The days of flipping through an encyclopedia and atlas are over in most classrooms. It is essential that we provide students with access to text types that are true to the digital world. One app that I absolutely love is Barefoot World Atlas from the folks at Touchpress. You might be familiar with some of their powerful iPhone and iPad apps that bring information and interactive resources to your students’ fingertips — the Barefoot World Atlas App is a great addition.
Barefoot World Atlas is an interactive, digital text that includes information (and more!) you would usually see in an atlas. It lets students spin the globe to find information on any country. There are bite-sized pieces of information for students to explore and lots of mini-videos with extra content.
World Atlas App
How could you use Barefoot World Atlas in your classroom?
- Load this digital text on an iPad and make it available to students during independent reading. (great for iPad stations)
- Include this app in a parent newsletter to recommend for at home reading.
- Use this app as a resource during a research project for students to gather ideas or inspiration.
- Share this app with the class by projecting information onto the big screen in your classroom before kicking off a unit on a new place in the world. (perfect for one-iPad classrooms)
Strong readers need to have experience interacting with a variety of text – this includes reading on a digital device. I love how this book’s high quality animations and user interface are combined with high interest content for students. Even if your students are not proficient readers this app includes pictures, diagrams and lots of extras that will help them make meaning of the world around them.
Check out Barefoot World Atlas on the App Store or sign up for my newsletter to win a copy of Barefoot World Atlas during next month’s Touchpress giveaway!
