There may only be a few months left in the 2011-2012 school year around the country, but that’s no reason not to brush up on a few of the best apps for teachers. There are all kinds of apps that can help teachers keep track of students’ grades, attendance, and even their overall performance; some even come complete with the ability to add specific notes on each student.
Teacher Notes (free) is one of the simpler teacher-assistant apps in the App Store. If you’re looking to keep some notes on your various classes, it should work terrifically. Users can create different sets of students for their different classes, so that each set of class notes is separate from each other to avoid confusion. Once the classroom roster has been established, Teacher Notes lets teachers add text notes, video and photos to a notepad style view that can be sorted in a number of different ways as necessary. All information in the app can be protected with a PIN code to keep it from prying eyes.
For something a little more advanced, there’s Teacher+ ($2.99). Teacher+ features an attendance management system, including the ability to export the attendance record to different systems if necessary. Teachers can also move students from class to class and get birthday notifications for their students. Teacher+ comes with a timetable management system and performance tracking so that teachers can track the performance of their students in homework assignments using reports and charts.
The priciest of these teacher’s assistant apps is the appropriately named Teacher’s Assistant Pro ($6.99). What do you get for all that cash? You can store parent and student contact information so that you can quickly email administrators and parents about particular students with the tap of a button. It also lets you filter students by numerous categories including what class they’re in, and call parents right from the app. You can also use AirPrint to print out any reports you run using the app. Teacher’s Assistant Pro is password protected and teachers can wipe their grading record clear without deleting students for an easy start to the second semester.
Assistant apps aren’t the only useful apps at a teacher’s disposal though. Sometimes a pep talk goes a lot further than an electronic grade book. With that in mind, You Can Handle Them All ($1.99) makes for a great help aid by providing advice for dealing with 124 different kinds of student misbehavior. Whether your student is a bully, a class clown or a complainer, the app has a clear breakdown of the personality types and what you can do to deal with them.
Even if your classroom is all lollipops and smiles, there’s a chance you could use a little help being fair. It’s not your fault, everyone plays favorites. Teacher’s Pick ($0.99) eliminates the problem by helping teachers select students on a completely random basis. The app even keeps track of which students have already been chosen for a given activity or question, so they’re not picked twice. It may not seem like a must-have app, but it’s always nice to have a little proof if a student accuses you of picking on them too often.
Whether it’s a virtual grade book, advice guide or even something as simple as a random student selector, there are plenty of apps to give teachers the edge they need to finish out the school year strong. Not using a few of them would be like not using a study guide before the SAT.
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