During my app treasure hunt this week on the lookout for tools that will work with my Flipboard Magazines, I ran across Swell, a communication app that records your voice memos into Swell Casts. Think of Swell Casts as mini podcasts that teachers can use to communicate culture, expectations, or curricular topics. This app, which is available on iOS and Android, is not necessarily designed for educational purposes, but the possibilities are endless for any teacher with a desire for their curriculum to be heard.

I found Swell to be a versatile app that allows a walkie-talkie-like conversation model that can be recorded and sent; the receiver can respond in the same way. I can see a secondary-school teacher using this app in the classroom to foster a class discussion and encourage students’ further readings by having them speak in the voice of certain characters. I can see administrators using this app in a town hall meeting or embedding Swell Casts into Flipboard magazine to address parents’ concerns regarding the way schools will return in the fall. I can see educators opening global collaborations through Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) to work together through Swell Casts. That collective collaboration could look like curricula conversations about instructional best practices or educators discussing topics relevant to the current climate of education.

After you record a Swell Cast, you can flip the link into a Flipboard Magazine just like any other item from the web. It’s easy to share that magazine with parents, students, or community members. Flipboard is visually appealing and it also lets you add audio for a multimedia experience. Sharing your Casts via Flipboard is as easy as recording them. All you have to do is click on the three dots to share this Swell Cast and select Flipboard (this works on Android and iOS devices.) Your Flipboard magazine is now media-rich with conversations and visually appealing content that is available on social media. Parents, students, and community members will be able to stay up to date with the information provided by the teacher’s Flipboard magazine. How would you use these two apps together?

—William Jeffery is curating Coach Jeffery’s : Teaching with Technology

“Coach Jeffery” is an award-winning digital learning educator and assistant principal at Columbia High School in Texas. His tech pedagogy continues to drive him to curate educational content on Flipboard that highlights teaching strategies, edtech, and ways to improve student success. He started co-hosting the “Flipboard EDU Podcast” as yet another way to share resources with his peers.