Top 5 Productivity Software for Teachers

Of course, today's teachers spend most of their time in Zoom, Google Classroom, Moodle or other e-learning systems used in their schools. But we don't want to take on the role of Captain Obvious - we wanted to find the tools that enhance teacher's personal productivity outside this digital learning environment. We will also exclude Microsoft Office from our list, since it is really not a program for productivity but for fomatting educational content - documents and presentations. We will focus on personal programs and services that help teachers manage their time, create lesson plans, manage tasks, organize learning materials and track attendance. By using these software tools, teachers can save time, solve routine tasks more efficiently/quickly and ultimately spend more time and energy thinking about how to engage and transfer knowledge to specific students.

1. Google Calendar — for planning and reminders



It is important for any teacher to keep a schedule of lessons and Google Calendar is an obvious choice that allows to conveniently create a schedule for each day, week and month. You can display schedules by layers - for single class or single course to better prioritize the content preparation. Another function in which Google Calendar is very helpful is reminders. Not only about students' and colleagues' birthdays, but also about all sorts of events, such as parent-teacher meetings

2. Evernote — for lesson planning



In order to create a lesson plan or even a course plan, teacher needs a notebook (not Word). The notebook that is available anytime and anywhere, because you can't just sit down once and create the complete plan. Obviously, ideas and good thoughts are coming to you in different time and in different places. And perhaps Evernote fits this mode of content creation perfectly. With Evernote, teachers can easily craft text/image content, attach the necessary files, organize notes using folders and tags and access them from any device. Evernote has a good search, so you can quickly find the necessary material even during the lesson, to remind yourself what to talk about next.

3. Todoist — for task management



A teacher, like any other knowledge worker, always has a large number of tasks - checking homework, holding meetings, preparing content. Therefore, a teacher needs some kind of simple organizer that (like the notepad) allows to access the task list any time anywhere. We recommend Todoist - a fairly simple but cross-platform service that allows you to create tasks, sort and organize them by class, subject, urgency or work schedule, set deadlines and priority levels, add necessary notes to tasks.

4. Alfa Ebooks Manager — for managing educational materials



Each teacher uses an extensive library, books, textbooks and various educational materials to create content for students. Therefore, to organize these books, it's recommended to use a special program, such as Alfa Ebooks Manager . It allows you to quickly adds books, update them from the Internet, search for the desired book, organize books by tags, genres, classes, students. If the teacher gives his paper-books to students - in Alfa Books Manager it's possible to keep track of such books. The program has a reader that allows to open/read any book and make notes in it and then - separately organize these notes in order to add them to the educational content later.

5. TeacherKit — for tracking attendance



Tracking attendance is a routine but time-consuming task for teachers. You need to spend time on it every lesson. The TeacherKit application simplifies this process. It has a simple interface that allows you to create classes and manage attendance records. It also provides visual analytics, generates reports and can even send parents information about how their children attend lessons.