We've got our favorite edtech teacher and administrator tools for the week right here, as highlighted in our Instruct newsletter. By the way--got a favorite S’Cool Tool you like to use? We would love to hear and share your recommendations! If you’ve got a tool that makes you or your students sing from the proverbial mountaintops,fill out this form to let us know. It might just get featured! Note: If we have not appended a privacy flag to a tool’s description, it does not collect personally identifiable information.
Free—Quill—Interactive writing, grammar and vocabulary activities for students through three programs: Quill Writer, Quill Proofreader and Quill Grammar, all Common-Core-aligned. Teachers can assign individual activities to a class registered on the platform, and each activity takes 10 minutes. The platform grades students’ work, provides feedback and directs them to the next lesson. Privacy flag: Quill may collect personal information when students register for the site, but users can register anonymously if they do not need to save their progress in lessons. The site’s privacy policy ensures COPPA compliance for students under 13.
Free—Kohl’s Art Generation at the Milwaukee Museum of Art—A guided tour of the Milwaukee Museum with audio, 80 works of art and interactive features. Kids can take selfies and become part of certain works of art. The app has two tours for different age groups: “A is for Art” for kids ages 4-7 and the “Eye Touch” tour for students ages 8-12. The younger audiences work on finding objects that correspond to each letter in the alphabet, and the tour for older students uses audio, games and videos to teach students about 40 works of art. The tours can be downloaded from the App Store or used on the museum’s devices.
Freemium—Soundtrap—A tool for students to create music and podcasts collaboratively or individually. Students plug in their own instruments or use the ones pre-programmed into the tool, which works on computers, tablets and phones for both creation and publishing. Teachers can create group assignments and conference with students via video. If a school purchases an educator account, the platform creates a privacy-enhanced environment for classes.
Freemium—Wolfie—Named for Wolgang Amadeus Mozart’s childhood nickname, Wolfie is a piano practice app for iPad that guides students as they work their way through interactive scores. The app’s cursor follows along as students play, and students can record themselves to review their playing. The app also records statistics on students’ practicing and gives feedback on aspects of playing such as tempo or rhythm. Students and teachers can download free scores or buy them for a subscription plan: Weekly at $2.99 or monthly at $8.99. Privacy flag: Wolfie collects personally identifiable information, which it may share with third parties for advertising. The app’s privacy policy ensures COPPA compliance for students under 13.
License—Turnitin Revision Assistant—A new feature from the maker of the popular plagiarism tracking app that aims to give feedback on writing instruction in four areas: Analysis, focus, language and evidence. Teachers assign a prompt through the platform, students plan and write essays on the platform and the automatic tool gives formative “signal checks” on how clearly the students’ ideas are coming through so they can shape their next drafts. Students can ask for as many “signal checks” as they want before submitting their final drafts. Teachers can see the process after the submission.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Wolfie users could purchase scores individually. The premium version of the app is subscription-based.
