I just found an app that you can plant trees in! I like trees, they look pretty, particularly the ones in Shanghai called London Plane trees. Anyway enough about that and more about the app itself. Essentially it is a focus app. It helps you direct your attention away from your phone and onto what tasks need to be done.
The Forest App works by you deciding how much time you should focus on – anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours. If you stay on track for the allotted time and don’t touch your phone a tree will grow, and over time a forest. However, if your phone addiction gets the better of you, and you let your green fingers touch your phone, the tree will die, and a sad, leafless tree will be planted in your forest instead of a healthy one. Making it look more like a forest from Morodor than the lush woods of County Antrim.
I like this app because it gamifies the process of focusing, which is a nice hook for when introducing it to students.
Download Forest App for free on Android or $3.99 on iOS.
Watch the Techned review/tutorial here.