Best of the Best Lists

Digital Storybook Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

Story Creator – With Story Creator, creating stories is fun and simple. Students can create storybooks with photos, video, text, and audio. The app supports text highlights, which makes reading completed stories easy for even beginning readers. Stories are easy to share or email to parents and friends. With Story Creator, students can document field trips, science experiments, sports games, and more!

Construct 3 – Construct is a 2-D game engine, which can be used to create games such as RPGs, puzzles, platformers, shooters, and racing games or storybooks. Construct 3 has a Box2D engine, which can be used to create physics-based games. Construct three is compatible with virtually all web devices, including Chrome and Android. When using this tool to create a game, users can add background and objects, and they can edit objects to function in the game.

StoryJumper – This platform helps to aid creativity among students. On the website, students can create and publish their stories. Regardless of the kids’ skill and level of creativity as a writer, the website has an outlet for them to make use of all their bottled-up imagination. They have opportunities to get better at writing as they work on this website; they can also manipulate images and add images to their stories. The app also has special features and functions for teachers.

Diagram Creation Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

Google Apps for Education– Google Apps for Education offers several free apps available for educators and parents. With this app, students can work together on their files with a live display showing what part is being edited by whom. Also, students can come together in a group to create a diagram, prepare a presentation with a slideshow, and so on.

Ideament– Ideament was developed to make the planning and presentation of ideas smooth and easy. With ideament, you can draw flow charts, mind maps, digraphs, or save text and pictures in a convenient space. Later, you can convert this information to a text outline and reverse the process. This app is great for workplace and classroom use.

Digital Library Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

Bookshare– This digital library offers reading options for people of different educational levels, ages, and, most importantly, the visually impaired. Children with some visual impairment, physical disability, or severe learning disability can benefit from using this platform. Books are accessible in different formats, even for non-impaired individuals who enjoy reading books in other formats.

Fun Phonics for your Little Genius– Teaching kids aged 4 to 6 with this iBook and eBook app will show them how to use their letter sounds to read and write. The student will learn the sounds of the alphabet and how they are used to read and spell words.

Kids A-Z– Children can select from a library of eQuizzes, eBooks, and hundreds of developmentally appropriate eResources by using the Kids A-Z mobile app. Students can complete corresponding quizzes to improve their comprehension skills and use interactive annotation tools that aid in the development of close reading skills. Kids A-Z mobile app is a must-have for kids that have access to Raz-Kids, Science A-Z, Headsprout, or Raz-plus. 

Epic! – This is an eBook library for children under 12 in North America with over 15,000 top-shelf books; there is a version available for educators and one for parents (home). Epic! for the home is the version for children; this app accommodates four children profiles that function independently of one another. Available for only $4.99 per month. Epic for educators is the version for educators and librarians; it is free in the US and Canada. 

Reading RainbowReading Rainbow is a way to provide your child with an extensive collection of books—up to 10 million books and video field trips for children. This app has an extensive library of books that would engage kids for a long time and awaken their imagination. The recommended age for children to use this app is three through nine years old; the book collections include fiction and nonfiction, as well as videos of field trips hosted by LeVar Burton.

Raz-KidsRaz-kids is a website built to help teachers track their students’ progress in level-based reading challenges that span 29 interactive levels. On the site, teachers can easily track each student’s progress with the eQuizes comprehension tests that come with the over 400 eBooks. More books are added every month. Students can be digitally assessed via the online records generated by the site after the student take an eQuiz. The app always aims to strengthen the connection between home and classroom by allowing students to be connected to the learning resources . 

LibroVox Audio Books– LibroVox Audio Books gives access to over 50,000 downloadable audiobooks. Audiobooks are the reading of the future. They create an easy way to consume knowledge while running, driving, working out, gardening, or doing anything while anywhere. It also allows you to have more space in your home. Instead of having stacks of books, magazines, and papers everywhere, they are all stored on your phone that you always carry with you anyway. This app also helps us save countless trees.

Sail the BookSail the Book uses Google Earth to transport the reader on a virtual journey to locations mentioned in six inspirational books of maritime nonfiction literature. Google earth also involves activities that use the ruler tool, historical imagery, and street view. 

Device Management Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

Are you looking for device management apps, tools, and resources that your school district’s IT management department can use? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below. Let us know if there are any that we missed.

Jamf Pro – Jamf Pro is a complete device management solution for school IT teams, instructional technologists, administrators, and teachers. This software can successfully manage Mac, iPad, and Apple TV deployment, simplify ongoing management, and empower teachers and students with the tools they need to take learning to a whole new level.

NetSupport School– NetSupport School is a useful tool that provides teachers with the materials they need to enhance the quality of technological innovations used in their classrooms. With this tool, the teacher can manage and interact with every student device used in the class. It comes with tons of IT features, including internet safety, cyberbullying prevention, and device management tools. The app is compatible across multiple platforms, enabling uninterrupted connectivity to a variety of devices, including Windows, Chrome, iOS, Android, and Mac, while supporting BYOD policies when needed.

Design Thinking Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

Mindnode– Mindnode allows you to make mind maps of main ideas and sub-categories and topics. You can brainstorm along with other group members, add your own ideas, and see theirs in real time. You can highlight ideas, move thoughts around, and visually represent what is going on in your brain. If you are having a difficult time organizing your thoughts, this app works well for groups and for individuals.

Speare.com – Speare.com bills itself as a “thought processor.” Their goal is to make writing as easy and flexible as thinking. With Speare.com, your thoughts are turned into building blocks that can be sorted, ordered, divided, and snapped back together in any sequence. You can easily order your thought building blocks into paragraphs, chapters, and complete documents with a simple finger swipe or click of a mouse. With a speech-to-text option, thinking out loud can suddenly become the beginnings of an essay or book. Ideal for students that needs additional help writing, Speare.com can also be used as an alternative method to take notes or brainstorm in any classroom.

SpiderScribe – An online mind-mapping and brainstorming tool, SpiderScribe allows students to organize their ideas in any subject. They can connect notes, files, calendar events, images, and more in free-form maps. Everything created in SpiderScribe is easily shareable online, and all maps are stored in the Cloud so students can access their work from anywhere. This app can also be used for collaboration and group work, as multiple users can access a single map simultaneously.

SyncSpace – SyncSpace is a virtual, zoomable whiteboard for instant collaboration at any time. Allowing simultaneous sketching by multiple collaborators connected via the internet, SyncSpace is great for group work, brainstorming, and note-taking in any class. The unlimited zoomability (both zooming in and zooming out) lets students zoom in to add tiny details or zoom out to add greater context to their sketches and notes. All SyncSpace files can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, saved to your device’s photo library or emailed as PDFs.

Tricider – Tricider is a social voting tool with a variety of uses in education. It can be used to determine students’ prior knowledge, formatively assess a lesson, as a discussion starter, or as a platform for students to provide feedback. What makes Tricider unique among the polling and voting apps is that it allows users to add their own ideas as possible poll answers in the form of text, images, or links. Because of this feature, Ticider can also be used for brainstorming.

Ideament– Ideament was developed to make the planning and presentation of ideas smooth and easy. With ideament, you can draw flow charts, mind maps, digraphs, or save text and pictures in a convenient space. Later, you can convert this information to a text outline and reverse the process. This app is great for workplace and classroom use.

iThoughts– The iThoughts app comes with a simple design and a user-friendly interface. This is a mind mapping app that helps you to organize ideas and visualize concepts. It is available on Apple products and Windows.

MindMeister– MindMeister is an app available for both Apple and Android devices. It is geared toward dyslexic students, who typically have a difficult time reading the board, listening to the teacher, and taking notes. Using MindMeister to make mind maps and collaboratively create digital notes, students can get creative, keep up, and learn much easier. This app is useful in any classroom or school scenario, as you can analyze papers, notes, projects, or whatever you need with mind maps and graphic organizers.

Daycare Management Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

Bob the Child Care Manager Bob, the Child Care Manager, is daycare management software designed to help you organize your administrative tasks. Even though it can be used internationally, this app was primarily designed for the Canadian market. Features include an automated collection of attendance, billing, subsidy calculations, and financial statements.

DayCare Information Systems PRO – This 5th generation daycare management software is a product that is used for tracking, maintaining, and organizing daycare centers, finances, and child records. This product has been customized for use in the smallest of home daycare centers, all the way up to larger daycare centers with multiple sites. Home and center-based software include classroom functions, express billing, payroll calculation, and networking capability.

EduManage – This is a cloud-based daycare management solution that simplifies reporting, payments, and course scheduling. It covers functions such as reporting, payments, course scheduling, and allergen tracking. The design is simple and user-friendly.

KidKeeper Solutions – KidKeeper Solutions is a home daycare management system that can be run on Mac, PC, Android, or iPhone. This software is engineered to provide all the tools necessary for daycare professionals to run their businesses effectively while having enough hands-on time to interact with the kids. The software displays the most important information on its dashboard; all other functions can be accessed from a toolbar. The software boasts desktop-grade Internet encryption to ensure that client data is secure.

Kindertales – This is a cloud-based childcare management software solution designed to handle the automation of many of the day-to-day activities of a childcare center. The software provides tools that track attendance and staff hours, handle recurring family billing, create financial statistics and compliance reports, provide comprehensive waitlist and inquiry manager support. The software provides apps that satisfy various aspects of daycare management, such as the director portal, classroom app, and mobile app for parents.

Curriculum Mapping Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

Curriculum Trak – This software is designed for tracking a child’s learning journey from pre-school through graduation. It is designed to simplify the process of curriculum mapping for K-12

teachers and administrators. With customizable templates, it helps set up maps for educators and teachers. It is cloud-based, thus allowing the storage of curriculum maps.

Planboard – This is a comprehensive tool that allows teachers and school administrators to plan and track lessons, schedules, and curriculums. The first step is to create a free account at chalk.com; the user can color-code the subjects, subdividing them if more than one class takes a subject. The final step is organizing and creating the lessons. Planboard allows users to attach media files, documents, and external links; this tool can also be synced with other apps from chalk.com.

Curriculum Engine – This 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 the specific needs of teachers, classes, and students and allows an educator to define and build coherent standards-aligned courses easily. 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.

Learning Explorer– is a learning object repository (LOR) and curriculum management platform for districts and schools that has been designed for– and by– educators to make it easy to discover, manage, personalize and assign learning resources using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Learning It is a single-sign-on solution that allows teachers to search for standards-based learning resources from a huge library of curated OER and top-quality third-party educational publisher content with just a few clicks. Using a high-powered search algorithm, Lesson Planet allows users to search by concept, standard, grade, subject, resource type, instructional design, rating, and more to find exactly what they are looking for (and avoid the dreaded hunt for actual relevant curriculum).

Data Analytics Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

Violet LMS – This collaborative learning platform is robust, secure, and integrated for educators, administrators, and enterprises. It has high-end features to help your business grow and advance rapidly on the strength of technological innovation. It also provides the development of customizable applications, insightful data analytics, reliable post-deployment support.

Abre –Abre provides apps and functionality for learning management, school management, and data/analytics for the entire learning community. The app is useful for teachers, parents, and school administrators, delivering learning options to their students. It was developed by a team of educators and technology experts with decades of experience in the classroom and boardroom.

Bolt Spark LMS – This learning management system features powerful analytics, a translation system, compliance management, and user verification. Bolt allows you to create and share custom e-learning modules, signable documents, event invitations, and assessments. The app provides an in-depth analysis of reports, with pictorial comparisons between employees at the same level.

CHIRON – Chiron was created by school administrators for international K-12 schools, offering customization and admission analytics. Chiron enhances the digital presence of schools through an ERP solution designed with full functionality for the smartphone. The apps can be launched on multiple platforms with personalized features in less than four weeks.

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.

Clofus  – Cloftus is an education management system with features that assist with day-to-day activities such as attendance, messages, analytics, and marks using artificial technology. The AI robot assistant can be stationed anywhere in the school to help students with their questions. This inadvertently piques students’ interest in science and technology. The AI tech also uses facial expressions to detect mood and offer situational advice to the children. It does all these functions in addition to the traditional SMS system functions.

Digital Learning Software – This is a custom digital learning solution for K-12, higher education, professional education, and organizations with advanced analytics and integration. SMART Notebook comes with several lesson creation and delivery features, connecting you to a full ecosystem of content, tools, and support.

EdApp Microlearning –  This is a mobile LMS with a template library, push notifications and analytics designed for microlearning. EdApp has an integrated authoring tool, spaced repetition, and gamification features. This courseware is designed for iOS, Android, and the web. It incentivizes learning using intrinsic rewards and integrated, real-world pricing.

Edfutura – Edfutura is a complete school evaluation and performance analytics tool for school management, teachers, parents, and students. It pairs your institution with Scrolls Tech Engineers to ensure intelligent technical support. Edfutura R&D labs deliberately focus on defining and deriving the research and innovation agenda at Scrolls Tech.

Edubee-Cloud ERP with School App – This is a cloud-based school management system with a dedicated app for enhanced parent connectivity, powered by analytics and dashboards. It analyzes results for the school, students, and teachers and tracks students’ academic performance using robust graphs and charts.

Edvance School-wide Management System – Edvance is a user-friendly online school management software system for K-12 schools. Users enjoy cloud-based access to efficient software with a suite of modules such as admissions, student and teacher profiles, workloads, timetabling, course planning, academic reporting, grade book, attendance, behavior/discipline, message center, IEP module, parent portals, LMS tools, and curriculum management. The system also offers student-centric and analytics solutions; it helps to reduce the administrative workload to divert more attention to students.

Envisio – Envisio is a planning, strategy execution, and performance management platform for educational institutions and school districts. It helps to cascade your strategic goals into actions to get visibility and keep stakeholders engaged. Envisio enables you to measure and share results with automated reports and powerful performance analytics.

Go Formative– Go Formative allows you to monitor real-time learner analytics, create assessments, and see students’ work from wherever your students may be. It handles the classroom data while you teach.

GuideK12– GuideK12 Analytics Suite is a web-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) geovisual analytic tool that enables school districts to visualize data, run scenarios, and make good decisions. District leaders get to see the details and the big picture by combining data from many sources into an interactive map. With GuideK12, data becomes meaningful and actionable.

Hero K12– This a student behavior management app for K-12 schools and districts. It builds the concept of student behavior analytics, accountability, responsibility, and it urges students to do what’s right. These are the life skills and abilities that can be taught in school with tools that improve student behavior and tools that promote student growth in a positive climate. It also helps educators to effect a positive change.

iCampuz – iCampuz is campus management ERP software that brings a broad functionality to the task of managing your school, using analytics for insight. iCampuz offers flexibility and an abundance of features to create a quality education system collaboratively. Its primary function is to provide a seamless networked campus and a paperless administration. iCampuz provides a framework with which all members of an institution can access, view, and manage their accounts.

Info4child – This is a complete school management software solution with timetables, attendance, and parent-teacher-student communication. Infro4child is a SaaS software with a free and a paid version option available. It includes live training sessions and one-on-one lessons. Features include bookstore management, curriculum management, financial management, higher education, and library management, reporting, and analytics.

Junyo– Junyo’s learning tools helps the teacher to understand the student’s interests, needs, and abilities better. We can help you to improve the student’s learning, increase classroom efficacy, and increase motivation through our analytics technology, which is for businesses in the educational sector. We love education, data, and learning improvements, which is why we run a classroom-facing tool called Junyo Streams. 

Kannu – Kannu is a cloud-based learning management system, which uses tools such as media libraries, direct messaging, and user portfolios to achieve digital learning. With the use of active learning tools and management tools, Kannu allows users to have customized courses, which are essential for a creation and reiteration system. The platform makes use of responsive media on desktop and mobile devices to enhance the user’s experience. The platform also includes Kannu’s analytics, which gives actionable insight into how users interact with the platform and reports that help the user measure success.

LearnZIllion– LearnZillion is a comprehensive curriculum for math, English, and language arts. It includes resources, analytics, and teaching guides. Individual teachers may use it for free, but a membership fee is required if the app is deployed across a school district. Not only does this app include learning material, but it also offers complimentary and supplemental resources such as videos to supplement the learning experience.

LoudCloud – LoudCloud uses cloud-based technology to provide class management systems, assessments, course builders, grade books, and many more features aimed at improving the learning process. With this platform, colleges and universities can make use of personalized learning to support their students. Tools include the competency learning platform, learning analytics, and OER courseware.

Motivis Learning– Motivis Learning can supply schools and universities with detailed analytics, student information, and ways to help increase student performance. It can compile data and share it between educators, students, peers, teachers, coaches, and parents. Whether increasing student attention span or memory or tailoring learning to their needs, Motivis Learning will give the best tips and tactics for each student. This app can be utilized in high school, college, graduate school, and beyond.

Newsela– Newsela provides a personalized approach to learning, using different assessments, annotated documents, and writing prompts throughout. This approach can be applied to different subjects because of its adaptive readability. Teachers can easily access learning analytics to assess the level of each student’s progression and task completion.

Roambi Analytics–  Roambi Analytics provides fast, simple mobile access to any data assets to bring data to life for every data consumer at anytime, anywhere, and on any device.  It is a challenged-based project used for transposing information and data into a spreadsheet designed by students on their iPhone and iPad without having to worry about their device getting slow or crashing.

SchoolZen – An administration solution that allows you to manage your school, critical data, student attendance, tests, examinations, parent portal, and so on. This software can be used to automate school management systems, build process workflows, and enhance communication systems and controls. It draws from lesson observation data and analytics to plan for teacher professional development.

SEAtS Software – This tool is designed to facilitate student engagement, learning analytics; attendance management; and Tier 4 compliance for universities, colleges, and schools.  From student attendance and predictive analytics to case management, SEAtS is a student success platform that empowers you to manage your data for a smarter campus.

SlideRocket Player – With SlideRocket Player, you can download any of your pre-made SlideRocket presentations or PowerPoint presentations and play them wherever you are directly from your iPad. SlideRocket Player works online or offline (if presentations have previously been downloaded). Built-in analytics tell you when and where someone has viewed your presentation, and sharing presentations is as easy as sending a link right from the app.

Thinkzoom – This is s skills-based learning management system with a mobile-first approach. Thinkzoom gives educators and learners a set of tools with powerful analytics and assessments to improve the educational process. Thinkzoom aligns the learning and development of teams to create an agile model of learning on the go.

TinyTap – TinyTap allows teachers to create their own educational games based around their students’ needs, current classroom learning, or simply for fun. Teachers also have access to thousands of games and lessons created by other teachers. With the ability to assign games, lessons, or quizzes as homework and track, which students completed the assignment, including real-time analytics, TinyTap’s content can also be used to teach and support new skills. Teachers can access TinyTap’s learning plans, which are created based on student age and learning needs. These learning plans suggest coursework and games to develop and teach new content and skills. Finally, students can also use TinyTap to create their own content from games to final interactive projects.

Vuolearning This is an online learning platform engineered to create and share courses in a mobile-friendly way.  Features include real-time learning analytics, mobile-friendly, and cost-effective, which makes it a good fit for those who are new to the world of e-learning design and development.

Dance Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

Just Dance NowMotor Skills– Dance to your favorite hits from over 300 songs available on Just Dance. Release your inner dance with this app and enjoy great choreographies without a video game console. All you need is an Internet-connected device such as Apple TV, iPad, computer, or Chromecast. The latest installment comes with an additional 42 games which are available on video game consoles.

iDance!– An energetic and interesting way to keep fit and find the center of your rhythm. You’ll be able to learn any form of dance steps in vogue. The app includes a lot of dance styles to choose from, and our professional instructors will guide you through moves and steps for various dance styles from disco, cub freestyle, bachata, salsa, samba, Bollywood, hip-hop, swing, and merengue.

Ballet for Beginners– An introduction to ballet lessons for newbies with about 230 beginner lessons and some intermediate level routines. Lessons include ballet jumps, ballet glissade, ballet stretches, pique ballet movements, and the battement degage ballet position.

Curated Content Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

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

SmartUp – SmartUp is a learning experience and consultancy platform, helping organizations create a highly engaged learning culture. This system creates bespoke videos, infographics, and animations to engage your learners actively. It also converts your existing training materials (PDFs, PowerPoint, videos, documents, textbooks, etc.) into microlearning modules. It curates contents from an extensive list of partners on an ongoing basis.

PBS LearningMedia – is available for free to all pre-K through 12th-grade educators across the U.S. The educational platform offers classroom-ready content aligned to state and national standards, compatible with the technological tools that teachers use most throughout their classroom, such as Google Classroom, Clever, and Remind. The platform can be used by teachers in a variety of ways, including identifying and organizing their curated resources, reviewing a list of their state’s standards, managing class assignments, and creating lesson plans, puzzles, and quizzes for students.

WURRLYedu – uses music as a gateway to teach critical life skills. It is a curated content platform with creative tools. For teachers, WURRLYedu delivers culturally relevant content, including lesson plans with suggested assignments, an extensive music catalog, video tips, and a comprehensive suite of tools that includes a learning management system and assessment tools to make music education fun, effective, and affordable. For students, WURRLYedu offers thousands of songs (all customizable in key, speed, and instrumentation) with animated timed chords and lyrics, recording tools and one-touch audio/video filters, collaboration tools, as well as ear training games to develop general comprehension skills.

Learning Explorer – is a learning object repository (LOR) and curriculum management platform for districts and schools that has been designed for– and by– educators to make it easy to discover, manage, personalize and assign learning resources using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Learning It is a single-sign-on solution that allows teachers to search for standards-based learning resources from a huge library of curated OER and top-quality third-party educational publisher content with just a few clicks. Using a high-powered search algorithm, Lesson Planet allows users to search by concept, standard, grade, subject, resource type, instructional design, rating, and more to find exactly what they are looking for (and avoid the dreaded hunt for actual relevant curriculum).

Britannica LaunchPacks – Science leverages high-quality, diverse digital content sets to build science knowledge and understanding, enabling educators to make strong cross-curricular connections that help students engage in meaningful learning. LaunchPacks: Science allows you to build content sets (“packs”) that cover each of the disciplinary core ideas outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards and provide a seamless experience for students to think critically and is also a time-saver for educators! Activities and question sets immerse students in thinking like scientists by making predictions, exploring academic vocabulary, collecting evidence from a wide variety of sources—curated videos, images, text, graphs, and interactives—analyzing research and data, drawing conclusions, and writing evidence-based arguments.