In order to pick a good app to share, I am skipping Thing 21 and looking on some "Best Apps" lists for middle school students. I talked about Common Sense Media's Graphite in the last post, so I went there to find what they recommend for this age group. Here is the link: https://www.graphite.org/reviews
Once on the site, I clicked on Apps, Language and Reading, Grades 6-8, and Free to Try. Graphite will then narrow the apps they have reviewed and present them visually. Each app has both a Learning Rating and a Teacher Rating. I do like that in addition to their own reviews, Graphite crowd-sources teachers to provide a rating and includes some of their comments. Certainly, Common Sense media is not without its critics. Some librarians feel their explicit reviews of books, games, and apps only provide fuel for would-be banners. Others, however, appreciate the site for their level of detail in the reviews and the transparency of the reviewers' names and qualifications.
The app I decided to try is called Inspiration Maps. The brief description says it is a "versatile mind-mapping tool offers many options for organizing ideas." The learning rating is a 3 (good) and the teacher rating is a 4 (very good). I will try it out and let you know what I think back in Thing 21. But as for this Thing, I side with those who appreciate Graphite, and I am sure that I will use this site frequently to find education apps for teachers and students.
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