Some Very Good Apps and Tools for A Better Classroom Management

February, 2016
Below is a collection of some very good  apps and tools to help teachers with  classroom management. Some of the tasks you can do with these apps include: conduct instant formative assessments in class, create seating charts, record class attendance, randomly pick students for classroom participation, create and share permission slips, visualize and assess students understanding, set timed tasks in class, improve students behaviour by providing real-time feedback, poll your students and many more. 

Web Tools

1- Socrative

Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets.  Socrative is simple to set up and there are a variety of options for you to use. You can ask multiple choice questions, have exit tickets to gauge understanding at the end of the lesson, you can include pictures in your questions and you can also have Socrative answers your short answer questions too.

2- Class Dojo

ClassDojo is a classroom tool that helps teachers improve behavior in their classrooms quickly and easily. It also captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators. Better learning behaviors, smoother lessons and hassle-free data - and its free!

3- Stick Pick

Pick a student at random just by giving your device a shake or tapping the screen -- but that’s just the beginning. Stick Pick suggests question starters for learners at different levels and also records how well students respond during classroom discussions. If a student is consistently scoring near the top or bottom, simply change the level so students aren't bored or frustrated.

4- Exit Ticket

'This app is for both student and teacher use and can be used to deliver real-time formative and summative assessments in 'exit ticket' style delivery throughout a class period. ExitTicket enables personalized intervention and differentiation for every student, every class through in-classroom proven levers for real-time intervention & differentiation.'

5- LearnBoost

“The LearnBoost gradebook provides a free all-in-one classroom management solution for tracking student grades and progress, creating and sharing standards-aligned lesson plans, generating beautiful analytics and report cards, syncing calendars and schedules, and connecting with parents and students.”

6- Class Charts

“Seating and behavior charts are an essential parts of any good teacher’s tool kit. They help organise students into appropriate learning groups and minimise school behaviour issues – the class teacher asserts their authority before the lesson even begins.”

7- Google Classroom

“Classroom is a new tool in Google Apps for Education that helps teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and easily communicate with their classes. Classroom helps students organize their work in Google Drive, complete and turn it in, and communicate directly with their teachers and peers.”

iPad Classroom Management Apps

1- Smart Seat

“This app lets you create seating charts with desks on a grid, record and export attendance, choose random students for class participation, make student notes, and store student photos all in one place. Move students around by dragging and dropping students. Generate a PDF version of your seating charts (with photos) as a backup or to give to substitute teachers.”

2-Screen Time

Screen Time is a simple app that allows you to set limits on the amount of time you children use an iPhone or iPad. Set a time length, press start and pass it to you children. After the time expires, a series of notifications will prevent your children from using the device until you enter the correct passcode.

3- Socrative Teacher

“Engage, assess and personalize your class with Socrative! Educators can initiate formative assessments through quizzes, quick question polls, exit tickets and space races all with their Socrative Student app. Socrative will instantly grade, aggregate and provide visuals of results to help you identify opportunities for further instruction.”

 4- Nearpod

The Nearpod platform enables teachers to use their iPads to manage content on students' iPads, iPhones or iPods. It combines presentation, collaboration, and real-time assessment tools into one integrated solution. 

5- Class Act

“This intuitive app is designed to support teachers 'on the go' as they assess their students' progress throughout the lesson. Simple and quick to use, just tap students on the screen as they progress. The different progress colours give you a visual of how well different students are learning, helping you to direct your questioning and support to individuals or groups.”

6- Classroom Timer Lite

“A Simple Fun Timer, designed for teachers or anyone else who needs to set timed tasks for groups of children in a classroom or similar environment.”

7- Stop Go

“A simple to use timer in the form of a traffic light. Set whether you want it to run red-amber-green or green-amber-red, set the times in minutes and seconds and then off it goes! A bell chimes as each light changes.”

8- Traffic Light

“Watch or control your own set of lights. Use for educational purposes or just for fun. Traffic Light! Can also be used for behaviour management.”

9- Plickers

“Plickers lets you poll your class for free, without the need for student devices. Just give each student a card (a "paper clicker"), and use your iPhone to scan them to do instant checks-for-understanding, exit tickets, and impromptu polls. Best of all, your data is automatically saved, student-by-student, at plickers.com.”

10- Easy Attendance Pro

“Easy Attendance is a powerful and portable way to gather and record student attendance. It provides a simple and intuitive interface that allows teachers and instructors to easily capture and archive attendance based records. ”

11- Too Noisy

This is a fun app that children enjoy and respond to. It's a real boon to any adult who needs to control the levels of noise of a group of children."Too Noisy" displays graphically the background noise level in a room in a fun and engaging way.

12- Team Shake

“Team Shake provides a technological and environmentally friendly way to choose teams for board games, sporting events, tournaments, school projects or anytime groups are required. The newest release brings many new features including full iPad support, balancing teams based on skill or gender, importing users from a file, enabling video output, and sharing teams via facebook or email.”

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