Core and periphery Apps
There is always a lot of debate over which apps should be core apps for institutions and which are nice to have as an extension, but are limited in their scope. The way I evaluate an app is whether its use extends through and beyond all subject areas, can easily be shared and published and has student creation at it's foundation. Is it an app that allows for higher order thinking skills? Is it an app that promotes visual literacy and creative design? Is it an app where students are driven to demonstrate understanding through multi-modal mediums? And finally, sometimes less is more. Just because there are 1,000 educational apps that fit the criteria above doesn't mean that students will learn better by using more. Keep it simple. Find no more than ten as your core and no more than ten as periphery tools that can augment with certain tasks or skills. Then, get deep into their potential and maximize the quality, while trimming the quantity.