In a world that revolves around apps, navigating through the multitude of options can sometimes feel like entering a vast, digital labyrinth. Today on National App Day let’s recognize the incredible impact that apps have had on our lives. This isn't just another arbitrary holiday; it's a celebration of the tech-driven revolution that has transformed the way we live, learn, and connect. Learning apps have supported teaching and learning by providing interactive, personalized experiences that cater to individual needs, fostering engagement, and making educational content more accessible and enjoyable for students. 

We have exciting news! The MimioMarket App will be available on the ProColor Series 3 panels on February 19! MimioMarket gives users access to over 100 safe and tested apps for education. Our App Team checks every app submitted to the store and you can be sure apps will be free of advertisements, in-app purchases, and inappropriate content.

Digital learning offers students the tools to become lifelong learners. As per the national centre for education statistics, 80% of 8th-graders reported using a computer for schoolwork in the recent past. 

Twitter can be a great professional learning tool for teachers, but some teachers might be hesitant to get started. The root of this hesitancy can come from a variety of sources. Social media may not have a positive image in some teachers’ minds. The technology part can be intimidating, as well as the lack of knowledge about the tools themselves.  

In hopes of encouraging teachers to get started—and possibly ease some of those fears—I have created a set of steps to get started with Twitter that are specific to the field of education.

A while back, I taught a high school broadcast journalism class. It was a lot of fun and we did some amazing things with technology, video, and journalism. 

At the same time, I taught a sophomore language arts class. Since I was teaching the video recording skills anyway, I decided to do a video project with my language arts students. The results opened my eyes—I realized that for most kids, adding a camera to a project brought instant engagement. They were planning, creating, revising, and researching for ways to do it better, and their creations were pretty funny. The same project I had completed for many years became something fresh and new just by adding in the video component.

As we turn the calendar once again, we find ourselves with a new year full of possibilities. But even with all these possibilities, we know that old habits die hard—this is why listing our New Year’s resolutions is a popular practice and can be very profound. The list either helps us to do something new that we have always wanted to try, or start doing something we have known for a while and need to pick up again.

So for 2018, I have developed my top list of things I would like to do, improve at, or focus on for the year. These resolutions are aimed at improving my knowledge of educational technology (and more!) and are in no particular order—and a few are a little tongue in cheek!

In the cult classic Office Space, the famous one-liner heard multiple times is, “So what would you say you do here?” It gets a lot of laughs because the high-level executives have no real clue what anyone in the office actually does. The truth of the matter is that in the world of education, teachers don't always know what other professionals actually do at their jobs, either. We know we can encourage students to become doctors, lawyers, welders, or accountants—some of these jobs we feel like we know well because we probably have experience with them. But when it comes to the field of engineering, I would guess that most teachers don’t really have a firm grasp on what the job actually entails.

Career growth in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) shows no sign of slowing down, so how do we ensure that today’s students are ready for the jobs of tomorrow? By incorporating STEM learning into the classroom, we can give our students the tools they need to succeed in the future—and spark interest in these fields.

My generation of students has established the personal device trend, utilizing smartphones, tablets, and laptops in nearly all of our everyday tasks and interactions—both inside the classroom and out. With the number of apps expanding exponentially every day, I’ve surveyed a number of my high school friends and their siblings to compile a list of our top ten app picks for students: