Apps for the MFL Classroom

There are three apps that I've been using in my Spanish class lately.  

1. TAP ROULETTE. Sometimes in class I have more students volunteer than I need and at other times not enough students volunteer.  For a fun, easy, and quick way to choose a student, I use Tap Roulette.  The students put one finger on the ipad and when I press go, the roulette begins and the sound of the roulette wheel will eventual end and a bright red mark will appear under the finger of the person that was "chosen".

One day, I was reviewing the story that the class had created with me the previous day. I was prepared with questions about the characters and events in the story that didn't have an answer that we had discussed.  My plan was to ask for volunteers to answer the different questions, but then I decided to use Tap Roulette to do that work for me.  This was my smallest class (8 remarkable students!!) so we gathered our chairs in a tight circle, and I held out the ipad for the students to place their fingers on it.  Whichever person was chosen by Tap Roulette had to create more details to answer the question.  

The students enjoyed this, especially when their classmate was chosen twice before they had even been chosen one time.

The app is free.  It supports up to 11 fingers on the ipad and 5 fingers on the iphone.

2.  Team Shake.  This app provides a quick way to put students in a group.  You can select how many groups you want or how many people you want in each group.  First, you have to upload the list of names of your students.  If a student is absent, there is an online tab to take that person's name out of the draw. Then press shake and your groups will be listed for you.

This app cost .99.

3.  Touch Blur.  This app is handy when you have pictures of class activities that you want to share without others being able to identify the students.  Upload the photo into the app and touch the screen to blur faces or other things in the picture to hide its identity.

This app is free.