Flipboard

Flipboard

By FlipBoard

Free

Android, and iOS

This is a great resource it pulls together original current news articles from around the world, for example from valid news agencies for example The Guardian, cnet.com, The Irish Times, NBC news, BBC etc.  Also, it will pull in your Twitter, and Facebook feeds.  

The advantages of app are that:

·       You can easily access an article in full by clicking on the article or click to view at original location.

·        It simplifies the process of sharing relevant news with your twitter followers that would be of interest or your colleagues through email.   

·       The app provides access to a wide variety of valid news sources, but also less reliable rumor news sources this tends to be tech’ rumors . 

·        Valid sources cover subjects from business, to sport, to travel to tech & science to apps.

·       You can create your own magazine stored in flipboard cloud (so you can access on your iPad or iPhone, if you own multiply devices), you can add and collate news articles, and tweets that are of interest to you in one location or multiple personal magazine(s) so enabling you to organise and save information.

It is for latter as to why I use the app.

In terms of educational practice as I teach project management of IT systems I am always seeking current news on technology developments, disasters, and successes as a starting point or case study for a lecture discussion on a learning outcome.   This approach I found makes the learning more immediate and relevant for the students.  

The share facility means that one could twitter to the student the links to the sources or collated sources in a magazine, useful for media courses who always collating current materials for current courses/modules, or modern history relevant news articles as they come to light.      I have yet to explore with my students this facility as part a module, though I have used to share with my followers on twitter (which includes some students).   One hopes that adopting such an innovation would help increase their worldly knowledge and broaden their outlook.  

I also think we should encourage the students to use the app to create their own weekly news magazine to develop their worldly literacy.