innovatED - Issue 2

Spring 2018
3. The Worrinots. An app designed to help children cope with worries
and anxieties. Paid.
The Worrinots a secure app designed for children from the age of 5 and
has been specifically created to tackle the worrying increase in mental
well-being problems in young children. Each child has a unique login
which they can use to access the single use tablets which are dotted
around school. Developed with the help of child psychologists,
counsellors and teachers, The Worrinots provides children with a safe
place to share their fears and anxieties, which in turn provides them with a
practical and fun coping mechanism for their fears using one of the four
Worrinot characters.
5. Beatwave. Create your own musical compositions, aimed at years 1
-6. Freemium
Beatwave is a wonderful app which supports the National Curriculum for
Key Stages 1 and 2 in allowing children to experiment, create, select and
combine sounds. Children begin to understand musical notation and can
improvise and compose short pieces of music. The real beauty of the app
is that it is set up so that even simple use can produce good results, but
there is scope to extend the more able through increasing complexity.
The interface is simple and children can begin with learning simple beat
patterns before moving onto tuned sounds to explore pitch. The app has
a range of different sounds to vary the feel of a piece of music and it is
easy to create layers of sound. It is a great way for all teachers (no matter
for their individual musical experience) to allow their class to experience
the joys of musical composition in an environment where they feel safe to
explore and feel creative as success is guaranteed.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/beatwave/id363718254?mt=8
Worrinots has a superb monitoring system designed specifically to help
teachers and safeguarding officers identify and monitor fears that have
been shared. If a response is required, the safeguarding officer can write a
response that will appear in the child’s private account from The Worrinot
character they originally shared their fear with.
My caveats in the introduction notwithstanding, the Worrinots is an award
winning piece of software that I, my school and the children love. I
strongly recommend taking a look.
http://worrinots.com/
4. CodeCombat. A browser-based game that teaches pupils the skills of
computer programming. Freemium.
CodeCombat is a fun way to introduce children to written programming
languages. Users can code either in Python or Javascript, but no prior
experience is needed, as step-by-step instructions and hints are given
throughout. It is most suitable for UKS2/KS3 classes, and pupils would
benefit from having some prior coding experience - block-based (e.g.
Scratch) would be fine. A classroom account can be created with a
teacher email address, and pupils can create their own accounts within
this, so no individual email addresses are needed. Pupil progress is
tracked once they are logged in, allowing them to work through the
activities in stages. Each subsequent level is increasingly challenging, and
new concepts are introduced with each different stage. The first course
‘Introduction to Computer Science’ is free, so you can give it a thorough
trial before deciding if you want to commit further.
6. Cardiio. Measures your pulse using the tablet camera. Freemium.
Blood absorbs light. Every time your heart beats, the blood flow to your
face and finger increases. Cardiio measures this increased blood flow. By
measuring the difference between the light absorbed on a beat or
between beats, the app is able to calculate the heart rate of a person.
We use the software widely across school, such as in logging experiments
in Science, before and after exercise in PE to measure fitness,
and measuring heart rate when doing different activities (watching scary
films, etc.).
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cardiio-heart-rate-monitor-7-
minute-workout/id542891434?mt=8
https://codecombat.com/
Issue 2 | innovatED | www.innovated-magazine.com | 47