New educational apps are coming out everyday, and most of them are great for sharing, collaboration and sheer convenience. Two that I’ve come across recently that students or teachers should check out is Micromobs.com and CourseNotes.
Micromobs is a new social media platform that makes forming a private niche group around a class, a project or anything that interests you quite easy. You simply start a mob around a topic, share it with others by adding people from your email address book or facebook contacts, then the discussions can commence.
For educational purposes it works well because you can: interact and collaborate with classmates outside the class room anytime; exchange handouts, class notes, opinions, study tips and materials; form study groups; and educators can respond to the entire class in real time.
It is fairly new, and one downside I saw is you can’t skin the page yet to customize or brand it with your group’s personality or identity. But, I’m sure this is coming. So, as with other sharing platforms, the real benefit is you can create a private group, and there are no more long email threads. Everything is contained in one place for the group.
The other great new tool I’ve found is CourseNotes, a new iPad app for students. Watch the video below and you’ll see how seriously cool it is. Basically, it allows you to take notes during your class, keep them organized by subject and class meeting dates, keep track of homework due dates, class to-do’s and assignments. The thing I like most about it is it allows note sharing between students via email. Of course, because it is an iPad app, you can sketch diagrams, flow charts or anything else, just as you would if you were taking notes with a pen or pencil.
At Gatlin International, we want to keep you up-to-date on all things related to education and online learning. If there are tools you’ve found that will help advance education, please feel free to comment and share with us.
Tags: coursenotes, education, eLearning, gatlin international, ipad, learning tools, micromobs, online learning, students, teachers