Sonoma County Office of Education

iPads for Educators: Productivity Apps

Productivity Apps

Prices change often so please check in the iTunes store for current pricing of apps. You may also want to read the reviews before downloading new apps. Last updated, March 2015.


Adobe Ideas Adobe Ideas is a digital sketchbook. It lets you capture and explore ideas on the go. ($5.99)
Apps for Teachers Here is a complete list of apps from the iTunes App Store.
Big Calculator A calculator doesn't come with the iPad. Here's one that's big and free! (Free)
Dictionary and Thesaurus HD The free Dictionary.com app for iPad delivers reference content from Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com. NO INTERNET CONNECTION IS NEEDED TO SEARCH WORDS. The app includes nearly 2 million words, definitions, synonyms and antonyms. It also features audio pronunciation, voice-to-text search and Dictionary.com's popular Word of the Day and Hot Word blog. (Free)
Dragon Dictation Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email message. (Free)
Dropbox Dropbox offers mobile access to shared documents that are stored in a virtual cloud. Sync and share files easily across multiple computers without setting up a costly and complicated IT network. (Free)
Educational Apps Here is a list of all educational apps by title in the iTunes App Store.
EverNote From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as it instantly synchronizes from your iPhone to your Mac or Windows desktop. (Free)
Flipboard Flipboard is one of a growing category of iPad apps that build you a personal newspaper by grabbing content from your social networks. The difference with Flipboard is that it actually feels like picking up a magazine and flipping through it, but the super simple interface hides some powerful features. (Free)
GarageBand Use this Apple tool for creating music and making audio recordings. ($4.99)
GoodReader An excellent PDF reader with advanced reading, annotating, markup and highlighting capabilities, excellent file manager, .txt file reader and editor, audio/video player, Safari-like viewer for MS Office and iWorks files. ($4.99)
Google Earth Get amazing views of Earth. With Google Earth for iPad you can fly to far corners of the planet with just the swipe of a finger. Explore the same global satellite and aerial imagery available in the desktop version of Google Earth, including high-resolution imagery for over half of the world's population and a third of the world's land mass. (Free)
Google Translate Translate words and phrases to more than 50 languages using Google Translate for iOS. For most languages, you can speak your phrases and hear the corresponding translations. (Free)
GoToMeeting GoToMeeting is an application for the iPad that allows users to download the free app and join a meeting on your iPad in seconds just by tapping the link in your invitation email. View slide presentations, design mockups, spreadsheets, reports – whatever meeting presenters choose to share. (Free)
Groupboard Groupboard turns your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into a collaborative whiteboard, allowing you to draw and chat in real time with other people anywhere on the Internet, even with users using a web browser. (Free)
iBooks iBooks provides a means of downloading and reading books. iBooks includes the iBookstore, where you can download the latest best-selling books or classics. Browse your library bookshelf, tap a book to open it, flip through pages with a swipe or a tap, and bookmark or add notes to your favorite passages. (Free)
ICDL, Free Children’s Books The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) brings a worldwide collection of free children's books to the iPad. The largest collection of its kind, the ICDL spans the globe with thousands of children's books from over 60 countries, in a wide assortment of beautiful languages with captivating illustrations. (Free)
IEP Checklist IEP Checklist is a tool for parents and teachers to consider as they develop the IEP. Not every item on the checklist is required by special education regulations. (Free)
iFixit Repair Manual iFixit, the free repair manual, contains thousands of step-by-step guides that make it easy to repair your stuff. Fix your own things with step-by-step repair guides. (Free)
iObserve iObserve is a data collection tool that will help you conduct surveys, complete inspections, judge sporting competitions, observe experiments, appraise items or bid on jobs. Administrators are also using it for teacher evaluations. ($4.99)
iTalk iTalk has a simple intuitive interface. Educators can find many applications for this app, from student reading fluency recordings to dictating notes on the go.
Keynote Keynote is the powerful presentation app from Apple. ($9.99)
Mr. Reader Mr. Reader is a RSS news reader for your iPad that synchronizes with your Google Reader account.
Numbers Numbers is the most innovative spreadsheet app ever designed for a mobile device. ($9.99)
Pages This word processor app lets you create and edit documents. You can import files from the corresponding Microsoft Office applications. ($9.99)
PDF Reader Pro Macworld review: "PDF Reader Pro ran fast on an iPhone 3GS and never crashed. PDF files look perfect. I recommend it for the ease-of-use, file-upload system, and accurate rendering." ($5.99)
Quickoffice Pro HD Have full control of creating, editing, formatting, accessing and sharing Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and Excel spreadsheets. ($19.99)
ScratchWork ScratchWork allows you to take notes and browse the Web while having the two side by side to avoid back and forth flipping. It also provides a custom math keyboard. (Free)
Tweetbot for Twitter Tweetbot has an excellent interface that allow users to follow multiple accounts and lists in Twitter.
WolframAlpha Bill Dagget thinks WolframAlpha is the future of the Google search engine. Get answers, see graphs, etc. with this very interesting application. ($2.99)
World Atlas by National Geographic National Geographic puts a collection of their maps into an electronic format with this app, including three different styles of world maps with zoom down to country-level details.
Leilan, Student
"I like Amarosa because there's a much smaller student count and so teachers can be one-on-one with you. They can actually help you and be one-on-one with you while the class is doing something else. I feel like that's a huge game-changer." - Leilan, Student