There are multiple apps for the iPad that allow teachers to be more efficient and productive in their work. From grade books to class attendance to behavior monitoring, iPad apps can do it all. However, it can be difficult for many teachers to keep up with these aspects of the classroom.
TeacherKit allows teachers to do all of the above mentioned tasks in a simple and efficient way. Teachers are able to set up on their home page all the classes they are in charge of. If a teacher is only in charge of his or her classroom then it is not as difficult to organize, but for specialty areas such as art, music, physical education, etc. teachers can be in charge of running multiple classes of students. You can either mark them as present or absent and the app keeps track of daily attendance.
Each classroom also contains the capabilities to arrange the desks of each child in the order they actually are in the room. The visual aid can help teachers plan out classroom layouts as well as solve issues that students are having with certain classmates. The app allows the teacher to keep records of behavioral achievements or problems. All the teacher has to do is click on the specific student and add a comment to their notes file. It can either be marked as good, bad, or a simple note about a student's behavior. The picture to the right shows a sample of what a positive note about a student may look like.
The app is designed to specifically cater to each teacher's style. Obviously the classroom layout is a feature that does this, however other aspects of the app are able to be personalized as well. A teacher can set the grading scale for his or her grade book along with manually entering grades and points per project and the weighted totals of those assignments. The app can be linked to a teacher's DropBox, which would allow for time efficiency when needing documents, photos, etc. The app also provides efficiency with contact information. Each student has specific information under their name, like parents' names and contact information. There is a way to mass email all parents if information of any kind needs to be sent out in a quick way.I used TeacherKit for about two weeks and realized all the ways it could help me as a teacher. It organizes important information that I would need throughout my day. Although attendance is usually done through a school system, it helps to have a back up just in case. I also think being able to have parents' contact information at a moments notice is important. For me, math is not my strong suit. So to have an electronic grade book that would average grades for me would be a great time saver.
