21 Educational Apps That Support Middle School Student Learning

Which cloud-based tools will get the job done for your learners this year?

I’m sometimes asked which apps I recommend for schools looking to make the transition to 1:1 (a device for every learner).

It’s a great question — one worth continually coming back to.

In August of 2020 I wrote a piece called?Top Ten Learning Tools for the Digital Classroom .?At the time, it was a good opportunity to reflect on the apps that were making the biggest impact on learning in the wake of that tumultuous and transformative spring.

Remember when all the edtech companies let us use their premium services for free? That was fun.

But that 2020 post wasn’t really a summary of?everything?we were using — it was more like a highlight reel of the biggest and best.

I think there’s value in actually sharing a comprehensive list: all the apps and subscriptions that support learning in my context, with some brief commentary for each.

My principal and I already complete this kind of annual review with our IT department each spring. We put every app and subscription under the mission microscope.

Is this app good for kids? Does this app support student learning?

What follows is a final list of tools that some refer to as a software stack. I’m sharing it with my professional learning community in the hopes that others will find it interesting and helpful. And chances are good that I’ll receive some suggestions for additions to this list. Win-win.

My middle school context, phones, and privacy

My context is a small independent Grades 6–8 middle school of about 220 kids. Every student has access to a school-issued Chromebook, and 15 iPads are available for teachers to borrow on a need basis (reservable as rooms in Google Calendar — a system that works perfectly). As you might gather from the Chromebooks, we’re a Google school.

Our students abide by a strict no-phone policy during school hours (which is heavenly from a teacher energy perspective), so when there is video recording to be done, the iPads do a fine job.

And a note on privacy: each app and subscription is carefully vetted by our Director of Technology to ensure that information security and student privacy are properly managed and protected. Parents must sign off individually on each of the apps and subscriptions listed here in order to provide informed consent.

The only exceptions to this requirement appear with apps like Pixlr.com or Whiteboard.fi, which don’t require the creation of student accounts.

Here we go.

The apps and subscriptions that support our learning journeys, ranked approximately by impact

1. Google Workspace for Education

Included here: Calendar, Chat, Classroom, Docs, Drawings, Drive, Earth, Forms, Gmail, Jamboard, Keep, Maps, Meet, Search, Sheets, Sites, Slides, Tasks, YouTube

We have to start with the beast — the Google Workspace for Education. It would take a separate and massive post to describe all the ways that this suite of apps supports teaching and learning in the classroom.

It’s lightweight, versatile, and indispensable.

If I and my students could only access this suite of apps, we’d be okay.

2. Seesaw

Seesaw is our preferred journal of student learning.?Why use Seesaw when we already have Google Classroom , you might ask.?Isn’t that two learning management systems at the same time?

The short answer is that Google Classroom currently has no capacity to collect and curate artifacts of student learning in anything approximating a journal or portfolio. And despite the guardian summaries, Classroom doesn’t give parents an ongoing window into their child’s learning journey.

Seesaw fills those gaps with mobile-friendly apps. As I like to put it, Classroom is where students do most of their learning. Seesaw is where they show it.

I’ve written previously about what our?Seesaw mission and vision ?can and should look like. We’re only two years into Seesaw, which means that our comfort and expertise are still developing.

But I like what’s happening and where we’re going.

3. Canva

Canva was #7 on my list in 2020. Now, I have to bump it up to #3. This cloud-based graphic design platform just keeps offering more and more to learners of all ages.

Canva for Education accounts are entirely free for teachers and students, making the addition of this tool an absolute no-brainer for your school or district. Teachers and students both stand to reap huge benefits from this platform when it comes to digital design and communication.

Teachers that use Google Docs and Slides appreciate the power of real-time collaboration between students on the same files. Whether it’s some form of graphic design or a video, Canva does that too.

Canva now has a decent video editor. And it also offers a great picture-in-picture screen recorder.

If you’re looking to create something related to graphic design, Canva is your best bet.

4. AIM Language Learning

French classes are mandatory for our middle schoolers, and our French teachers rely heavily on the AIM (Accelerative Integrated Methodology) program to ensure that language acquisition is as fun, interactive, and memorable for students as possible. In addition to in-class activities, the AIM portal (online) provides students with accessible tools and resources that allow them to reinforce their learning.

I can’t claim to have a ton of experience with AIM, but I know our French teachers would say it’s an MVP.

5. IXL

IXL is a skill reinforcement platform. Although it offers support for a number of subjects, my middle school context uses it exclusively for Math.

In IXL, teachers can assign handpicked skills that map to regionalized curricular standards, and (Math) problems are set up to appear in gradually escalating complexity. I’ve been largely impressed by the quality and relevance of problems, alignment with curriculum, clarity of explanations, and teacher analytics.

As a teacher, I can log into IXL at any time and see exactly which skills my students are working on, how many problems they’ve attempted, how many minutes they’ve spent on each assigned skill, and — most importantly — their current level of demonstrated proficiency. The latter can form an excellent source of formative feedback in terms of where my instruction needs to focus next.

I view IXL Math as a great option for teachers who want to set aside time in certain classes (for example: once per week) to allow students to practice skills they’ve learned in class in an individualized, go-at-your-own-pace environment. These periods create nice opportunities for teachers to focus on supporting learners 1:1 or small groups of struggling students.

One aspect of IXL that students complain about is that quick guessing is penalized by what IXL calls a SmartScore. To illustrate, the student might receive 2 or 3 points toward a cumulative score for a correct solution but lose 5 or 6 points for an incorrect one. To me, this is an important feature because it forces students to read through problems carefully and take their time before attempting to solve.

6. iMovie

Regardless of the subject, our middle school teachers believe in the power of video to bring student learning to life. With 15 iPads available for temporary borrowing (baskets of 5 are bookable as a “room” in our Google Calendar so that other teachers can easily see availability status), iMovie gives students a simple but powerful interface to edit, export, and share video productions.

Note: iMovie is one of two apps on this list that are NOT cloud-based. It requires a download and installation and cannot be accessed from an internet browser.

7. Adobe Express

Although we technically hold school-wide licenses for the Adobe suite of apps (the absolute king of creative digital work), our middle school Chromebooks limit our students to a single cloud-based app: Express.

Adobe Express (which pained me earlier this year when it morphed from Adobe Spark to the ridiculously long Adobe Creative Cloud Express) is a lighter, simpler cousin of Canva. Stocked with a good supply of handy features and templates, I use it to introduce sixth graders to graphic design.

It’s an important cloud-based resource and app to keep an eye on. For a fun taste of Adobe Express, watch my guide on?how to put your face on a wanted poster .

8. Pixlr

Pixlr is the web’s most powerful cloud-based photo editor, and it’s free. Students can use it for free with few limitations in the freemium version, although they lose some screen space due to blocked ads (an ad-blocking Chrome extension is a must).

Most of the basic photo editing features you’d expect from the industry-leading Adobe Photoshop are here, and the platform is adding more capacity all the time.

Interested in giving Pixlr a try with your middle or high school students? Check out my fun and simple tutorial for performing a classic photo editing trick:?how to switch faces .

9. NoodleTools

Our amazing teacher-librarian introduced this tool to our humanities teachers last year, and it’s safe to say that it’s already revolutionizing student research from as early as sixth grade.

Everything you could want in a digital research platform is here: citation creation and management, notes compilation, plagiarism avoider, and much more.

Although there’s a learning curve on NoodleTools, the end game is a whole lot of relief for middle schoolers accustomed to the agony of marching sixth and seventh graders through proper source citation protocols.

10. Overdrive

Overdrive makes ebooks, audiobooks, online magazines, and more available to students for free through their school accounts. As a Kindle reader myself, I’ll admit that I haven’t used it. But based on what I hear from our IT department and teacher-librarian team, Overdrive is getting a lot of use by students. And that’s great to hear.

11. WeVideo

I still cannot believe just how powerful this cloud-based video editor actually is. It’s the best product in the space, and it’s not even close.

I’ll admit that the platform has been frustratingly slow-moving in terms of certain improvements over the last five years. As one example, text and title features seem to have hardly changed during that period.

But taken as a whole, WeVideo rocks and there’s nothing like it. The biggest leap forward from this app in the education space has been the addition of real-time collaboration. The ability to create classrooms within WeVideo, create project groups, and actively observe student collaboration?in real time?is nothing short of remarkable.

Did you catch that? You can now observe — on your own device — Miguel, Jackie, and Jenny editing their video project together in real time. This is a big BIG deal, especially if you’re a teacher who has worked with students on iPad-based video design projects in the past.

This iteration from WeVideo takes care of three important problems I’ve observed with iPad-based video design projects:

1. Only one person can edit a video project on an iPad at a time (problematic for multiple reasons),
2. It’s significantly more difficult to monitor students for on-task activities on an iPad (physical in-person monitoring is not the end of the world, but it complicates other decisions such as flexible seating or out-of-classroom work periods), and
3. Students sometimes struggle to export their video successfully from their iPad to Google Classroom (creating the dreaded nothing-to-show on presentation day).

To that last point, I still ask students to finalize, export, and download their video files once they’ve completed their projects in WeVideo. But in worst case scenarios, we have the option of viewing draft (unfinished) versions of their project from right inside the platform.

12. Khan Academy

Khan Academy is now going on 15 years old, meaning it’s been around almost as long as the social media giants of Facebook and Twitter fame. Incredibly, it’s still free, and the only price we pay is the regular appeals for donations similar to what we see on Wikipedia.

In my middle school context, Khan Academy is a go-to tool in the area of coding and programming. As is the case for a growing number of these platforms, Khan Academy allows teachers to create custom classes (with the option of importing from Google Classroom). Using the teacher dashboard, they can then assign lessons, modules, and courses to selected students and classes, set deadlines, and monitor progress.

Khan Academy courses allow students to learn at their own pace: they can re-watch tutorials, review information, and make creative choices within coding projects and tasks. Let’s be real: coding and programming can frustrate some students as they parse through unfamiliar scripts and attempt to make sense of new languages. But I generally find that the Khan Academy pacing and supports meet my middle schoolers exactly where they are.

It’s also important to note that Khan Academy offers a stunning menu of subjects and courses beyond coding and programming. In the lockdown spring of 2020, for example, Khan Academy Math courses saved my bacon. Middle and high school Math, Sciences, Humanities, and more are all available. It’s a platform that doesn’t always get the love it deserves.

13. TinkerCAD

TinkerCAD is a fun and powerful program that allows students to design and print 3-dimensional objects. Like Khan Academy and many of the platforms listed here, TinkerCAD supports the creation of classes and imports from Google Classroom.

The way our middle school program is currently structured, my ADST (Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies ) students don’t get enough time as I’d like to build and develop mastery on this platform — something I would like to change in the future.

14. Minecraft

Minecraft is the world’s all-time best-selling game for a reason. The sales numbers are shocking, but whenever I think about this fact I’m comforted about the state of the world and the future of our children.

Minecraft is a creative platform. It allows students to collaborate in virtual environments to design buildings and structures that either resemble actual buildings or give birth to vivid imaginations.

Like TinkerCAD, I reserve Minecraft exclusively for my eighth graders. Inspired by a Twitter colleague in California, I put students into randomized groups and assigned them with the task of recreating our school building. Students dependably loved the project, and their work blew me away.

As coding expert Brian Aspinall will tell you, Minecraft also opens the door for other cross-curricular representations of learning. From medieval castles in Social Studies to composite shapes in Math class, possibilities for application are endless.

One more footnote here: Minecraft requires our students to have Microsoft accounts, which is a bit of a hassle — not insurmountable, but it requires us to request permission for student accounts on Microsoft.

15. Whiteboard.fi

Whiteboard.fi is a fast, simple whiteboard service that allows the teacher to project all of their students’ drawings, calculations, or ideas on a single screen in real time. I love this service in my Math classes, and there are ways that I can and should be using it in my other classes as well. Whiteboard.fi does not require student accounts or logins.

If she was co-writing this post, my colleague in Colombia, Melissa Aveling, would be quick to tell you that Whiteboard.chat is much, much better and more powerful. I’ve played with this platform but have yet to use it well … I’ve got more learning to do here.

16. Anchor

Anchor offers students another amazing opportunity for self-expression and representation of learning: podcasting. Owned by Spotify, Anchor remains completely free, offers a simple and kid-friendly interface for uploading audio content, and even allows for the addition of fun sound effects and copyright-free music tracks.

In terms of distribution, Anchor offers users the choice of universal distribution versus manual. Note that if you (or your student) choose universal, Anchor will automatically push the podcast RSS feed (meaning: a constant stream of all available episodes) to anywhere from 6–12 podcast apps and players (including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, etc.).

For privacy reasons, our school has chosen to limit this distribution, meaning their podcasts and episodes only appear on the Anchor app.

17. TypingPal

What’s the one skill that is critical to every student’s success but is often ignored in K-12 education today? Keyboarding.?Good typing skills give a student confidence ?and can have a dramatic effect on their writing in any subject. If your school is ignoring the home row, you may want to rethink that strategy.

There are a ton of free to cheap typing platforms on the market, and I haven’t done a careful enough study of them all to say that TypingPal.com is the best. But it does a good job doing what it’s supposed to do: training students to use the home row and building mastery of the keyboard. Importantly, it also provides good teacher analytics regarding progress and proficiency.

18. Impero Backdrop

No matter where you sit on the issue of digital privacy, monitoring, and control of student online activities, trust me when I say this: it can be very helpful to be able to see at a glance what is engaging the online attention of your middle schoolers. Although students operate their Chromebooks in a managed, filtered online environment (ie. our school’s wifi network), the attractions of YouTube and other slippery gaming sites remain ever-present.

Although we’re only a month or two into Impero Backdrop, it seems to offer the kind of real-time screen sharing, teacher-to-student messaging, and direct teacher controls that make Chromebook management that much easier for teachers.

19. Mathigon

Mathigon brings Math concepts and principles to life through digital modelling. Exhibits are interactive and allow students to do some playing in the sandbox, so to speak. The artwork and rendering is brilliant and captivating. A great resource to keep in mind.

20. Pear Deck

I considered Pear Deck (and its powerful cousin, Nearpod) one of our most valuable players during the remote learning weeks of 2020. For the unfamiliar, think of Pear Deck as a layer that teachers can add to any Google Slide presentation that a) forces students to stay on the slide and b) allows students to respond to prompts in real time.

In the remote learning environment, apps like Pear Deck and Nearpod are lifesavers because they help teachers herd cats through lesson sequences and facilitate the sorts of formative feedback that tell teachers whether or not learning is actually taking place. In the classroom, my use of Pear Deck is rare to none: I usually opt for simpler, faster modes of response than requiring students to respond within a Google Slides deck.

But it remains a good option, and it probably contains much better uses than what I’m giving it credit for here.

21. Screencastify

I hear educators in my PLN continue to rave about Screencastify and how quickly it uploads to Google Drive, but frankly I think its time has passed.

For one thing, all laptops (including Chromebooks) now have their own native screen recorders. For another, our students have access to the picture-in-picture screen recorder and video editor in Canva. Students can also record their screens (with narration and annotation) within the Seesaw app.

If I had to cut one app from this list, Screencastify would likely be the first to go.

Notable Omissions and Explanations

A. EdPuzzle

This is a simple but powerful tool that allows teachers to interject questions and require responses at key moments in any YouTube video (including videos created and published by you, the teacher).

It offers auto-grading of student multiple choice selections. That’s not a form of data that I’d be quick to include in a gradebook, but it can form a valuable source of information in terms of gauging student understanding.

EdPuzzle also shares a wealth of videos and associated questions created by other educators, which can be very helpful. I’m fervently hoping to add EdPuzzle to the list above by my 2023 review.

B. Flip

The platform formerly known as Flipgrid is an exceptionally powerful video sharing platform and remains extremely popular in schools across the United States and around the world. It was another MVP during the months of remote learning that we endured in 2020.

Even for in-person learning, Flip remains a powerful tool for students to share their learning using fun, accessible videos. The main obstacle in my context is that Seesaw already offers many of the same features and much more.

C. Duolingo

This app is known far beyond education for its ability to help learners acquire languages and build vocabularies. Unfortunately, its privacy and information-sharing policies don’t make it student-friendly.

Although our language teachers openly endorse Duolingo for personal use from personal accounts (with proper parent permission), we’ve decided not to include it in our approved arsenal of learning apps at this time.

D. Wakelet

Parts of the international education community are almost absurdly committed to this tool, but I’m not seeing it.

Wakelet is a tool that you can use to collect and curate online resources. It displays URLs and media of different kinds in clickable, eye-pleasing previews.

Unpopular opinion perhaps, but I don’t see a compelling case for learning here.

Premium Subscription Wish List

Finally, here are all the freemium apps that I and my teaching team wish we had the premium versions of, ranked roughly by desire:

1. Blooket
2. Kahoot
3. Padlet
4. Gimkit
5. Quizziz
6. Quizlet
7. Pixlr
8. PearDeck
9. Whiteboard.fi

Most of the apps on this wish list are gamified learning review applications that test student recall and understanding in fun, competitive ways. They’ve become an important part of most 4–12 classrooms over the last decade and they’re likely here to stay.

Final thoughts: Is there such a thing as too many apps?

I hope this post has been helpful as you consider the digital apps and tools that should support learning in your context. As I said at the outset, I fully expect to be told about all the apps that I missed on this list, and I look forward to that feedback.

Others will ask this question:?Are We Using Too Many Apps in Education? ?In short, I believe the answer is no, but for a deeper discussion, I’d encourage you to read the full post linked here.

It’s also helpful to keep in mind the advice of edtech experts like Jake Miller and Tony Vincent, who speak often about the use of a powerful core of apps that teachers go to for just about everything.

For teachers who are feeling uneasy or overwhelmed, going with a core 4–5 apps is a great place to start. Depending on student age and grade level, that simplicity and familiarity may be exactly what they need to represent their learning without spending time learning how to use yet another tool.

As with everything in K-12 education, we always come back to the same two questions.

Is this good for kids? Does it support learning?