10 Best Apps 4 Teachers - 2011

Most of what we do is for the students. The focus of this and many other blogs and websites is about learning, and rightly so, but there are also apps that will make our jobs easier too. I am talking about that catergory of apps that are designed specifically for the classroom teacher. Those apps that will assist us in the everyday little jobs that need to be done, often on the run and often while 10 other things are also happening in the room. There are plenty and I am sure as more and more teachers gain the confidence to design their own apps, there will be more suitable one to come. Here is a list of apps that you can use to make your job easier. This is just my list, but I would be happy for other to contribute the apps that help them - help others by leaving your selection in the comments.

Keynote: $9.99

Keynote for iPad is almost as powerful as the desktop application. This is a powerful presentation tool that has animations, slide transition and all the features to make professional slides. It allows you to open templates with graphics already inserted. This is purposely built to work seemlessly on the iPad and to allow the user to incorporate other aspects of the iWork suite. Perfect addition to any homepage.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/keynote/id361285480?mt=8&ls=1

Educate: Free

Since one of the first jobs you have to do each morning is to take the role Attendance is a great solution for the iPad. This app has some great features which make it attractive to teachers; photos for each student, recording lateness or emailing absent students. It asks if you would like to import your address book or you can import student info from external files. It also syncs between different devices. For the price this is a very functional app.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/attendance/id301753475?mt=8

Teacher Tool: Free

TeacherTool saves grades and makes suggestions for grades. TeacherTool saves your remarks about students and presents them to you in the upcoming lesson. It remembers the date of any grade and lets you store comments along with it. TeacherTool keeps track of your students‘ absences. It is much safer than your traditional mark-book, as with every synchronization on your Mac, you save an up-to-date backup copy of all your data.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/teachertool-one/id305195004?mt=8

iAnnotate: $12.99

iAnnotate is a PDF reader and annotation tool for the iPad. It opens documents from emails, fills out forms, you can sign and send out contracts, enter notes for edits, sketch diagrams, copy text, and add highlights or underline with the drag of a finger. iAnnotate fully integrates its annotations directly into the PDF. This is a great tool for teachers to mark student's work.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/iannotate-pdf/id363998953?mt=8

GradePad: $2.99

The GradePad application allows you to grade your students’ performance directly from your mobile device. The documentation from the application’s website explains that with this app you can Manage Groups, Create GradePads, Do Assessments, Track Performance, and Share Data. Manage Groups, Create GradePads, Do Assessments, Track Performance, Share Data

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gradepad/id316077475?mt=8

Dropbox: Free

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPhone and iPad and even the Dropbox website! With the Dropbox app, you can take everything that matters to you on the go.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/dropbox/id327630330?mt=8#

Attendance: $5.99

Attendance is a universal iOS touchscreen application. It allows you to take and keep attendance records. Its main intended use is for teachers to keep track of records for their classes, but it can also be used for meetings and group gatherings. Features include; unlimited courses, move students from one class to another , photo recognition, customisable attendance statuses.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/attendance/id301753475?mt=8

Teacher Pal: Free

TeacherPal is a personal organizer for the teacher. It enables the teacher to organize classes, and students. Its simple and intuitive interface enables teachers to track the attendance, grades and behavior of their students. Features include; simple tap attendance, grade books, enter grade with an intuitive touchpad, import, export data files from and to CSV files.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/teacherpal/id389584618?mt=8

Flipboard: Free

This is a great app for the iPad. Flipboard allows you to set your twitter feeds straight back to your iPad. Flipboard then re-presents it in a magazine format. The tweets are laid out with images in the same format as an online mag. This is great for making online textbooks for specific classes or even further reading lists. Only the classes that you have given the specific twitter address have access. I think this makes tweets much more user friendly, especially to younger students who may not be as familiar with twitter.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/flipboard/id358801284?mt=8

PowerPresenter: $1.99

PowerPresenter is an app that lets you display local PDFs, websites or even draw on the screen as a white board. Through the Web, you can display not just HTML but PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, RTF files and iWork files. This all requires Internet connection, but if you know you do not have a connection save them as local files.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/power-presenter/id369363727?mt=8

And how could I forget...thanks Leoni65

Evernote: FREE

Evernote allows you to capture information in any environment using any device, and makes everything accessible and searchable, from anywhere. Evernote is always synchronized, so any information added in one place is instantly available everywhere else. Use Evernote to capture your ideas, snapshots, voice memos, things you see online, and just about anything else that you want to remember.  Evernote recently reached their have 10 millionth user.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/evernote/id281796108?mt=8