iTeacherBook Helps Teachers Get Organized

As you take a tour through the app, the first thing you’ll notice is that it is already synchronized with your iPhone’s Calendar app. It’s a feature you can toggle off, if you prefer, but I think it’s nice to see at a glance if that big assignment you’re planning to give is going to conflict with your doctor appointment or whatever.

When you first use the app, there is a sample schedule in place; note the biology classes in my screenshots here. This is just to give you an idea of what the app can do, again, that can be deleted with a tap.

Go into the settings to see all the different ways you can customize the app to work for you. For example, tap Today to choose if you want the Month or Weekday view. If you tap Calendar, you can choose precisely which of your iOS calendars you want synchronized with iTeacherBook. In the month view, you can toggle the following items on or off: Multiple Dots, Colored Dots, Assignment Icons, and Exam Icons. In the week view, you can toggle the Week Number on or off. In the Planner section, you can choose the Time Picker Step and default Class Duration. Tap Students to choose if you want them sorted and displayed alphabetically by first name or last name. You can also customize the Attendance here by adding Late and Excused options. Go into Grades to toggle Grades and Grade Exams on or off. Additionally, you can use the default Grading Scale (Percents) or choose Letters or Points. Now, go into Notifications to see a variety of notification types/styles you can set up have sent to yourself.

Now that you’re done in Settings, tap Today at the bottom of the screen. This gives you a detailed run down of your day. Tap Calendar to see your entire calendar, full month view (with dots, if you set those up) and scrollable details at the bottom. At the top, you can toggle in between your Schedule and Assignments. You can tap the plus to add a New Class/Exam or New Calendar Event. You can also tap Assignments along the bottom to add courses and assignments. Finally, tap Planner at the bottom right to access (add, edit, view) all of your Semesters in one place, as well as Holidays, and All Students.

Additional features include the ability to track attendance in real time as well as manage each student’s progress (attendance and grades) in one place. Email assignments to your students from within iTeacherBook. You can also create various types of reports and export them as .csv files to iTunes or Mail.

This is a beautiful, nicely laid out app that definitely has that Apple look to it. The one major complaint I have about iTeacherBook is the lack of automatic syncing, say, to Dropbox for example. What you can do, is tap the Settings wheel icon, then tap Data Managing, and Send Data Backup. This allows you to send yourself all of your data. When you open that attachment on your iDevice, iTeacherBook will automatically be launched, and all of your data restored. Still, you have to remember to do this, presumably every time you make any changes, and that can be kind of a hassle. Do remember that this is the first iteration of the app, and they are bound to update and make improvements. The developer has stated that they plan to merge this app with their popular iStudiez Pro in the near future.