With the iPhone 5 landing in everyone's hands this week, Education Dive scouted out some of the best apps out there for educators. We already showed you our list for higher education, and now we have one for K-12 teachers and administrators as well.
If the iPhone 5 is your first Apple phone, you are going to need a few first apps to download, and these are the 13 choices we recommend:
1. HARVEST TIME & EXPENSE TRACKER
(Free)
Educators know the importance of time management as well as anyone, and Havest's iPhone solution provides a means for keeping tabs on your productivity and commitments in one handy tool. Want to keep track of what you have had to spend on classroom supplies? There's a feature for tracking receipts as well.
2. LEARNIST
(Free)
We were sold months ago on Learnist's Pinterest-style setup for sharing instructions and learning materials. Whether you want to see how other teachers are approaching their curriculum or share your own ideas with colleagues, this is learning done right on a social media platform. (If you need advice on how to use it, just click on over to our "8 ways to use Learnist" list.)
3. TEACHERKIT
(Free)
TeacherKit is a power-tool box for any educator with an iPhone. It incorporates options for organizing classrooms, noting student behavior and even grading assignments. You'll be surprised by how much information this app can fit into one screen.
4. WIKIPANION
(Free)
Students aren't the only ones constantly learning about new subjects at school every day. This free access point to Wikipedia brings the site to your phone and puts the giant community-built encyclopedia at your finger tips. Just don't cite it as a source in front of your students.
5. EDMODO
(Free)
If your school uses the Edmodo environment for secure communication and collaboration among students and teachers, the iPhone app is a sharp-looking extension. The app accepts assignments, allows messaging and gives teachers a means to post alerts and enter grades.
6. EVERNOTE
(Free)
Freshly updated for the iPhone 5's enlarged screen, Evernote's app brings a powerful menu of note-saving features to phones, whether you want to enter text, photos or audio and access your thoughts later on your mobile device or laptop.
7. REMEMBER THE MILK
(Free)
One of the iPhone's most popular list-making apps integrates with your other apps, such as Outlook, iCal, Gmail, Google Calendar or Twitter, and keeps you on task with reminders wherever you want them. If you need help in the memory department, this app will deliver some solutions to your life.
8. CLEAR
($2.99)
Sometimes less is more, and if all you want out of your list app is a sleek, well-designed interface that allows you to do nothing more than make lists and cross items off as needed, Clear is the app for you. For any kind of to-do or shopping list, it really can't be beat (if you can forgive the whole paying $3 thing).
9. ATTENDANCE2
($4.99)
Attendance2 is a specialized app for keeping track of who's coming to class and who isn't. Set it up to keep track of whatever you teach and where the empty seats are showing up. It's an update of the developer's original Attendance app, built to work with newer versions of iOS.
10. DROPBOX
(Free)
If you open documents on different devices and want to be able to keep photos or PDF's in the cloud where you can find them on your PC, tablet or phone whenever you want, Dropbox is the app to beat.
11. WORDPRESS
(Free)
Are you an educator by day and blogger by night? If you use a Wordpress blog, this app has been getting better and better recently, enabling a host of options for updating and editing your posts. Keep it on hand, start something for later or finish up a post you started yesterday while you're on the go.
12. STANZA
(Free)
There are a lot fine e-book-reading apps out there, but Stanza is the best for finding classic and public domain books that are available for free. Find something new, or evaluate a potential book for a class. It's all here at your fingertips.
13. GOODREADER
($4.99)
If you want to read and annotate a lot of documents on the fly with your iPhone, GoodReader is about as good as it gets. This app syncs with your Dropbox, SugarSync or personal server's documents and makes document management a breeze.
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