Best Educational Apps
In 2023, finding educational apps of high quality seem like a daunting task particularly when you take into account the fact that there are over 567,000 educational apps. Finding good quality education apps that actually enhance teaching and learning can be tricky. We have spent several hours researching and testing educational and learning apps that are recommended by educators, teachers, parents, and students. Interactive educational apps help kids learn early academic skills like math and reading.
In the field of education technology, most apps for the tablets and smartphones work to improve the educational experiences of students and teachers. Tens of thousands of education apps on the App Store and Google Play Store cover everything from Math and English to Science and History. Education apps are expanding the learning experience both inside and outside the classroom, making it more interactive, immersive, and engaging.
These handpicked, child's education apps cover a wide range of subjects for a variety of levels and learning styles. These apps will meet your learning goals, keep your classroom motivated, and reach every type of learner.
Apps for education can make children more interactive, more engaged and perform better. Keeping teaching methods fresh is integral to getting students engaged in their studies and learning apps are a fantastic way of achieving this.
Apps are designed with primary input from educators and curriculum developers, or shown in educational research to be an effective learning tool. The apps we cover in this guide are great learning apps not because they’re designed to make kids smarter, to drill facts, or to replace in-school learning, but because they’re fun and interesting for kids and adults.
We have also compiled a list of the best apps for schools, as well as the best iPad apps and best apps for kids for parents and teachers to enjoy.
Check out the best educational apps for teachers, students and educators that are currently available for iOS and Android devices.
1. Reading Eggs
Reading Eggs is the multi-award winning learning app that helps children learn to read. They will learn how to read using interactive reading games, guided reading lessons, fun activities and over 2,000 digital story books.
The lessons are presented in levels outlining your child’s learning path to keep kids engaged. You can take advantage of their special 30-day FREE trial offer and see how your child's reading can improve in just weeks. Reading Eggs is a complete learn to read system for children aged 2-13 and covers the five essential components of reading: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Parents can see instant results in their dashboard and receive detailed progress reports, which shows exactly where their child is improving and where extra attention is needed. That makes it one of the best educational apps for academics on a budget.
Reading Eggs app is free to download on iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
2. Quizplus
Quizplus has a broad array of tools to disseminate a massive amount of study material. Quizzes, and practice tests combine with flashcards and textbook solutions to provide effective access to more than 300,000 quizzes covering 30 college-level study topics.
Students can create custom flashcards using Quizplus's flashcard maker or download a deck from the well-stocked Quizplus flashcard library.
Quizplus is free to download on iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
Spelling Games : Times Tables is a homework support tool for helping kids to manage and practice the spelling lists given to them by their teachers. It includes built-in word lists to practice and makes it easy to import custom word lists. The app also has helpful arithmetic practice tools.
Spelling Bee and Times Tables app also provides timed test for multiplication, addition and subtraction. Spelling Words app makes it easy to keep track of your student's progress.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
1Question Screen Time Control lets parents restrict kids' screen time playing certain types of apps. Kids work for the chance to play their favourite games by answering questions and viewing educational videos in 1Question - every correct answer earns them time.
An app that lets kids earn screen time could have reduced the experience to a grind where kids go through the learning material on autopilot to unlock more free time. Fortunately, 1Question avoids this by providing an excellent selection of topics to make it relevant and interesting to kids.
Available on iPhone, iPad, and Android
5. Speech Blubs
Speech Blubs is a Speech Therapy application, created in cooperation with Speech and Language Pathologists, that uses voice controlled and video technology to develop speech articulation for young children with or without speech difficulties. The app has thousands of activities that aid over the practice of speech sounds in a fun and engaging way.
Improve your child's speech in a fun and engaging way! Interactive videos, face filters, stickers, puzzles, mini games and tons of fun facts are what will keep your child engaged while improving their speaking abilities. Learn all about animals, dinosaurs, stars, vehicles, emotions and much more with this great app. Want to play guessing games? Practice speech through singing? Speech Blubs has some major improvements: new look, helpful parent’s section, new saveable face filters and access to the reading app 'READING BLUBS'. Parents can now personalize the app, so that their child becomes the main hero of their speech journey. Download the app and join the supportive family of over 4M parents who rate the 4.6 in the App Store!
7-day free trial available on iPhone, iPad, and Android
Google Classroom is part of Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals - suite of easy to use tools that includes Assignments, Slides, Docs, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar and other apps. It’s targeted to teachers and students in both K-12 and higher education markets.
Google Classroom is simple to use and encourages collaboration between students and teachers. Teachers can create a class and list educational apps, such as assignments in a few clicks. They can add students by name or send them a code to join. Students then can see what assignments are due, participate in discussion forums or message the teacher (either in private or via group chat).
Google Classroom integrates with various edtech tools such as Kahoot!, Canvas, Blackboard, Explain Everything and so on.
Google Classroom accounts for teachers and students are free, but schools must register for the Google for Education platform first. Google Classroom is also available as a mobile app for iPhone and Android devices.
7. Book Creator
Book Creator is a simple tool to create digital books, even for not-yet-readers and writers. Children can add photos, videos, or drawings to enhance or tell their stories. It's easy enough for preschoolers, yet can be used by older students or adults. Book Creator is an easy-to-use tool for making multimedia digital books in any subject area, from primary upwards.
You can have your book read to you in multiple languages, with word highlighting and page turning. Also share your book online, download as an ePub file or print it as a PDF.
Book Creator works on iOS and Android devices but everything else with a browser, too, including PCs, Macs, and Chromebooks.
8. Kids Academy
Kids Academy app is one of the most innovative and engaging program for young learners. Their unique learn-through-play program combines the most advanced in adaptive technology, artificial intelligence, personalized learning, and gamification to help kids put their best foot forward and get the education they deserve.
Kids Academy has now over 5000 learning activities that includes educational games and videos, interactive and printable worksheets, songs, puzzles and flashcards. They cover the key subject areas of Math, Reading, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies.
Parents will be able to keep track of children's progess, identify and develop their child's talents and work on the topics that need improvement.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
9. ABCmouse.com
ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy’s preschool curriculum focuses on important basics in the four main curriculum subjects of Reading, Math, World Around Us (beginning science and social studies), as well as Art & Colors, establishing a foundation of knowledge for young children that they can build upon with confidence and success.
ABCmouse.com features hundreds of interactive and fun games, each designed to teach a specific concept. Their preschool games help children ages 3+ to learn sounds, numbers, shapes with the preschool alphabet games, preschool art games, preschool number games and preschool shapes games.
All of the games include voiced instructions, so even very young children will find it easy to learn and play. You can read the full ABC Mouse review here.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
10. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a free education app for both students and teachers. Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. This classroom learning app helps finding educational resources for math, reading, writing, science and more.
The app allows you to watch more than 4,300 video lessons on topics including math, science, economics, and humanities either by streaming them from the site or downloading them for later viewing or when you don’t have an Internet connection.
Available on iPhone, iPad, Google Chrome and Android
11. Kahoot!
Kahoot! is a tool used by teachers to administer quizzes, discussions or surveys. It is a game based classroom response system played by the whole class in real time. Multiple-choice questions are projected on the screen. Students answer the questions with their smartphone, tablet or computer.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
12. BrainPOP
BrainPOP® creates cross curricular animated, educational content that captivates students, supports teachers, and adds excitement to lessons. In primary and secondary classrooms, on mobile devices, and at home, BrainPOP’s award winning resources explain the world using animated videos, educational games, interactive quizzes, and online activities.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
13. Nearpod
Nearpod offers teachers an easy-to-use app for creating interactive lesson plans, presentations, assessments, and digital content. Nearpod allows teachers to create digital lesson plans, share it with students during class, and track individual progress. Lessons are comprised of teacher-created slides that can include text, video, images, websites, questions, quizzes, polls, and assignments. Students are able to follow the lesson on their own devices at their own pace or teachers can lead a synchronized session where students can follow the lesson in real-time.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
14. Remind
Remind is a safe, classroom-friendly communication tool to help teachers send messages, en masse or targeted, to students and parents. Teachers can schedule reminders about meetings, assignment deadlines, send students messages such as daily homeworkd assignments, reminders of upcoming tests, photos of class activities or notes, links to outside resources like articles, videos and more. They can also message individual students, an entire class of students, or multiple classes at the same time.
From students and parents, it will help them to stay on top of what is going on at school from class assignments to extracurricular activities.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
15. Quizlet
Teachers can discover content for their classes amongst the millions of study sets on Quizlet. Save time by finding study sets created by other teachers that cover exactly what students need. Encourage the students to compete for the top score by playing Quizlet’s study games Match and Gravity in school or at home.
With the Quizlet app, you can easily find resources for any subject at any level. Revise for any subject with fun and interactive flashcards, games and diagrams. Quizlet makes it easy to discover and create study materials for languages, history, science and more.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
16. News-O-Matic EDU
News-O-Matic is the first daily newspaper just for students. It provides an exciting and engaging nonfiction experience for students, complete with valuable literacy tools for the classroom. Thanks to its unique combination of editorial and technology, News-O-Matic creates innovative solutions to help children become tomorrow’s responsible citizens. It gives young readers a window into the world — and a reason to love reading news.
More than 1,000 schools use News-O-Matic for nonfiction reading, social studies, geography, science, and more!
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
17. WolframAlpha
WolframAlpha is an ultimate tool for homework and research for students. It is one of the popular apps for high school students that delivers specific answers calculated from the data gathered from all the information related to your questions. Students can learn anything because it covers a variety of subjects on array of topics, from mathematics and biology to chemistry, physics, geometry, geography and more.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
K-5 Science Apps for Kids is an educational app for iPad and iPhone. The app is so engaging while teaching kids a variety of science topics. Tappity teaches 100+ science topics with fun experiments, stories, and games. The narration and interactive features make it ideal for a wide range of ages.
Tappity’s science guide Haley will take students on mini-adventures to teach concepts related to a variety of science topics. Parents are frequently involved with the app as Haley urges children to get their parents to share in the marking of their accomplishments. Teachers could make good use of the app in lessons either by getting Haley to explain a topic or by letting individuals work through a topic on their own.
Available on iPhone, iPad
19. Duolingo
Duolingo is one of the best English language apps today and highly recommended for English beginners. The gamified learning system of the app helps you learn English quickly by spending twenty minutes a day. Duolingo structures your lessons that teach you about seven new words based on a topic and skill points being awarded for completing the lessons.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
ShowMe Interactive whiteboard app is an application that allows teachers and students of any age to create presentations called ‘ShowMe’s that can be shared via the device on online privately or to a community audience. The user can record and create engaging voice over presentations of their chosen topic by using some of the many tools such as adding text, drawings, photos and images.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
Explain Everything is one of the easy-to-use and best interactive whiteboard and screencasting app. It can be used to present information to students in a visually engaging way. The exciting part of this app will help your students learn to create and present with it – individually or on group projects from sketches, through PDFs, to videos.
The app creates collaborative learning experiences where students and teachers can share thoughts and ideas in real-time. You can strengthen leadership and collaboration skills by giving students the tools to create and share their own tutorials, animated stories, and presentations.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
ClassDojo is one of the best apps for teachers that be can used in a classroom from start to finish. ClassDojo is a consistent and very structured classroom management app for teachers to improve students behavior and communicate more effectively with parents. It can be used to a small or large extent depending on your time, purpose, and interest.
Available on iPhone, iPad, iMessage and Android
Showbie is a free educational app for teachers and students that makes creating and completing assignments, providing assessments, and storing grades easy. Students can submit their assignments through Showbie. It has the ability for students and/or teachers to leave voice notes with assignments.
Multiple teachers can create classes within Showbie, so that students can see each class that they belong to. Then, they click on the class to see the assignments that the teacher has created for that class. Teachers are able to give due dates/times for assignments, thus not allowing work to be turned in late. Work is timestamped, so that the teacher can see exactly when it was turned in to Showbie.
Available on iPhone, iPad, Google Chrome
The Teach your Monster to Read is an award winning kids learning app that teaches children to read in a fun and simplistic manner. The app covers the first two years of reading, from matching letters and sounds to enjoying books. The app has been designed in collaboration with academics at Roehampton university and Complements Phases 2-5 of UK Government-approved Letters and Sounds and other major systematic synthetic phonics programmes.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
Android Educational Apps
Whether you're currently in school or just seeking a little self-improvement, a plethora of Android apps are just waiting to enhance your knowledge base, expand your skill sets, improve your memory and more.
Here’s a list of Android educational apps that should prove helpful to most students.
Khan Academy Kids, targeting two- to five-year-old children is adaptive to children’s development and lets the child navigate through the platform at their own pace. Kids improve skills through a customized series of interactive activities, books, videos, and creative lessons. Khan Academy Kids’ holistic approach engages students in subjects ranging from literacy to math while encouraging creativity and building social-emotional skills.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
iPad Educational Apps
It's the apps that really set iOS apart from other platforms - there are higher quality apps available on the App Store for the iPad than any other tablet. The iPad in the classroom brings education to life.
Here’s a list of iPad educational apps that should prove helpful to teachers, students and parents.
Hit the Button an interactive maths game from the TopMarks.co.uk website, are useful in the early stages of learning on multiplication (e.g. times tables) and division facts. Hit the Button is an interactive maths game with quick fire questions on number bonds, times tables, doubling and halving, multiples, division facts and square numbers. The games which are against the clock challenge and develop a child's mental maths skills.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
With access to more than 35,000 children’s books, audiobooks, educational videos and quizzes, Epic is a monthly subscription service that’s basically the Neflix of education. Epic Reading app allows kids to explore a vast library of child-safe content, with material designed for kindergarten up to 7th grade reading levels, with personalized reading recommendations helping you find new material. An Epic for Educators version aimed at librarians and educators is available for free.
Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
How We Chose the Best Educational Apps
Every app we feature goes through different stages of assessment.
- We check its publicly-facing first-party information. This includes checking its app store entries, user reviews, and update log to ensure it is regularly updated.
- We investigate how the app engages with its users by checking its reviews and responses. We look for relevant press articles that could influence a buyer's decision.
- We evaluate the app using our certification process. This rigorous assessment involves a qualified teacher comparing the app's features and benefits with our assessment rubric designed by a professor of education. Each app undergoes a thorough test, and we present this in the form of a detailed written review.
At the end of this process, We rate each app with up to five stars. If an app gets four or five stars, it means it is one of the best educational apps, and we can recommend it with confidence.
Mobile learning allows for flexibility by eliminating the need for learning to happen at a particular time and place. Mobile learning takes learning flexibility to another level by making instructional content like videos, podcasts, and other multimedia formats available on smartphones and devices. If you're not taking advantage of the above mobile learning apps, you're missing out!