At the beginning of the school year there was a huge demand from teachers to provide them with suggested applications to use with iPads/iPods. Despite the myriad of resources available, we felt like we could barely hold our heads above water, let alone recommend applications that would encourage higher level thinking and line up with the progression of learning for the subject areas at hand.  Therefore, the iList was born – a group of teachers from the elementary level spent some time armed with iTunes card to investigate applications in math, univers social and science & technologie with the end goal of determining “recommended” applications for the rest of the school board community.  After regular meetings with consultants in Educational Services we have “published” our preliminary list.

To make our list, applications had to score well on the following rubric that we used to determine how well they lined up with the progression of learning.  We also put a lot of emphasis on applications that encouraged higher levels of thinking.   We wanted to see our students creating and producing with these devices, rather than simply consuming media or playing games.

There are plans to expand the list to other subject areas and other levels and we have moved beyond simply looking at iOS devices to include at all types of mobile learning applications.  We are also reviewing the applications monthly to add to the list and are encouraging teachers and consultants to submit applications for review via this form.

Meagan Kearney & Sophie Lussier