Best of the Best Lists

Matthew Lynch published in Best of the Best Lists, Parent & Family Tech, Parental Involvement

Parent-Teacher/School Communication Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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. For example, when I wanted to contact all of my student’s parents, I had to send notes home individually or give each parent a call. Now, with the proliferation of edtech and cell phones, I can use a parent/school communication app to send a mass text or email to all of my student’s parents. Instead of hoping that most of the parents received my communication, I can be assured that they all will receive it instantaneously. This saves today’s teacher hundreds of hours per school year.  If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these parent/school communication apps, tools, and resources:

ClassDojo: ClassDojo is making it easier than ever before for parents to stay in the loop with what goes on in the classroom. Educators can upload pictures taken throughout the school day, share notes with students and parents, and make major announcements to the class. Students can even personalize their portfolio with work that they are particularly proud of.

Bloomz: This simple app is revolutionizing the way that teachers and parents can communicate. Teachers can quickly upload short announcements or pictures into the app to share with parents on a daily basis. It also sends custom calendar reminders, helps schedule conferences, and allows teachers to request volunteers for class events.

Talking Points for Parents: This app is a translator tool for parents for whom English is not their native language; the app can be used to bridge the language gap between parents and teachers. Send and receive messages to your children’s teachers using your native language, and your messages are translated into English language.

Talking Points for Teachers: This version works for teachers to communicate to parents via text without language acting as a barrier. This app includes more than 20 languages. Both human and machine translators are employed so that the output is as smooth as possible. You can also create broadcast messages to a group of parents.

Daycare Works – DayCare Works is a web-based solution for managing before/after-school programs, community education centers, and childcare operations. The software delivers everything you need including registrations, secure payments, staff and student schedules, attendance, billing, third-party subsidy payments, lead management, meal tracking, class ratios, family and staff portals, mobile apps, parent communications, assessments and more.

Hello Parent – This system provides schools with an easy solution for parent communication and allows parents to pay online. The system is parent-friendly. It has automated fee reminders with digitized fee receipts, which removes all manual intervention.  The system is hosted on a reliable cloud server on the cloud, and data is 128-bit SSL secured (bank-level security).

Appademic – Appademic is a school communication solution based in Australia that delivers notices, forms, communications, and more to mobile devices. It includes apps can be deployed to communicate efficiently with parents; data collected by the app is stored securely.

KigaRoo – KigaRoo is a cloud-based daycare solution designed to help with administrative tasks and organization. The platform helps to perform tasks related to parent communication, billing, statistics, and any form of analysis. KigaRoo is designed with a simple interface to ensure that using the smartphone app and the parent portal is as seamless as possible. The software can handle group and staff management, central file storage, remote access.

Moment – Moment app was created for childcare school administrators to communicate with parents effectively, manage day-to-day activities, accept online signups, and collect payments. The app helps users build communities around its classes and enhance the communication channel with parents while handling the day-to-day events, staff, and families. The app has sections devoted to parent communication, class management, and online signups.

SimplyCircle: This is the app for parent communication that can do it all. Add people into your circle and share files, announcements, events, and tasks with them exclusively. Information is received only by the members of the circle.

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Matthew Lynch published in Assessment, Best of the Best Lists

Assessment Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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. I remember creating and administering assessments to students by hand, and then taking them all back home to grade at night.

Fast forward to today, and teachers can use assessment apps to create, deliver and grade their student’s learning activities. All they have to do is enter the questions or in some instances choose the questions that they want to use, and the app delivers the assessment, grades its, and alerts the student when their score has been posted. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these assessment apps, tools and resources:

Socrative: Socrative is an easy-to-use program for educators who need to design several types of assessments. You can save and edit them all on your library. The student answers pop up onto the teacher’s screen in real time to ensure that there is time for instant feedback.

LightSail Education –  Teachers can use LightSail Education to monitor their students’ reading in real-time and in great detail. Teachers and students can monitor students’ per-page progress through books in addition to their performance on Common Core-aligned assessment tasks. This tool also provides students with access to books in the school’s digital library, which can be downloaded for later use. Teachers can also make use of testing results to track student progress over time.

Edulastic: This platform is filled with thirty different question types so that not all formative assessments have to be the same. You can choose from premade questions and answers in their 20,000-question certified item bank. The highlights are the reports that can be generated to show real-time data, student growth, and standards mastery.

EDaura – It is a mobile skill-based learning environment focused on improving learners’ skills through robust formative and summative assessments. EDaura allows educators to measure learning outcomes and abilities to help learners develop and improve throughout the course. It provides complete assignment management from the creation process to the correction and results publishing final stage.

FlinnPREP– Using a blended learning approach, The FlinnPREP allows science teachers to personalize learning and empower students to learn critical concepts and skills. Each course features content that is easy to understand, curated OER, videos, games, formative and summative assessments as well as full-length practice exams aligned with the learning objectives. Students also have access to practice and review exercises, and they can prepare for AP exams without anyone’s help and at their pace.

Smart Sparrow: This platform was designed as a tool for teachers to create materials and give assessments. The learning experience is highly individualized, and as such, it is different for everybody since no two individuals are the same.

Quizalize: Turn your formative assessments into a fun game to play as a class or for homework. Teachers can get instant insights into who needs help and who is doing well. Quizalize is a great way to get kids excited to take these assessments and give you the best results.

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Matthew Lynch published in Best of the Best Lists, Professional Development

Professional Development Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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.

When it comes to professional development, teachers don’t have to attend boring lectures given by guest speakers who are out of touch with the classroom, and who have nothing of value to add to the participant. Nowadays you can engage in professional development anywhere, by using your smartphone, tablet, or laptop to log in to your choice of providers. You can find enriching professional development sessions on every topic from classroom management to pedagogy to mindfulness. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these professional development apps, tools, and resources:

EdWeb Webinars: Teachers never stop learning, but many of them lack the time and resources to attend a college course. With the webinars offered by EdWeb, educators can take advantage of free continuing education credits from the comfort and convenience of their own home. Even better, a large percentage of their topics pertain to edtech and building digital skills in the classroom.

Teach Boost – Teach Boost is a platform for teachers and administrators to assist with providing feedback and teacher evaluations. It is designed to foster effective educators and improve student outcomes. There are three segments in the Teach Boost program: Observations and Evaluations, Coaching and Mentorship, and Professional Development. Observations and Evaluations allow administrators to customize forms, rubrics, and observation cycles and streamline the overall evaluation process to fit the needs of the school. Coaching and Mentorship help develop sustainable coaching and mentoring programs through customized coaching engagements. It helps eliminate paperwork and simplifies scheduling. The Professional Development segment is a hub for schools to manage, document, and share professional development resources.

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: Do you need more help on a handful of topics, but you don’t have the time to read a book? The ASCD webinar archive can be a powerful resource with an ever-growing list of previous topics. It’s a convenient way for teachers to access material they need at the perfect time.

Teacher Vision: Teacher Vision® helps you become a more efficient teacher. It includes lesson outlines and worksheet templates that you can use in your classes. The content is both flexible and relevant to your needs as an educator. With this app, you can spend less time preparing for class and more time teaching.

Discovery Education – Discovery Education is a big player in EdTech. The company has established itself as the leading provider of digital curriculum resources, digital content, and professional development for K-12 classrooms. Around 5.6 million students across all 50 states and Canada are currently using Discovery Education. Discovery Education Streaming Plus, the comprehensive digital service supplementing instruction across all K-12 curricular areas, was recently the winner of the EdTech Digest’s Cool Tool Award in the Content Provider Solution category. Discovery Education Streaming Plus supplements instruction materials for all K–12 curricular areas. The supplemental materials include lesson plans, instructional strategies, and other content. Every possible source of content is available to students, including primary source documents, books, tapes, audio files, videos, podcasts, interviews, images and more.

EzTraxx – This software is designed to offer professional development, graduate study/tuition reimbursement and online training and teacher evaluation processes. This app saves time, slashes costs, and enables data-driven decision-making.

PebblePad– PebblePad is designed to act as an electronic portfolio (e-portfolio). It is a Personal Learning Space used in diverse learning contexts such as schools, colleges, universities, and professional bodies. It is useful for students, teachers, and testers for personal development planning; continuing professional development; and learning, teaching, and assessment. PebblePad was created with everything set to revolve around the student. It provides a framework to help users save records of learning, achievement, and goals. It also has a reflective structure underlining all its core elements.

BetterLesson: Are you hoping for more a class to push your career further along? BetterLesson offers live one-on-one coaching with their unique methodology that encourages teachers to make classroom changes. They help to make sure that all new strategies get implemented in the classroom and help evaluate the results.

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Matthew Lynch published in Best of the Best Lists

Project-Based Learning Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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.

When I was in the classroom, project-based learning was becoming popular among educators looking to encourage student engagement with the curriculum. If you are new to the term, it just means focusing learning around a specific question or challenge, to help students drive their learning – it’s a great way to encourage exploration and keep active minds motivated.

Today, teachers have it made, as edtech is well positioned to enhance project-based learning’s positive impact while also increasing classroom efficiency. I didn’t have this privilege. Edtech can get students interested in project-based learning, empowers them to direct their own work, and helps educators by providing valuable frameworks for large projects. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these professional development apps, tools, and resources:

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.

Toontastic 3Ds: This is a tool for creating 3-D cartoons that can be animated and narrated. It is an app for kids who want to develop their characters. It is operated by moving characters around on screen and performing different operations on them, such as telling a story by recording a voice or a sound and using different animations. The whole project can be saved on your device as a 3-D video.

Mathalicious. This uses real-world lessons in support of project-based learning, with a focus on encouraging critical and independent thought.

Novare PBL Platform. Novare is an excellent project management tool which uses narratives, portfolios and learning goals to structure project-based learning.

Boxlight MimioFrame– This combined system creates a virtual work area spanning about 11 feet by 4 feet where students collaborate and learn together at the front of the classroom. The MimioStudio classroom software makes it easy to use other classroom products and enables teachers to create lessons and joint projects. Files can be saved in the MimioStudio files format and accessed on any device using the MimioMobile app.

Edmodo– While social networking has received its fair share of criticism about the bad influence it tolerates, this app is unlike all that. Edmodo is a powerful tool that can be used to pool the creative thinking of students. It helps them think critically while fostering student-teacher partnerships to create projects.

gTasks– No excuse for lateness or sloppy timelines with gTasks! One of the difficulties of a challenging project is organization and time management, especially for students who haven’t practiced skills in projects of such magnitude. gTasks remind students of the deadlines they’ve set for the projects they have by syncing tasks with Google Tasks and adding reminders to their Google Calendars.

Strip Designer: Create comic strips using an existing camera photo from your gallery or social media profile. Then, choose from the many page templates available and create your comic strip. Fill text balloons with conversations and include sound effects to spice it up. When you are satisfied with your creation, you can share it with your friends and family. Available on iPad, iPhone or iPod.

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Matthew Lynch published in Best of the Best Lists, Language Learning Tech

Language Learning Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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. For example, if teachers wanted students to practice French with native speakers, they had to organize a costly trip to France. Edtech makes it possible for teachers to use Skype to do schedule video calls to allow students to practice with their counterparts in France.

There are also tons of language learning apps that teachers can use to help students learn a new language. These apps allow students to learn the language from native speakers and become immersed in the language virtually. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these language learning apps, tools, and resources:

Duolingo: Duolingo is one of the most popular ways to learn a new language for free. You can choose from almost thirty different languages. All of the content can be accessed from any device with personalized login information, allowing students to practice reading, speaking, and listening at home.

TripLingo: This is a culture and translation tool intended for international travelers. The app can instantly translate the voice of the user or connect to a live translator for help with translating words in the local language of the location where the user is. The free version of the app includes access to the basic features in every language; the premium subscription gives the user access to additional content.

Speak & Translate: This is an app for online and offline language translations. It offers offline translations in 10 languages: Chinese (Mandarin), English (US), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish. It offers translations for both text and audio inputs. It has 117 text and 57 audio translations. You can also detect other languages using the text-to-text mode. It incorporates Apple’s Speech Recognition Technology which enhances the speed of translations.

Babbel: Babbel offers more than ten languages for you to learn using their revolutionary system. Real-life conversations and interactive dialogues give you the practice you need to speak fluently. Lessons are short and sweet at just fifteen minutes or less.

Rosetta Stone Travel App: The first company to come to mind when you think of learning a new language is often Rosetta Stone. Now, you can take advantage of their program on the go, complete with mini-lessons and a built-in phrase book.

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Matthew Lynch published in Artificial Intelligence, Best of the Best Lists

Artificial Intelligence Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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. Back then, you needed to be in a wealthy district to have a teacher’s assistant. Nowadays, teachers can use artificial intelligence as an extra pair of hands and eyes.

AI can be used to grade student papers, teach students foundational skills, remediate struggling learners, prep students for exams, manage the classroom, keep the teacher organized and the list goes own. The fact that teachers can enjoy their very own teacher’s assistants is impressive to me. Back in 2001, I couldn’t even fathom that this would be a possibility less than two decades later. Back then, it was just science fiction. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these artificial intelligence apps, tools and resources:

JoeZoo– JoeZoo is a grading and feedback app that helps teachers to make their feedback and grading to be more effective and hassle-free. It also guides students in developing 21st-century skills in all assignment without any hassle. JoeZoo is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) powered assessment app that was nominated for the 2015 Digital Innovation in Learning award.

Cram101: Do you struggle to come up with simple study guides, quizzes, or flashcards for your students? Cram101 can help by dividing your textbook into smaller pieces of information that are easily studied. Using your general textbook, you can now benefit from chapter summaries and additional content that your students will love.

Zoomi Inc: Zoomi Inc is an artificial intelligence analytics company that provides individualized lessons in real-time using machine learning technology. Its AI technology evaluates employees and objectively assesses what they know and what they still need to learn. Zoomi Inc has over 250 proprietary algorithms that run simultaneously to provide a personal learning experience, predict learning outcomes, and best delivery methods. An automated process handles all lessons and evaluations.

M-Shule – Based in Nairobi, is an award-winning eLearning platform. It was the runner up at the 2017 Global Edtech Startup Awards in London. The M-Shule platform makes use of artificial intelligence and SMS to deliver personalized education to primary school students across Africa. M-Shule also works without an internet connection, an outstanding plus point for an Edtech startup in Africa where only 10% of schools have internet access.

PLAiTO – This platform makes use of artificial intelligence to improve the learning process. PLAiTO creates a unique learning path for each learner based on the strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics of that learner. It can be used to create quality content.

Freckle Education: Students that used to hate school might suddenly find it enjoyable again with Freckle Education. They can work at their level for math, ELA, social studies, and science while teachers can quickly see insights into their progress.

Mika: Mika is a great option for higher education students who need more assistance in their math courses. Carnegie Learning offers a one-on-one virtual tutoring experience using the best that artificial intelligence has to offer. Students receive a personalized path and real-time information on how they’re doing.

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Matthew Lynch published in Best of the Best Lists

Curriculum & Instruction Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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.

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Matthew Lynch published in Best of the Best Lists

Differentiated Instruction Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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.

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Matthew Lynch published in Best of the Best Lists

Student Information Systems Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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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Matthew Lynch published in Best of the Best Lists

Problem-Based Learning Apps, Tools, and Resources That I Would Use If I Were Still in the Classroom

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.

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