5 Extremely Useful Apps for the Classroom

As teachers, we are always so busy and I’m always looking for ways to streamline what I have to do and make it simpler to accomplish.

Below you’ll find 5 free apps that you can use to do just that.

I use them on a regular, if not daily basis and they make my teaching life so much easier and save me a TON of time and effort.

Many of them allow you to create something once and then reuse it over and over.

And one tells me what I have to do and when I have to do it.

Without it, I would be completely LOST!

So read on to find out 5 Extremely Useful Apps to use in the classroom!

TickTick

Do you have trouble keeping track of things you have to do?

Is your todo list long and disorganized?

Do you never know where to start to tackle your todo list?

If you said yes to any of those questions, I’ve got the perfect app for you!

TickTick is a great FREE app to keep track of everything you have to do.

Available for most platforms including web, you can add all of your tasks and subtasks, create multiple lists and tags, prioritize, and set single and recurring due dates.

There’s both a free and a paid version.

I absolutely need a todo app to keep my tasks under control. Without it, I will miss due dates, forget to do things, and am on a constant catch-up hamster wheel.

To fix this, I put EVERYTHING in TickTick.

If I need to do it or I need some type of reminder, it goes into TickTick.

I create two different lists: one for personal and one for school, and everything that I have to do is put into one of those two lists with a due date and any subtasks that I might need to get something done.

For example, I will put in a task for my lesson plans for each of my preps and I set this on a recurring schedule that these are due each Friday.

Within each of these lesson-plan tasks, I have subtasks of each step I need to complete to make sure my plans are ready. For example, I have a subtask for my week-at-a-glance, my lesson slides, my learning management system, adding assessments and assignments, and creating any activities.

As I work through my lesson plan task, I’ll check off these subtasks so that I know that I’ve done everything.

Along with my calendar, TickTick is my go-to app to stay on top of my day.

And to double-check myself, I have my TickTick sync with my Google Calendar, so I know what I have to do and when I have to do it.

Google Slides

When most people think of Google Slides, they think of presentations.

But Google Slides is much more than an app to create presentations.

Change the slide to the size of a sheet of paper and you have a blank canvas for posters, handouts, lesson plans, or any other document where you want to be creative with images, graphics, and text.

It’s much more versatile than Google Docs which is more geared toward plain text.

With Google Slides you can combine text and images in a variety of ways to make much more interesting documents.

Then you can download what you created as a PDF for a high-quality printable for your students. Hint: I made the handout for this article with Google Slides.

Soundtrap

Do you get tired of reading listening assessments over and over again?

I know I do and that’s why I use Soundtrap.

Soundtrap is a FREE online sound-recording app that you can record and SAVE any listening assessment or activity for your students.

I use it for all of my listening quizzes as well as other listening activities where I want my students to listen to the target language and do something with it.

Soundtrap saves me from reading the prompts over and over and best of all, I can save them to be used year after year.

With Soundtrap you can either play them directly from the app (which is how I prefer to do it) or you can download the .mp3 files and upload them to your class website or other resource.

There’s even an app for iOS and Android.

This app has proven invaluable for me over the years!

Formative.com

If you can think it, Formative.com can probably do it.

I create practice activities as well as assessments on Formative.com.

Formative.com has so many assessment types that the possibilities are almost endless.

Students can take the assessments on a computer or their personal device, you can control who and when they have access, some assessments can be auto-graded and best of all, you can add personal feedback directly to students on each question if you’d like.

Plus you can see all the data so you know where students stand and if the assessment needs any tweaking.

We use this in our department so that we can share quizzes and look at data together to make our assessments as good as they can be.

Most of us don’t pay for the service—you can use it for free, but there are features that I like to use and am willing to pay for like randomizing the question answers so that it makes it more difficult for students to cheat.

Canva

If you’re not using Canva, what are you doing with your life?

After Google Slides, Canva is my go-to when it comes to creating attractive documents, graphics, and images.

It really can do so much.

You can create graphics, videos, audio and so much more.

What’s great about Canva is that you don’t need any artistic talent. You can start with a beautiful template and then customize it to your liking.

Or if you do have talent, you can create something from scratch.

Need infographics, eBooks, lesson-plan templates, posters, social graphics? Then Canva is the app for you.

You can do a lot with the FREE version, but upgrade to Pro for no restrictions! And best of all, they offer the Pro version FREE for teachers! So you have nothing to lose!

So there are my five very useful apps to use in the classroom to make your teaching life so much easier.

Do you have any apps that you use on a regular basis that make your life easier? Please share in the comments below. I’d love to try them out.

And don’t forget to download our FREE Useful Apps Guide.