10 Cell Phone Apps for Teachers

This guest post by Michael Zimmer was previously published in his blog, The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness.

Mobile Technology is taking over and as it does, teachers are either all in or have no interest in their use without realizing how beneficial the use of the apps could be in their classroom. These are the apps that I have seen used recently, used myself, or think have the greatest impact. Leave me a comment with your favorite App.

Editor’s note: Due to the large size of this entry, I’m placing a jump here.

The Remind 101 App (also on the Android Market) is a continuation of the website Remind 101 which allows teachers to create lists of students and then send text message reminders to them for completely free. I used this in my classroom and had several students tell me how it helped them remember to study or complete an assignment. The service works by providing a code to the teacher to share with students who send it into Remind 101 and they are added to the list the code generates. To learn more, see the video below.

Three Ring App (Also on Android) allows users to take pictures of student work and keep track of them online. It is an easy way to organize and present students’ real world work from hand written assignments to presentations. You can also include videos. Visit ThreeRing to learn more and to sign up. It is free for teachers.

The Bump App (also available on Android) allows users to easily share contact information, photos, videos, and other files from their cell phones. The App would be a valuable way to trade contact information with teachers at professional development or with parents if you use your phone as a contact with them. I could see this being used for coaches as well. Read a previous post about how to use bump for images to your computer as well. Teachers could also use it with students to get pictures, lesson

The Wunderlist App (also available on Android) is a necessity for teachers needing assistance with staying organized or are just looking for an app to help them focus on all the requirements of the job. Due dates for lesson plans, and assignments. Professional Development, PLC, and school meetings clog your calendar. Wunderlist provides teachers the ability to easily sync and manage all their “To Dos.”

The Socrative App for Teachers and Students (Available on Android as well are the Teacher and Student App) provides users the ability to do use their cellphones as a clicker system. The Teacher application allows the teacher to not be stuck at their desk running the presentation. Everything can be done on any device with internet access, but the App allows the teacher to move around and monitor the students. See the video below for more information.

The EduTecher App (also available on Android) provides users with an information database and search engine for the web applications that teachers can use in their classroom. The app allows teachers to save their favorites, view informational videos, and follow the latest updates in new web applications that can be adapted for classroom use. For more information, see the video below.

The Genius Scan App (also available on Android) is an app that allows users to turn the phone into a pocket scanner. Once you have scanned the documents, it will email them to users as a JPEG or PDF. The app also easily syncs with Dropbox and Evernote. Often times within the school or at professional development a resource is shared on paper and you want a copy. This provides an easy way to turn those paper documents into an electronic copy. You could also use this app with student work as well.

The Class Dojo App (Mostly for Elementary teachers and currently not available as a Android App) is an app for monitoring, tracking, and sharing the behavior of your students throughout a class period. The app and the Class Dojo website allows teachers to capture and generate data on the behavior of their students. Students get real time feedback. Parents can also receive weekly behavior reports as well. See the video below for more information and visit their YouTube Channel for helpful videos.

The Evernote App (also available for Android) is a favorite among educators because of its ability to sync all your documents and notes in one place. Whether it is a computer, phone, or tablet, all notes are synced in one location. A great tool for when attending conferences, professional development, and faculty meetings. Accounts and folders can be shared, so with students, it would be easy to share important documents with your students and even parents. Evernote also allows the saving of pictures and audio files as well. Teachers could provide a document with audio information as well for students who are struggling readers.

The Pick Me! App (Currently not available on Android) and the only App I have chosen that has a cost ($1.99 currently) allows users to randomly call on students. It makes it easy not only to pick names but also track responses on formative assessment. Data from the formative assessment results is emailed to users. Various settings allows for multiple uses in the classroom. It has an option to import rosters using a CSV file through Dropbox if interested. As a bonus, you might be interested in their Grade It! App (free) which easily provides calculation percentages for determining grades.

10 Cell Phone Apps for Teachers by Michael Zimmer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.