More Websites with Reviews of Educational Software

In this Education Week article, Michele Molnar reports on four websites (three free, one that charges) that provide updated reviews of software programs for classrooms:

• Edshelf www.edshelf.com created by Mike Lee – Users assign ratings to products they’ve used based on pedagogical effectiveness, student engagement, and learning curve.

• Graphite www.graphite.org created by Common Sense Media – Reviewers rate products on their learning potential. Teachers can enter their own field notes about how to best use each product.

• PowerMyLearning www.powermylearning.org created  by CFY, a national education nonprofit – A team of educators curated thousands of academic games, videos, and interactive software and tagged them by subject, grade, standards, and other fields.

• Learning List www.learninglist.com created by Jackie Lain, Dolores L. Riley, Catherine Maloney, Avi Elkoni – Provides in-depth analysis of digital and print educational resources and their alignment to Common Core ELA and Math and Next Generation Science standards, verifying or rebutting publishers’ claims. Learning List charges $75 for an individual and has a sliding district scale starting at $195.

“What they’re trying to do is a noble goal, because I do believe that teachers have an overwhelming number of choices in the marketplace,” says software company executive Rob Mancabelli about these websites.

“New Sites Designed to Help Chose Best Ed-Tech Tools” by Michele Molnar in Education Week, Aug. 28, 2013 (Vol. 33, #2, p. 12-13), www.edweek.org 

From the Marshall Memo #500