Great tool for allowing kids to engage with and explore vocabulary across content areas

I first saw this app when touring a neighboring school district. I was impressed with how engaged the students were in creating their products, but couldn't tell if it was superficial learning or not. So I asked a 5th grade teacher to try it out in her room. Her response to me was, "It's a great app for SS and biographies. Really focuses the kids' research to summarize what they learned. They also did a project of their choice, but this is good to check understanding at a glance." These cards are good for a basic understanding check, but I wouldn't base an assessment of a child's learning solely on this tool. I wish there was a way to personalize the template. For example, in the real person template, I want to change the "time period" to say birthdate but I cannot do so. I also would like to see templates that reflect trading cards students are using today, like Pokemon, baseball cards, etc., instead of just the ornate ones offered. There also doesn't seem to be an easy way to go back if you chose the wrong type of card.

ReadWriteThink's Trading Cards app is great for presenting information about a given subject. Students can demonstrate their understanding of a person, character, or topic. Each card has a series of guiding questions that will summarize a student's learning. One of my favorite features is that a pop-up text box appears next to each field that rephrases the question and gives more information. This has been especially helpful to my ELL students who may not understand the initial prompt. Completed cards can be organized into collections that support a single topic, such as main characters in a book, or European explorers. Each response is limited to 120 characters so students must learn to be concise with their answers. The trading cards can be saved to photos or e-mailed. No log-in is required and the app supports multiple users if you are not in a 1:1 environment. Students can upload images from the camera or photos. I don't like that the cards are not very visually appealing and there is no option to modify or customize the cards.

Making trading cards for words, subjects, events, and characters studied in the classroom is not new. But due to their relatively small size, the final products are often messy. The Trading Cards app allows students to reflect on what they have learned through a series of higher level thinking questions and produce something that they can be proud of.