Best of the Best Lists

Back in 2001, when I started as a teacher, the technology boom was in its nascent stage. I remember toting a large bag filled with papers home most nights and going to sleep drowning under a vast sea of student homework that needed grading. My classroom was even worse, cluttered with books, manipulatives, globes, maps, and learning stations that left little room for anything else. However, as I write this in 2018, things have changed dramatically. Today’s teachers have edtech in their corners.

Digital teaching and learning tools have streamlined education processes and provide learning experiences that stretch far beyond the materials that were available for me back in 2001. When it comes to curriculum and instruction, there is no shortage of apps will help teachers develop or find curriculum, or deliver instruction effectively. Today’s teachers will never know the pain of creating or searching for lesson plans or using bland overhead projectors to allow students to visualize what a topographical map of the U.S. looks like. Yes, sir, you all have it made. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these apps, tools, and resources:

LearnZIllion: LearnZillion offers high-quality curriculum for the entire district along with family resources, analytics, and teaching guides. Their comprehensive approach to math and ELA curriculum extends beyond the textbook to offer targeted instructional videos, write-along videos, and more. Membership is free for teachers but requires a paid subscription for district use.

BetterLesson: When you need lesson plans that align with Common Core standards, most teachers would prefer not to make up each lesson entirely on their own. BetterLesson allows “master teachers” to create lessons others can use, and they are now offering more than 16,000 choices. Select curriculum for math, ELA, science, or blended learning in their easy-to-use interface.

Tiggly Shapes: Tiggly Shapes is an app created to help kids develop spatial reasoning, motor skills, language, and creativity in a fresh dimension. Tiggly Shapes comes with four toys in the shape of a circle, square, star, and triangle; the shapes operate in real time with three dedicated learning apps.

Tiggly Words: This is a phonics and word building game for kids between the ages of four and eight. The app comes with toys that interact with the screen on your device. The app does not require any connectivity setup such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or batteries to run.

Curriculum Engine – Is a revolutionary intelligent curriculum editing and design platform, initially developed for high school mathematics. The Curriculum Engine platform automates the process of tailoring resources to meet specific needs of teachers, classes and students and allows an educator to easily define and build coherent standards-aligned courses. The platform works with leading learning management and student information systems or on a standalone basis to edit, author, and deliver rich personalized mathematics content. It has an unlimited capacity to build courses that any district or teacher needs, from core instruction and credit or content recovery to test preparation.

Vocab Ahead: This is a dynamic, interactive tool created for teachers and students. It teaches vocabulary with the use of videos, definitions, games, quizzes, and more. Teachers can compile word lists for their students to memorize and build their vocabulary.

Common Curriculum: Common Curriculum helps you to stay better organized in your classroom with lesson planning, and a unique academic standards search feature. They also allow entire teams to collaborate on units and lesson plans together. This allows educators to make curriculum planning move significantly faster on a regular basis.

Did we miss any?

Back in 2001, when I started as a teacher, the technology boom was in its nascent stage. I remember toting a large bag filled with papers home most nights and going to sleep drowning under a vast sea of student homework that needed grading. My classroom was even worse, cluttered with books, manipulatives, globes, maps, and learning stations that left little room for anything else. However, as I write this in 2018, things have changed dramatically. Today’s teachers have edtech in their corners.

I remember working tirelessly to differentiate instruction between my gifted, average, below average, and learning disabled students. To do this, I have to tailor my instruction, learning experiences, and assessments to meet the learning needs of each student. This was incredibly difficult, especially using low-tech means. However, today’s teachers have apps and tools that will magically differentiate instruction for all students, based on their current level of functioning. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these differentiated instruction apps, tools, and resources:

Minecraft: Education Edition. You’re likely familiar with Minecraft, the virtual sandbox that allows users to craft entire worlds block by block. The Education Edition boasts additional features like portfolios, the ability to link to outside resources using “tour guides,” and the capacity for an entire classroom to collaborate on building a world together.

DreamBox: Have you ever heard complaints that math is too boring? DreamBox is starting to change the conversation with gamification on an adaptive learning platform. Teachers can see student insights quickly and easily. However, most educators love it because the program aligns with Common Core standards and adapts to the individual student.

Splash Math: This math app was created especially for children in grades one through five. It has a self-adjusting system to relate with each child at the level of his or her ability. It covers every math topic taught between first and fifth grades, and it works closely with school curriculum so that the math students practice will correlate with school math.

Mika: Carnegie Learning offers a new virtual platform for higher education students to receive the help they need in math. Students can access a one-on-one virtual tutor who can give them a personalized path and insight into their progress.

IXL Learning– IXL Learning has been proven to be effective in providing comprehensive, curriculum-based math and English language arts content for kindergarten to grade 12. It also provides an immersive learning experience in science, math, language arts, and social studies for K-12. It produces real results, which is why it is trusted by top teachers and presently used by The Elite 100

Banyan – Banyan is an engine built to influence human learning through machine capabilities by providing an insightful, personalized learning experience. It has three modules that help you advertise and hire skilled talents and provide customized learning experiences and workflow management courses, respectively.

Did we miss any?

Back in 2001, when I started as a teacher, the technology boom was in its nascent stage. I remember toting a large bag filled with papers home most nights and going to sleep drowning under a vast sea of student homework that needed grading. My classroom was even worse, cluttered with books, manipulatives, globes, maps, and learning stations that left little room for anything else. However, as I write this in 2018, things have changed dramatically. Today’s teachers have edtech in their corners.

Digital teaching and learning tools have streamlined education processes and provide learning experiences that stretch far beyond the materials that were available for me back in 2001. Teachers and administrators today will never know the pain of registering students for school with sheets of paper. Or sifting through colossal file folders filled with your student’s cumulative records to find out what grade they received in math last year or if there are allergic to any foods. With today’s modern student information systems, data can be stored and retrieved with the click of a mouse. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these apps, tools, and resources:

PowerSchool: PowerSchool was designed to be user-friendly for both educators and administrators. Their platform is built with simplified state compliance reporting, access to an online community, and real-time engagement between parents and teachers. You can also run a variety of pre-built reports on the data in your SIS or design a custom report to suit your needs.

Hall Monitor – Hall Monitor gives principals, administrative staff, and teachers access to student information systems on any mobile device. Hall Monitor’s integration with Microsoft’s Azure AD Single Sign-On ensures the security of student information. You can take attendance for classes directly from a smartphone or tablet.

BigSIS – BigSIS is a cloud-based, highly customizable student information system, providing solutions to private schools across the United States and Canada. BigSIS is comprised of modules that manage everything from admissions, gradebook, narrative assessments, donations, volunteers, after-school care participants, attendance, enrollments, and more. You select the modules you want to purchase; many modules are included in the software package for free.

Jenzebar Sonis– Jenzebar Sonis is an affordable but powerful student information system that lets you improve efficiencies for all your on-the-move constituents. It is designed particularly for smaller higher education institutions. It helps you to manage every part of your school’s administrative task online and provides integrated services for billing, course management, admissions, grading, registration, and other administrative functions.

OneWorldSIS – This student information system is designed to store student information securely and to track the relationship between management and the student. It also tracks student progress and achievements.

Classe365 – Classe365 is a cloud-based unified education institution management and student information system for K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. It provides services such as paperless/online admission, online payment, student behavior analytics, alumni management, grants, and scholarship management.

Skyward: Much like PowerSchool, Skyward is meant to be easy to use for everyone involved in academics. You can use this platform to handle scheduling, report cards, fee management, and more. Teachers will love being able to track attendance, behavior, and grades all from one location while still making the information readily available to parents.

Illuminate: Illuminate is a convenient program for educators and administrators, partly because it is compatible with many of their other services. Foodservice, messaging, and notifications can all be used with this platform. Create custom report cards, reports for information and state compliance reports within this platform.

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Back in 2001, when I started as a teacher, the technology boom was in its nascent stage. I remember toting a large bag filled with papers home most nights and going to sleep drowning under a vast sea of student homework that needed grading. My classroom was even worse, cluttered with books, manipulatives, globes, maps, and learning stations that left little room for anything else. However, as I write this in 2018, things have changed dramatically. Today’s teachers have edtech in their corners.

For instance, it is widely known that Problem-Based Learning (PBL) can radically change student learning. Rather than stuff students full of facts or material to memorize, problem-based learning encourages students to solve problems independently (or in groups) to find solutions. Back when I was a classroom, PBL had to be facilitated using low-tech means. Today, PBL has been merged with edtech to create awesome technology laden learning experiences. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these problem-based learning apps, tools, and resources:

Problem Based Learning Experience. This unique app features a collection of starter questions to help students and teachers begin problem based learning activities. Each starter question also contains links to other resources to help students work to solve the problem in a real-world way.

Thinkrolls: Thinkrolls teaches children aged three to eight the basic concepts of problem-solving and the laws of physics. Players control one of 26 characters to navigate the maze presented in the game. Kids are taught to use the physical properties of each character such as heat, gravity, acceleration, and force to their advantage.

LumieLabs – is Britannica’s K-12 digital storytelling and video-creation platform that shapes a new future for classroom learning. LumieLabs combines curriculum-relevant, project-based video lessons with millions of royalty-free, rights-cleared, fair-use multimedia clips and thousands of audio clips from best-in-class producers and artists for professional-quality content creation. It is the only video product on the market specifically designed to meet K-12 learning objectives, allowing students to become media-savvy creators. LumieLabs allows students to create stories, share them, and engage with their peers’ videos in a safe, controlled environment.

Thinkster Math:This app helps students develop critical-thinking and math abilities. It allows math teachers to relate math concepts to real-life situations. This app also tracks students’ process for arriving at their answers and helps the teacher give feedback and corrections.

Kodable– Kodable teaches coding to kids from ages 4 through 10; it is the only complete coding program on the market. This app can be used for an individual student or for a whole school district. Kodable encourages problem-solving and critical-thinking skills while informing children of algorithms, syntax, variables, and more. These are all crucial skills that coders must acquire to succeed in computer programming. With the assistance of the app’s fuzzFamily avatars, children can learn computer science with friends.

Did we miss any?

Back in 2001, when I started as a teacher, the technology boom was in its nascent stage. I remember toting a large bag filled with papers home most nights and going to sleep drowning under a vast sea of student homework that needed grading. My classroom was even worse, cluttered with books, manipulatives, globes, maps, and learning stations that left little room for anything else. However, as I write this in 2018, things have changed dramatically. Today’s teachers have edtech in their corners.

Digital teaching and learning tools have streamlined education processes and provide learning experiences that stretch far beyond the materials that were available for me back in 2001. Teachers today use blended/flipped learning to shake up the staleness of the traditional learning format. For instance, with blended learning, students may attend a physical class for half of their learning experiences, and the other half would consist of online learning, either asynchronous or synchronous.

With flipped learning, the traditional classroom lecture format is turned on its head. Students may watch a video lecture or read source material at home, while in class learning experiences are devoted to applying the concepts learned at home to hands-on, practical activities. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these blended/flipped learning apps, tools, and resources:

Edmodo: Are you ready to save paper by planning your lessons online? Edmodo features unlimited storage that allows you to assign endless homework and short assessment quizzes. With all of the information in one key location, you can easily see the progress your students are making. As an added bonus, you can also use the Google Apps and the Microsoft Office programs with Edmodo.

The Knowledge Compass. The Knowledge Compass is a wonderful way to help students formulate questions and begin the research process. The website provides several different types of questions to help students ask the right questions to guide their research.

iCohere Unified Learning System – iCohere Unified Learning System is a feature-rich, all-in-one platform for webinars, courses, conferences, and communities. This system provides self-paced and instructor-led courses, plus blended learning, webinars, classes, a member portal, and more.

Lumesse Learning Gateway – Using the cloud-based learning management system provided by Lumesse Learning Gateway, organizations can manage blended learning programs that are fully customized for their organization and their employees. The platform’s interface is easy to configure and activate; the platform is available for use for compliance training, employee training, and workforce development. It is deployed as a Software as a Service/cloud service.

MaxScholar – MaxScholar is a learning platform designed for students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, ADHD, processing problems, and general difficulty reading. The platform is built as a digitally blended learning environment for developing reading, writing, and comprehension skills. It also teaches math skills with the use of customized software and engaging materials.

WebMentor LMS – This is a web-based learning management system that supports blended learning, certificate management, credits, e-commerce, and many self-service features. It also manages course offerings and lessons, uploads content to courses and lessons, manages assignments, and much more. Using this tool, your employees can build their skillsets quickly to maximize the potential of your workforce.

Khan Academy: Khan Academy offers a personalized practice session with content that neatly fits into your school’s standards. You can assign practice work to your students, video instruction, and even articles to read. As students finish their assignments, you can check on how they fared.

BrainPOP: BrainPOP is a classroom favorite because of its colorful games and animated activities. Teachers love this platform because it offers realistic tools that force students to reflect on what they have learned, as well as global topics.

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Are you looking for tutoring apps, tools, and resources that you can use? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below. Let us know if there are any that we missed.

EMsync – This platform helps with tutoring and mentoring of young people to help them succeed in school. This platform is designed to help ignite young people’s potential.

GradeSlam– GradeSlam provides online tutoring services with certified educators delivering interactive academic support to students whenever they think they need it to be successful. The service is unlimited, on request, and available on any device around the clock. The certified educators on this platform point out student’s mistakes during the learning process and guide them on how to avoid those mistakes next time.

Groupboard– Draw and have a live chat with people on the Internet with your iPad, Android device, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Groupboard is easy to use for online tutoring, collaborative design, or simply for fun. To use the app, start it and drag your finger to draw on the screen and scroll and zoom with your two fingers. Features include the ability to change shapes, colors, line width, and upload pictures on which you can draw.

HigherL LMS – This is a web-based LMS with timesaving course tools, assessment tracking, and a large content repository for educators, publishers, and corporations. It is a learning platform where online tutoring is enabled, thus giving students the exposure they need to succeed in their field.

iTalk2Learn– iTalk2Learn is a math tutoring app that uses cutting-edge technology to ensure that students learn more naturally. This app is the result of a three-year collaborative European project to create an open-source intelligent tutoring platform that reinforces math learning for 5- to 11-year-old students. This will enable educators to deliver the correct lesson at the right time.

LearnCube – This is a virtual classroom built for teaching and tutoring online. It helps to eliminate the distance barrier between teachers and students by bringing them together in a virtual classroom. It uses an online interactive whiteboard for teaching; users can draw, annotate, type, and switch to multiple boards while on the platform. The software makes use of high-quality audio and video encoders and compression algorithms for its virtual classes. Since all the content is web-based, there is no need for downloading and learning to use the software. LearnCube also provides the option for users to personalize the classroom.

MATHiaU– MATHiaU is a math learning software is offered by Carnegie Learning. It provides college-level math assistance, including one-on-one tutoring. With this app, students take thorough assessments and are given feedback that includes a personalized learning path. MATHiaU provides affordable, easy-to-use artificial intelligence-based tutoring.

TG Campus – This is an online tutoring and learning platform that includes course creation, live classes, online mock tests, and more. TG Campus offers high-quality online courses that ensure quality education to students. Each course is designed to help students learn, grow, and thrive. Their online tutoring program engages students, parents, schools, and tutors.

Thinkster Math – A K-8 math tutoring program, Thinkster Math strives to improve students’ math performance, engagement, confidence, and critical thinking skills. What makes Thinkster Math unique is its three-prong approach: a unique curriculum, personalized treatment from certified teachers, and artificial intelligence that focuses on tracking the student’s thinking and determining how they arrived at an answer. Thinkster Math is available on desktops, laptops, and tablets.