Five New Apps For Learners Big and Small

A monthly showcase of the latest mobile apps for educators and students. This month's roundup features apps for language learners, professional development, and texting in the classroom.

• By Stephen Noonoo
• 11/08/11

• Hello-Hello World connects language learners with native speakers through social networking. Users complete language lessons and connect with a global community with members in almost 100 countries to help each other in the learning process. Users are also able to provide written and recoded feedback on their friend's exercises directly from their mobile devices. Free; iPad.
  
  
  
  
• Developed by New York University Professor Robert Swerdlow, the Complete Teacher Program is a set of apps for improving critical teaching skills. Four different learning modules cover skills ranging from acting and role-playing to good management, sales techniques, and developing their own audio-visual materials. Learning is performance-based and evaluation is criterion-referenced. Complete Teacher modules can be used in pre-service methods courses and in student teaching seminars. $9.99 each; iOS compatible.
  
  
• Super Duper Publications has added 12 new Fun Deck apps aimed at improving students' social, questioning, and problem-solving skills. Students will look at an illustration and listen to a spoken prompt describing a specific situation, which requires a verbal answer. Teachers can then tap a button to indicate if a correct answer was given. In the What Would You Do at School If…? app, students are presented with practical situations pertaining to their time spent in and around school. It features scenarios for plausible occurrences like dealings with bullies on the playground and lost or forgotten homework. $5.99 each; iOS and Android compatible.
  
  
• Promethean has launched its first app for the classroom, ActivEngage Mobile, which takes the company's learner response system mobile. Teachers can now create a range of question types--multiple choice, true/false, Likert, sort in order, text response, and numeric--that students can answer on their mobile devices. Results are immediately tabulated. Free; iOS and Android compatible.
  
  
• Weily Apps has released Visual Math Level 2, designed for 6- through 9-year-olds, or children who have already mastered Visual Math Level 1. The game contains six topics presented in random rounds of 12 questions. Using colorful photographic images of everyday objects, players are asked to determine patterns and sequences, identify shapes, recognize numbers by skip counting (a precursor to multiplication), read clocks, count coins, and master concepts of basic spatial measurement. Parents and teachers can monitor performance via the Progress Page, which tracks categories, rounds, and cumulative activity. Topics are aligned with national math core standards for first and second grades. $3.99; iPad.

Know a new learning app we don't? E-mail us or tell us in the comments.