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Hello and welcome to Ed Tech Tuesday. I'm Rich Dixon
And I'm Jennifer Gibson. Today we're going to be reviewing
A+ Writing Prompts. It's an app
That's designed to help with a writer's workshop
Let's take a look. Alright let's dive in. Now, Jennifer, I know that this would be a
Wonderful way to help promote,
I'm assuming, student writing, and then as a teacher even give some creativity to the
Kinds of assignments that we provide for our students
I believe so, and actually within this app there's
Billions of combinations. So let's go ahead and take a look
At the first one. We have sketches, and so what we see here is
That there are a variety of categories: sketches,
Scenes, texts, words,
And news. Now, I want to be a caution in here:
This app is not filtered,
Meaning when you contact the Internet through the app,
There are things that can come through that may not be appropriate for the
Grade level that you're teaching. So let me stop and let's take a look at an
Example. So what it sounds like is that this app is going to pull information from the
Internet. Right.
And then provide part of that, at least in certain situations,
As an element of a writing prompt. So we have to be careful there. Mainly that's going to happen
Through the "News" feature, so let me go ahead and press on that
This one says it's fetching random prompts. And what it does is it goes
Out over the internet and searches for news prompts, and so today
"Rick Perry coy about political future
As event to announce plans set for today." Now you can view the whole article,
Which will take you to that actual article, and I've seen a couple of times
Where
For younger kids the articles might not be appropriate
So here's how I would work around that: if you were going to use this app with
Your whole class, and let's say you're displaying it through an Apple TV or an LCD
Projector
You can go ahead and click on one of these
You can add notes, but you also can put this in your favorites. That way you've
Pre-screened the randomness and you've saved it for your class time
Excellent. Well let's say that this is a great one, and I do want to add the favorite: how would that
Work?
You're going to go ahead and press the star with the plus sign
And so now this one has been selected
As a favorite, and you can go ahead and click on "Fav's." I see that in the upper
Lefthand corner. And there it is
And of course it looks the same. But what this does, though, is it means that
You as a teacher are guiding the use of this app
I can see with older kids, especially middle school and high school,
Where the app could be a station in your writer's workshop or English/Language
Arts time
And they could be rotating through and doing some writing
It could be an opening activity as they come into the classroom, and you have it
Already displayed on the board and they get right to writing in a journal
It also could be a homework kind of thing, where they could use this app
In their own home
That sounds like a wonderful app to have at our disposal
In a classroom. Tell me a little bit about pricing
This app is $4.99, so it is a little bit pricier than the ones we've
Seen that are
Like $0.99, but you get a lot for the app. Now
If you're buying the app for every iPad in your classroom, or
If your students have a BYOD, then you can use some neat features with this
There is a "Note" area where they can type in
Their response to the particular area
And then they can edit, they can email it to
Themselves or to the teacher, so that the teacher can give feedback and comment
On it
So that's there as well. The other area that I like is they can add in their own
Pictures
So they can go ahead and take pictures with their
iPad and then put them and attach them to the notes, so that they have a visual cue to go
With the app. That's great
Let's take a look at some of the other areas
This one is this scene, so it gives you a place,
It gives you the characters, in this example we have the Three Stooges
The object is an ashtray; again, might not be appropriate for younger kids, but
I would say that for this app I would feel comfortable 6th-12th grade
The smell is a baked pumpkin. Wow, so they're going to write about this
So there's a lot of creative opportunities. There are some other
Apps out there that might be more appropriate for the younger, elementary
Kids
So you'll have to take a look at those. Texts here
Is just simply text: "By the time he got the call..." Great sentence starter
You can just begin using that. One of the things that would be great to recommend at
This point is we've had a great overview here. If you're looking for
Implementation tips
Check out the link below the description here. It's going to take you to our
App Reviews
On the Lesson Planet website, where there's more background and information about this
Particular app
Thanks for joining us in Ed Tech Tuesday