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Favorite Apps for Teachers

When I was a student teacher, I realized that I needed my own personal iPad. Ok, maybe not "need," but it was worth the investment. My parents were generous and gave me one for Christmas that year. I was beginning my lead teaching in February and having my own iPad to use made life much easier. I could test and try out new apps, and create project samples at home. It also made professional development easier because I could take notes, test new apps and create on the spot. I definitely have a few apps that make teaching and my life easier. They're simple, and not new, but so helpful.

1. JotNot: I talked about using Kami in a prior blog post, but I still love Jot Not. For those unfamiliar, JotNot is a free document scanner app. I've used it to return signed forms via email, upload my teaching certificate to applications, email progress updates to parents, and many more. All you have to do is scan the document and you can email it or upload it directly. Due to a lack of turning in assignments on time, I often would send students home with progress reports whenever their grade dropped lower than an 80. Sometimes these reports (which were supposed to be signed and returned) got lost, so I also scanned and emailed them to parents. I love this app because it's easy to use and so helpful. 

2. Groovy Grader: I am not one of those teachers who has one of the EZ Graders. For some reason, I preferred to use a calculator. That was until I came across the free app Groovy Grader my first year teaching. With Groovy Grader, you just enter the number of questions and it calculates the grade based on how many the student got wrong. Even though an EZ Grader would be just as simple, it's a lot easier to remember to take my iPad home (since I use it daily for non school related things) than an EZ Grader. 



3. Random Team Selector: My first year, I decided to begin my year teaching sixth grade Language Arts with a group project on the parts of speech assigned the fourth day of school. I learned my lesson after this to never start the year with a group project. Because I hadn't gotten to completely know my students yet, I decided to randomly group them. The free app, Random Team Selector was my friend when I did this. To use Random Team Selector, the teacher inputs all the names of their students. You can use the number of teams--2, 4 or 8--and the app generates the groups. You can also have different class lists within the app. I had five sixth grade ELA classes and was able to create all the rosters in the app. In addition, you can deactivate individual students from being assigned to the groups. To remember my groups, I would just take screenshots from my iPad. 
View after the groups have been assigned. 


All the students in this list are active.












4. Random Name Selector: I love this app for calling on students to participate in class. It's just like drawing popsicle sticks from a cup but more tech-y. Like Random Team Selector, you can have multiple class rosters within the app. If a student is absent, you can also deactivate them for the day, so that his or her name is not chosen. 


5. Pic Collage-- I love having students use Pic Collage, but I also love using it myself to share students' learning. During my student teaching year, we took pictures of our students at work or at school events and then created collages to tweet out. I did the same my first year teaching sixth grade. It's so much fun and so easy.
One of the collages I tweeted out. 
 

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