best tools paperless classroom

The best tools for your paperless classroom

paperless classroom

Whether you’ve had a paperless classroom for awhile, have tried to go paperless but have made it only halfway there, or if you’re just taking your first baby steps into emptying your classroom of its paper piles, selecting tools that will take the place of your papers. If you’ve already gone paperless (or partly paperless), you’ve likely already tried out a few tools or more, to varying degrees of ease and success. Part of the issue may be offerings – there are about a bajillion (yes, that’s a real number, and it is a really really big number). How do you decide which of these tools, nearly all of which are marketed as a ‘must’ and the ‘best’ for your classroom, will work well and be worth your time and effort?

You have other people try out the apps for you, and recommend the best ones. We’ve put together this roundup of the 8 essential tools for your paperless classroom after years of being in the edtech industry and talking to tons of teachers, administrators, app developers, and more. So fear not, we have some great tools for you here!

If you have a favorite that we haven’t included here, we’d love for you to share it with the Daily Genius community! Simply leave a comment below, mention @DailyGenius on Twitter or head over to the Daily Genius Facebook page and add your favorite tool there. We love to hear from you!

8 Essential tools for your paperless classroom

  • Google Drive: Use Google Drive to share documents with your students, encourage collaboration, and more. Drive is a one-stop-shop for paperless classrooms, covering nearly all of your document-sharing and collaboration needs.
  • Evernote: Use Evernote for any and all of your note-taking needs, and your students note taking needs. Create lesson plans,  digital student portfolios, content curation, classroom materials for multiple classes, and for student collaboration on projects.
  • Noteshelf: When handwritten is easier, Noteshelf should be your go-to handwriting note taking app. Use your hand or a stylus, create, share, export, and print your notebooks. Use as a personal or a collaboration tool.
  • Socrative: Socrative is a great student response system that allows you to create games, quizzes, and other learning materials. Offer feedback to your class, take polls, and more. All within the app- so no more paper!
  • ScreenChomp: ScreenChomp is a recordable whiteboard app that records your touchscreen actions and screen to share with others. Create videos for class or have students create videos for projects or sharing.
  • iAnnotate: iAnnotate has you covered for all of your PDF needs. It allows you to highlight, mark up, and note anything necessary on a PDF. At $9.99 it is more expensive than many apps, but is well worth it – its the best PDF app out there, hands down.
  • Class Dojo: Keep track of classroom behavior and offer rewards with Class Dojo. You can easily keep parents in the loop with just a few clicks!
  • Wunderlist: Everyone has a to-do list, and why would you keep you to-do list on paper when the rest of your classroom life is online? Wunderlist is a free to-do app that is simple to use and visually pleasing. Adding items, organizing lists, sharing lists, and checking items as ‘done’ are easy as pie.

Written by Katie Dunn



Explorer, eternal learner, animal lover. Perpetually drawn to the ocean. Adventure ready. Suffers from wanderlust. Likes chasing things down the sink with the little sprayer thingy.

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  1. Google has added a great classroom management tool: Google Classroom. It allows you to make assignments, share, score, and return, and collaborate in group projects. It has taken Google Drive and made life SO much easier for the classroom teacher and student.

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