Last year, when Pokemon Go went wild in school, I luckily came across a new app called Quiver on an education forum thread. It ‘combines physical coloring from ‘back in the day’ with state of the art augmented reality technology-Coloring pages have never been so much fun!’ Sounded as great as Pokemon Go, didn’t it? I hurriedly introduced the playing method to my students. They loved it and picked it up very quickly (very user friendly indeed, passed the first bullet point for Tech in Classroom).
去年當Pokeman Go在學校裡風靡一時，我很幸運的在一個教育論壇上聽說了一個叫Quiver的新app. 它所謂‘讓色彩填充變得前所未有的好玩！’ 聽上去和Pokeman Go 一樣棒對不對？我迫不及待地將這個app介紹給了學生們。他們非常喜歡並且非常迅速地掌握了原理。（用户設計非常好，通過了’高科技在教室‘的第一道關口）
But was it educational? I didn’t really think so. The cartoon sheets provided by the app are limited, and so are the learning questions; they appeared randomly without systematic teaching guidance. Therefore students couldn’t really learn useful English knowledge through play. I have to admit that this app had a wonderful idea to turn 2D cartoon into 3D reality. Only that if given a bit more polish with educational content, it might become a great English teaching aid app. Instead now it stays in the English room for fun purposes only.
但是它真的有教育性嗎？我並不這麼認為。首先app提供的卡通打印紙非常有限，提問的問題也非常有限；它們並沒有按照系統的教學規律隨機地出現著。這樣一來學生並不能在玩app的過程中學習到有用的英語知識。我必須承認這個app掌握了一個很好的點子-將二維卡通變成三維世界。若能用知識的體系將其潤色，它將變成一款非常棒的英語教學app。現在它在我的英語教師只能充當玩樂的角色了。
Most of you, parents or teachers, might have done it before. When you search on the internet about “English educational apps for primary students 2016”, google shows 36 million results. You might click on the top answer “50 of the best teaching and learning apps for 2016” and read through the app introductions and various reviews. After filtering 10 out of these 50, you make a trial on some students in the English room during recess (or with your kids at home). In the end (after 3 hours of preparation works), none of the apps might actually be useful with the specific needs of the kids.
All you feel at that moment is lost. And lost in information doesn’t feel good at all.
I began to think as a teacher, how do I find and choose good-quality apps to help improve the language learning experience of my students?
我想你們中大多數人大概試過下面這個例子。當你在網路上搜索‘2016小學生英語教學app’時，google會顯示出36萬條答案。然後你點擊了最上方的’2016的50最佳教學app’，仔細閱讀簡介和評論。從中過濾出十佳，在課餘時間與學生試玩（或者在家試玩）。三個小時的準備工作的最後，很有可能沒有一個app真正契合你想要孩子學習到的知識點。
此時此刻你迷失了。在資訊的海洋裡迷失從來不是什麼好的感覺。
我開始思考，作為一個老師，我應該用什麼辦法找出豐富學生學習經驗的app們呢?
Here are 5 steps that turns out quite helpful for me to identify the good apps to use in my class.
以下是我得出的五個步驟。
Ensure your teaching objectives – First decide what knowledge and skills you want students to learn. (For example, I wanted to find a good spelling app whereby students could practice spelling new words they are learning.)-首先要確定你喜歡學生們學到什麼樣的知識和技巧。（比如，我想要找一款能讓學生聯繫拼寫新單詞的app。）
Search with keywords - Find an app with similar playing principal to traditional method. (Keywords were ‘spelling choose words’. I found the HANGMAN app which allows you to input any words into word spelling quizzes and test each other on the words.)找到一款類似傳統拼寫方法的app。（關鍵字是‘拼寫選詞’。我找了一個app叫做‘HANGMAN’. 它能讓你將任何單詞輸入拼寫的題庫，然後給別人做測試。）
Analyze the strengths and weaknesses – Sometimes the fun app cannot be very useful. So bear in mind the app needs to be fun AND educational at the same time. (So the HANGMAN app proved to be very easy to set up with target vocabulary and it was a lot of fun for students to test their friends.)你需要記得只有同時好玩和教育性的app才算是好的app。（HANGMAN app證明了其對目標詞彙的簡易設置以及能讓學生們互相測試的方法是非常好的一種方式。）
Trial on students or on kids at home – invite a few students to play together and observe their response and feedbacks. (The feedback for HANGMAN app is great.)邀請一些學生一起試玩並且觀察他們的反應和回饋。（關於HANGMAN的回饋非常好。）
Incorporate into classroom and evaluate – observe the reaction over the whole class to make sure it’s a successful selection on the app.-觀察全班同學的使用過程並決定這是否是一款正確的成功的app。
Further reading: Some good advice for parents choosing educational apps at the bottom of this article –
更多關於家長如何選擇教學app的文章請點擊以下文章
http://www.ibtimes.com/little-evidence-support-claims-80000-educational-apps-apple-store-actually-improve-1913252
With this method, I found quite a few good apps, listed below. Kids in my school enjoyed them and so did I.
用這個方法，我找到了一些非常好的app，如下。學校的學生們非常喜歡他們，我也是！
Spellmania
Shadow Puppet Edu
Seesaw
英語趣配音
TinyTap
….
I hope this blog can help you a little bit when you get confused on which app to use with your kids. In the next blog we will look at how important technology training is for teachers and students.
希望這篇博客能讓你在苦惱的時候得到一些尋找好app的頭緒。
下一篇博文我們將討論培訓對老師和學生的重要性。
Thank you!