AASL's Best Apps and Websites 2015

The American Association of School Librarians publishes a list of the 25 best apps for teaching and learning each year. The 2015 list was unveiled at the American Librarian Association conference in San Francisco in June. The list includes apps in five categories: books, STEM, organization and management, content creation, and social sciences. This was my last year on the committee and I curated the book apps along with John Schumacher. We will be presenting these apps at the AASL National Conference in November as well.

The 2015 Best Websites list was also revealed in San Francisco. Although I served on that committee many years ago, I continue to follow their work as they continue to honor innovative websites and provide excellent models of how technology can be used to improve learning.

Do you have an idea for an app or website that should be honored on the 2016 lists? Please use the nomination links below to let the committees know:

App nomination

Website nomination

Best APPs for Teaching and Learning

As a part of the American Association for School Librarians, I have had the opportunity to participate on several committees. My most recent service has been to the Best APPs for Teaching and Learning committee. We spent a year reviewing hundreds of APPs in order to create a list of 25 that are exemplars for use in education. At the American Library Association annual conference this summer, we revealed the inaugural list to our colleagues. As Maple Street and Milwood now have access to iPads for classroom use, you will notice the free versions of many of these APPs have been downloaded for your use. Please feel free to play around with them and get familiar with their function. I would love to co-teach some lessons using these APPs to help support your content. I am also interested in what APPs you would like to use-- and what you might recommend for our next list (coming June 2014!). The 2013 list is available here for your use.