Ed. note: App of the Week picks are now being curated by the editors of Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. Click here to read the full app review.
Bear
What’s It Like?
Bear is refreshing in its simplicity, managing to be useful without being complicated. Use Bear for teacher and student productivity — teaching note-taking and list-keeping skills to help students organize their work and manage assignments. Promote student collaboration by having students share sets of notes to a class document in order to provide more breadth and multiple perspectives, or improve classroom communication by designating a class minutes keeper so that absent students can stay caught up.
Price: Free, Paid
Grades: 6-12
Rating: 4/5
Pros: Quick, easy setup will have you taking notes and using features in no time, and the clean user interface helps keep clutter at bay.
Cons: The lack of voice recording capabilities may frustrate some users, and it will take some practice to become adept at the features.
Bottom line: For an app that doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, it’s surprisingly versatile and useful for many types of writing and note-taking.
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