critical thinking apps in the classroom

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Critical thinking apps for students.

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Classroom technology, 10 critical thinking apps for students, last updated 25 november 2023/ by zineb djoub.

Developing students’ critical thinking has become a must in a world where smart decisions matter for people to thrive. However, sustaining critical minds may not be an attainable goal for many teachers, since it requires students’ engagement and commitment to learning. Indeed, students need relevant and interesting learning tasks that spark their curiosity in thinking and producing. Educational technologies can support teachers in creating more engaging and thought-provoking content for their students. There is a variety of critical thinking apps that encourage students to think through planning, making decisions and choices, collaborating, creating, expressing their voices, sharing them, discussing others’ ideas, and reflecting on their learning.

Here is a list of 10 Critical Thinking Apps that you can use with your students in class, no matter what subject you’re teaching.

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1. Book Creator

An engaging app with a variety of uses that gets students using critical thinking and organization skills. Students can brainstorm, plan, and write their own stories, communicating their ideas using multimedia elements.

They can also create their own projects, take pictures doing different activities, and record themselves. Besides, Book Creator can be used as a portfolio tool to collect students’ work and reflect on it. It’s available for both iPad and the web (including Chrome). To learn more, read about 50 ways to use Book Creator in your classroom.

2. Notability

A thought-provoking tool that supports students to combine handwriting and photos using a wide range of note-taking and sketching tools: Students can annotate PDFs, make shapes, highlight, move objects around, add audio, integrate photos and web clips, and more. This is only available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

3. Kidblog

A free blogging platform intended primarily for kids to create their content with the help of their teacher. Teachers and students can create conversations on the web and students can also leave comments on other students’ pages. Teachers need to set up an account for their entire class to start using this platform.

4. Ideament

Students can easily draw a diagram (mind map, concept map, or flowchart), convert it to a text outline, and vice versa. They can also brainstorm new ideas, illustrate concepts, make lists and outlines, plan presentations, create organizational charts, and more.

5. Lucidchart

This helps students to create on their iPad or iPhone different diagrams such as charts, mind maps, wireframes, and much more.

6. Ayoa (previously iMindMap)

A cloud-based work management tool that combines Mind Mapping with Task Management features. So, students using this app not only use mind mapping but can also store their work, collaborate with their classmates, track their task progress, and share their work with others.

7. Adobe Spark

This free online and mobile graphic design app helps create compelling animated videos in minutes. Students can get more creative by telling stories and sharing ideas using text, images, and video.

8. Explain Everything

An interesting interactive screen casting whiteboard that students can use to create video tutorials and explanatory guides to share with others. No additional software is required. So, they can record their movements, annotations, and voice, and then make edits using the timeline.

9. Spreaker

Asking students to create their own podcasts and share them with their teachers and classmates can be fun, interesting, and mostly a thought-provoking process.

You can ask them to work in pairs or individually, select a topic, create their own content, record themselves directly from their mobile device, and share this on the Internet using this app (on a class blog or any social platform you are connecting with your students). Students can share their comments, learn from each, and discuss their podcasts in the classroom.

10. TeleStory

T his is a video creation tool that provides students with a scene, face-detecting costumes, cue cards, and special effects and lets them create their own themed TV shows. To create their story, there are themes that kids can choose from, then they select a scene and cue card.

After creating their story, they name it, save it in the app, and share it via ToonTube. This can stimulate their thinking as their choices and creativity are called upon.

What other apps would you suggest to develop students’ critical thinking? I’d love to learn from you.

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