In December I was contacted by Rachel Hodges, a graduate student pursuing her Masters in early childhood education. In an effort to increase the use of tech tools in the classroom, she is participating in a project to raise awareness of the resources available to teachers, students, and their parents, and asked me to share these resources here. After reviewing the links she sent me, I felt as though it was worth passing this information on to my readers.
The Verizon websites are first broken down into 4 categories: Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School, and Secondary. Once you’ve identified your grade range, you are then presented with a menu where you can choose to view apps by subject area, specific curriculum strand, and topic.
After you’ve chosen your curriculum focus, the apps recommended by the Verizon App Experts are listed followed by a brief description about the apps. The apps are also linked to the sites where they can be downloaded. What I found interesting about this resource is the About section where the App Expert has explained the educational value of the apps chosen, and related the content in the apps to the curriculum. You will also find information about how the apps were scored.
Overall I like the way the sites organized, and I like that Verizon App Experts hand pick only a few apps per curriculum strand and assess their educational value based on their scoring chart. I was happy to see that many of the apps I am currently using in grade 2 made their list. Keep is mind the content is American, so some of the apps may not be worth the $$$ if you are covering Canadian curriculum. Regardless, the Verizon sites are definitely worth a look.
For Apple with Grade level breakdown: https://verizon.appolearning.
For Droid with Grade level breakdown: https://verizon-android.
(Resource Page: http://www.verizonwireless.
Leigh Cassell
Elementary Teacher, AMDSB
Founder of the Digital Human Library
This post is also available in: Français (French)
