Student Developed Apps

Who knows apps better than students?


Not too many people, so who is best for creating these apps?

Students, perhaps.

Having students develop apps is a great way of getting students creating when they are young to see if this is a possible career choice for them.  Some great articles include college students developing apps to help with algebra.  The tools assist teachers in diagnosing where students struggle and offer interactive solutions to put them on track.  One app called "Card Clutter" helps students understand the relative value of numbers by arranging cards in order with face values ranging from negative fractions to absolute numbers. Those expressions sometimes stump students when solving algebraic equations.

Others include: Recently a handful of his students tapped the touch screens in rapid fire to solve for x. "Do some 'Alge-Bingo' for me," he told Zack Sheldon, who quickly got to work.  "It makes it fun and easy," Sheldon said.  Jones said it was a great way to use her math skills, teaching skills and computer science skills at the same time.She developed the "Diamond Factor" app, which helps students factor trinomials, an algebraic expression with three terms such as x² + 8x + 16.

To read the entire article click here: Algebra Apps


One great example that I want to share with you is a student at Elkhorn Public Schools who wants to take his app on the market.  It has many different incorporations in mathematics.  It is called Roll It, and you can check more of it out here: Roll It

Roll It is an app created by a student from Elkhorn Public Schools.  There is an app for it coming soon to iPads and iPhones.  But for now, you can use the online one for your students to use.  http://rollitapp.weebly.com/ 

Here are a few things Roll It can do:

• Roll It comes with up to 4 possible players.
• Easy to read design.
• Perfect for SMART technologies.
• Comes with a random player selector to decide what player comes next.
• Four random generating dice, perfect for all games. 
• Easy to use timer.

You can use any of these technologies for any game and when teachers lose parts to games like I do all the time there is an online place where I can fill in the missing pieces with online parts.  Once the app is up and running in the App Store for iTunes, students could use this at their desks for review games, stations, or even in their homes.  This is a great web 2.0 tool that all teachers can use in their classrooms.