While some teachers think that summer is a time when you can relax and enjoy warm weather, I take it as a personal and professional challenge to find as much information as I can before the school starts.

This summer I went through the newest educational apps most of us either ignored or didn’t know exist.

In this article, I will list best educational apps you can put into use this summer.

• Edmodo. This one is a giant educational platform where students and parents can collaborate in a safe and easy way. You can create and monitor groups that take learning beyond your classroom, connect with teachers, and give assignments to seek students or those who study from home. Upload files, pictures or even videos you’d like your students to watch.
• Pumpic cell phone monitoring. Pumpic is a new technology I think every teacher and parent should use. You can block 18+ content, apps and games so students don’t waste their time during the lesson. In addition, it allows you to monitor social media and IM chats to prevent cyberbullying, sexting and contacts with online predators. Last time I used it I missed another feature called GPS racking: you can set triggers like “home” or “school”, each time your child enter or leaves these triggers you receive a message.
• Socrative Student. The motto of the application is that “you can and you should play apps during the classroom”. The app presents a wide variety of educational games you can play with your students on the smartphone or even laptop during the lesson. Simply pick a subject and let your students enjoy a fun and interactive game that will teach them and let them have fun.
• NASA app. Have you heard the news about Pluto? NASA app allows you to check the most recent news, images and videos on space explorations, missions and inventions. The app has over 12 K images and videos and the number is obviously growing.
• Schoology. The app presents another form of digital monitoring and cooperation among students and teachers. Schoology accounts course management, mobile learning, communication hub and integration platform. This software has been nominated one of the best tools for e-learning and is currently an award-winning app.

That’s it for now. Share your favorite apps in the comment section.