Tuesday, April 9, 2013

It's easy to be overwhelmed....

Apps, apps and more apps.... have you ever been bombarded with people saying "Hey, have you seen XYZ app, it's so cool, you have to try it!" If you tried everything that's suggested you'd never get anything else done. On top of that, you will try out so many apps for a few minutes each that you'll lose track of what you've tried and think "What was the name of that app that I liked?" only to completely forget.

I spend quite a bit of time scouring around for apps and projects that I think middle school teachers will enjoy trying out. Just telling a teacher, "Hey, I found this cool science app called ABC that I thought you might like to check out," is good, but teachers are very busy and they may make a mental note to download the app, they also may just not have time right now.

My solution to that is to not simply throw names of apps at them but to download them, grab a few screen shots and put together a several sentence overview of what it does and how they might incorporate it into their classes. Doing that gives the app more than a name and provides a quick snapshot of its features. Teachers will be able to tell immediately if it is something that may work in their classroom. Providing information in small bite size pieces is a great time saver.