Happy Tuesday! I’m linking up today with Marie over at Once Upon a Classroom for a tech linky party!
As much as I try to bring technology into my classroom, I have not embraced it as much as I should. My class doesn’t have its own set of iPads and that’s definitely a goal of mine! One way I have been trying to be more tech savvy is with my note taking. As much as I LOVE pretty binders and flair pens, the papers can start to pile up and cause a messy and unorganized desk. I’d often find myself searching high and low for my writing workshop note binder one minute and scrounging around for a paper to record anecdotal notes during guided reading!
When the problem seemed to be at its worst, I was so grateful to learn of this great app from some of the other teachers in a lead teacher group I’m a part of through Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project. Enter confer app! I’ve only been working with it for a few days but so far I’m seriously impressed!
Confer app is an easy one stop shop for recording notes on ANY subject, for all of your students! It’s very easy to navigate and gives you the option to add several subjects and students.
Confer app makes it very easy to add new students manually or gives you the option to upload or paste a list of students from an already established list! Once you have entered all of your students names you can use the same list for each subject or edit it to suit your different classes.
Once your students and subjects are entered, you’re ready to note take! It’s that simple! I decided to use this primarily for writing workshop. Once you select your student that your conferring with, the app provides clear places for you to add in your teaching point from the mini-lesson and begin taking notes on students’ strengths/compliments, teaching that you do during the conference, and next steps you have for the student.
One of my favorite components so far is the option to add a picture of the students work that you’re conferring with! Above, I took a picture of a students’ writing sample after I conferenced with them. You can see the strength I recorded, the teaching point I used with him, and the next steps I have for that writer.
Once your notes have been recorded, the app gives you a lot of options for what to do with them. You can sync your notes to your computer or export them to google drive.
I love that I have the option to upload my notes to google drive. This gives me a sense of security and somewhere to keep all of my students’ notes in one place! It provides teachers with easy reference so you’re not scrambling for all of your notes that you have on one student.
If you’re interested in this app, it is a little pricey! That was my only hesitation. But, luckily confer offers a ‘lite’ version that’s free. You can only add two subjects with ten students at a time but it’s a great way to try out the app and see if it’s what you’re looking for!
Not only is this app a helpful tool for any classroom teacher, it was created by a national board certified teacher and is recognized as a Top 100 Paid iPad Education App!
For more information and a detailed explanation of the app see the video by creator David Lowe below or visit their website confer app!
I hope you will find this as useful to your classroom as I have for mine! Don’t forget to link back to Marie for more great tech ideas!
Enjoy your day!
4 Comments
This looks AWESOME!! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Julie
The Techie Teacher
I'm so glad you find it useful Julie! Have a great night!
Hi Jayme! Thanks so much for linking up! 🙂 I heard about this app through Teachers College too, but I didn't take the step to try it. It was really helpful to see how you use it and how it all works with the screen shots you have here. I think I will give it a try at the end of this year to see if it's something I might use in place of my conferring binder next year. I hope you will link up again soon!
Marie
Once Upon a Classroom: A Teacher's Tales
Thank you so much for hosting the link up, what a great idea! It's definitely worth giving it a try. I hope you're having a great week!