, economics, art, history, grammar, music, and computing sections are more advanced and the videos and content descriptions use more sophisticated language. They would be an excellent tool for middle, high school or college students, or for the parents of young children looking to refresh their knowledge on a variety of subjects. This app would be great to introduce early so kids can become familiar with the tools and look to clarify or practice topics they learn in school. For older students, there are tips and practice tests for the SAT and advice on topics like college and career readiness and managing your finances.
Starfall
The Starfall Education Foundation has a comprehensive website (http://www.starfall.com) and a number of free apps for encouraging early literacy in children. There is Starfall ABCs for young children to engage with letters and sounds in words, sentences, and games. Starfall Learn to Read is most useful for emergent readers and English language learners. It teaches phonics and reading skills through activities, movies, and songs. Starfall It’s Fun to Read allows young readers to explore different texts through rhyme, alliteration, spelling patterns and word play. I also recommend Starfall I’m Reading. This app has a number of picture books from different genres including fiction and non-fiction texts, plays, comics, folk tales, greek myths, and Chinese fables. There are even quotes from Shakespeare, which could be useful for discussing figurative language and idioms. Children can read the stories on their own, or hear the stories read aloud to them. Listening to the stories helps build fluency as children hear inflection and expression in the reader’s voice, as well as the rate of reading, which is how fast the reader tells the story. The app also has a few math skills games for grades 1-3 and activities for telling time and counting money. The app’s graphics are colorful and animated, which is a good fit for younger kids. It is user-friendly, easy to navigate and can be found on your mobile device or online.
Brainscape
The Brainscape app is a tool for creating flashcards and studying them on a computer or mobile device. Studying flashcards is particularly pertinent for subjects where repetition is useful for learning content. For this reason, Brainscape is a good tool for subjects like science, math, and geography, where sometimes facts need to be studied more than once, and for language learning, where vocabulary needs to be repeated until it is memorized. For language learning, the app provides definitions of words as well as pronunciations. This feature, as well as a section called “English Language Errors” which highlights common mistakes in spelling and syntax, would be particularly useful for English language learners.
There are many free flashcards available on the app and others are available for purchase. Of the free flashcards, some are appropriate for students as young as 3rd grade, such as multiplication facts. Others cover more advanced topics such as biology, world history, and music theory. Students or parents can also create their own flashcard sets online and then practice them at home or on a mobile device when time allows. Teachers can also create flashcard sets for students and assign them as homework, which allows teachers to “analyze students’ study habits and identify weaknesses” (www.brainscape.com/teachers). Teachers, of course, would have to be sensitive to the needs of students who do not have access to a mobile device or computer at home.