20 Incredible Apps Teachers Can Use in a Single-Ipad Classroom

Yes! You finally got your brand-new and shiny iPad for the classroom! There’s only one tiny (read: enormous) problem. There’s one iPad, and there are 25 students. So, how are you going to be teaching with one iPad?

Don’t worry. There are so many single iPad classroom apps you can use. That’s why I’ve made a list of 20 amazing classroom app recommendations. Take a look at these one-iPad classroom ideas!

20 apps for the single iPad classroom

Before you start using these interactive teaching apps, it’s useful to know how to project your iPad’s screen on the wall. Take a look at this post to see how to connect your iPad to a projector or a computer.

1. Plickers

Plickers is a real-time assessment tool and is both an online tool and a classroom tool. It lets your students share their thoughts at a glance, anonymously. You can see if your students understand your lesson topics. All students get to answer the questions, which makes them participate more.

Using Plickers requires the Plickers app and the Plickers cards. Go to the website to get them.

You ask a multiple-choice question, and the students answer it by showing the cards. The questions you ask must be inserted on the Plickers website. Each side of a card represents a question letter (A, B, C or D). When all cards are raised, you can simply scan the card with the Plickers app, which will show you what your students answered instantly.

Plickers is an excellent tool for formative assessment, warm-ups, exit tickets, and lesson refreshers.

2. ClassDojo

ClassDojo is a free digital reward system in which every student gets evaluated on positive and negative behavior. Not only does the teacher have access to ClassDojo, but the students and their parents can also access the platform by entering a unique code.

As a teacher, you set up some “behavior tags.” A behavior tag consists of a description and an icon. You can add icons with your own description. Choose a description for the positive behavior tags and a description for the negative behavior tags.

Positive behavior gets the value “+1,” and negative behavior gets “-1.” The teacher assigns the students the positive and negative behavior icons.

The fun thing about ClassDojo are their little monsters. Every student is a different monster. It’s very visual and funny! You can assign the tags in front of your class or let them see the weekly overview. That way, they know whether they have been good (or bad) this week. This is how you keep the student interaction high.

3. Classcraft

When you want to manage older students, you can use Classcraft. This app is a perfect example of app-based learning. Because class craft engages students in living interactively according to your class rules.

Students can create their own avatars with special powers at home. They play in groups. If someone ignores a deadline, it may fire back at the whole group. Working together and respecting each other is very important.

Students can gain different points by playing by the classroom rules. For example, students who help others receive a certain amount of points. When they have enough points, they can use a power like the “warrior” can eat in class. They can also lose those points by not playing by the rules. If they lose all their points, they get a sentence like bringing a treat for the whole class or handing in an assignment a day early.

End your week by assigning students points and letting them choose what to do with it.

4. BookWidgets

BookWidgets has some great widgets - or digital activity templates - you can use in a traditional classroom with just one tablet or computer. Go check out this blog post with inspiration and ready-to-use lesson ideas for a single-device classroom.

Here are 5 lesson ideas you can accomplish with BookWidgets in a single device classroom:

1. Interactive Quizzes and Polls: Use BookWidgets to create interactive quizzes and polls related to the lesson content. Display the questions on your device and allow students to answer verbally or by raising their hands. You can then input their responses into the widget, and it can provide instant feedback or display the results graphically for discussion.
2. Virtual Flashcards: Create sets of virtual flashcards on BookWidgets covering key concepts, vocabulary, or equations. Display the flashcards on your device and quiz students verbally or ask them to write their answers on paper. This activity can be used for individual review or group competitions.
3. Digital Worksheets: Design interactive digital worksheets with fill-in-the-blank exercises, matching activities, or drag-and-drop tasks using BookWidgets. Display the worksheet on your device, and students can verbally provide their answers or write them down on paper. You can then review their responses and provide feedback in real-time.
4. Interactive Storytelling: Engage students in interactive storytelling activities by creating digital storybooks or choose-your-own-adventure narratives using BookWidgets. Display the story on your device, and as you progress through the narrative, involve students by asking them to make choices or predictions aloud. This encourages active participation and critical thinking skills.
5. Virtual Manipulatives: Utilize virtual manipulatives, such as interactive graphs, timelines, or geometric shapes, to illustrate abstract concepts in subjects like mathematics, history, or science. Display the manipulative on your device and guide students through hands-on exploration and experimentation. This approach promotes visual learning and enhances understanding of complex ideas.

Take a look at the widgets library for all the digital lessons your can create with BookWidgets and make sure to create your first activity too!

5. Evernote Scannable

This great app allows you to use your iPad as a document scanner. It automatically detects documents or notes of any size and offers enhancement options.

As it has many other good features, I would use it in a single iPad classroom to share examples with students via the projector. You can, for instance, instantly show outstanding student work or encourage students’ reasoning about complicated questions.

6. Stage

Stage lets you create, collaborate, and demonstrate. Combine your camera with an interactive whiteboard so you can freehand sketch over live video or images, create Madden-style demo videos, and get creative by inserting pictures, shapes, text, and labels.

Record videos or screen capture images and save them to your device’s photo library.

To be more specific, use Stage to scan student work, books, or worksheets. Then, start annotating them in front of the class while you project your iPad screen. It’s a bit like Evernote Scannable but with a live annotation tool.

7. Educreations

Use this app to create an dynamic app-powerd lesson. You can record your lessons and share them with teachers and students. They can access this at any time. You can also see when students replay student work to pinpoint their misconceptions and celebrate their successes. This way, you can spend more time engaging students one-on-one. This creates hands-on learning.

8. Classroom Screen

This web browser app is just heaven! It has everything you need on just one screen.

Show students the time by adding it to the screen, or add a timer to limit your students’ working time. You can even add a traffic light and choose whether the light is green, orange, or red. That way, students know if they are too loud or have to keep quiet. Try to give your own meaning to the traffic light.

Another great feature is the possibility of using working symbols. Choose the symbol that suits your lesson situation: collaborating, discussing, whispering or silence.

We’re not done yet. Use the text pad to write text on your screen or the drawing pad to make a sketch. You can turn your whole screen into a drawing pad or a little corner.

The best is yet to come—QR codes! Add a QR code to the screen. Of course, your students will need a device for this. Add the website you want to link to, and he will generate another QR code.

It’s also convenient to have a calculator on your screen to do some quick calculations or to pick out a student randomly with the random name picker.

You can also change the background image or the language settings. You can choose between 7 standard languages or add your own translation.

9. Keep the score

This web app is amazing for getting your classroom under control. Assign scores to your students in just a few minutes set up.

You choose. Students can get scores for answering correctly, completing homework on time, being excellent in class, etc. They can also lose points for disrespect, forgetting their textbook, etc.

You can also play games with it and make a competition out of your lesson. Beware not to punish your students too quickly by withholding points. This might become an issue later on, and students won’t dare speak up anymore.

10. Too noisy

This app is a classroom management tool, you can use the app Too Noisy to keep the volume of the class down. Open it on your iPad and make sure your students can see it. You might want to connect your screen to the projector or computer.

Challenge your students to keep the needle of the noise meter out of the red part. This app might come in handy to keep students quiet during group work.

Another way to use it is to prevent yourself from speaking too loud. If you have to raise your voice, this means that the class is too noisy. You can tell your students you won’t talk louder so they know they have to lower the murmuring in order to understand the teacher.

11. Classroom timer

There’s not much to tell about this one. It’s a timer. That’s it. Use this app when you want to set a time for your student’s work or when you want to set a time for their thinking process.

The timer looks more fun than the timer in “Classroom Screen.” The app shows you an alarm clock where time is ticking away.

12. Random fact of the day

This is a fun app you can use to kill a dead moment. Open this app and show it to your students on the big screen.

Talk about the facts with your students. Who didn’t know it, and who had already heard of it? Some facts are hilarious, and some others are exciting and informative. If you do this for the first 3 minutes of every lesson, students will go home with some extra knowledge. They will even explain it to their parents and brag about it. Well, I would!

13. Wheel decide

Sometimes it’s hushed in the classroom when you ask a question. That’s because nobody wants to answer, knows the answer or they are just lazy. On the other hand, you have students constantly raising their hands.

You can use the “Decide Wheel” to randomly select students. You can also use it to make other difficult decisions or for games.

Change the words on the wheel into names, questions, calculations, terms, or translations. Spin the wheel and let students solve the question or calculation.

14. 100+ buttons and sounds

If you are the funny teacher, you should really take a look at this app. It’s a soundboard with over 100 different sounds.

So, how can you use this in your classroom? It’s easy. Use it to encourage your students when they have to do a presentation.

Use the drum roll to announce a winner, the censor when you hear students saying a wrong or bad word, the applause to acknowledge the student’s work, and many more.

Choose the best sounds in the classroom and add them to your favorites. If you trust your students, you can hand over the tablet and let them introduce other students with the sound buttons.

15. The Brainstormer

This app isn’t an app that helps you to collaborate on ideas and gives you a solution to brainstorm easily. This app gives you the idea.

Use Brainstormer in art and language lessons to give students an idea to start with. The app gives them inspiration. Let them write a story using the Brainstormer app. I’m very curious what the result will be! The app can also help you pick out a topic for the next writing assignment.

16. Tap Roulette

Tap roulette is a straightforward app that basically chooses someone by picking a finger.

Students have to put their fingers on the screen. Tap roulette detects them and chooses one. It’s so simple, but your students will love it!

Let students pick out a team leader this way or choose who has to give feedback to another student. There are a lot of decisions to make in a classroom, so this app will be used a lot!

17. My rebus

Sometimes it’s hard to come up with some original rebuses. This web app helps you to make a rebus in seconds. Just insert your sentence, which will convert it into a nice rebus. You can even choose the difficulty level!

Use a rebus to spice up your lessons and make them more visual. As a kid, I loved solving them—I still do!

18. WordClouds

Make some nice word clouds with this Wordclouds app. Use it in presentations to visually support text.

Add a file with words or type them at that moment. Choose between many different sizes so your word cloud can fit any screen beautifully. The web app also helps you arrange the words in a chosen shape or color.

19. Mad Libs

If you have a dead moment in class or are an English language teacher, you should definitely try this app out. Project your screen and play this word game with your students.

The purpose is to let your students fill in the blanks in a given sentence. You’ll see that they will be creating hilarious stories that way. Mister Phil N. DeBlanks helps you to fill in the blanks. Got it? :)

20. TED-ed

TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. TED-Ed wants to celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Everything they do is with only one goal: supporting learning.

They produce a growing library of original animated videos and provide an international platform for teachers to create interactive lessons.

TED-Ed has grown from an idea worth spreading into an award-winning education platform that serves millions of teachers and students worldwide every week.

I love that TED-Ed videos explain things I never even thought about and are great to show your students!

These were my top picks for the classroom with just one device. All those apps are suited for an iPad, and most also work on Android. I hope you are inspired to use that iPad in your classroom more often.

Wrap up

In a nutshell, these are, in my personal opinion, the best apps for teachers. These 20 apps are your best single-device classroom solutions, adding excitement to your lessons. From keeping things lively with interactive whiteboarding to scoring points for student awesomeness, these apps turn your iPad into a classroom magician. So, dive in, explore, and let the tech magic unfold in your teaching journey!

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