The wonderful thing about homeschooling high school age teens is that they become more independent learners. They truly began to take ownership of their learning and embrace the joy of learning (hopefully). At any rate, I can hold them accountable academically without having to stand over their shoulder constantly. Education becomes more like a partnership. We can have great discussions and make connections in what we study and read to the real world. Likewise, my teens began to develop their own pursuits and interests apart from me.
In this digital age, independent learning is aided by technology that enables homeschool teens to study, review, learn, and stay on top of their schedules just by opening an app on their smart device. Without any further ado, here are 10 apps I highly recommend for homeschooled teens. Drumroll, please….
Study Tools
Quizlet
Quizlet is an awesome study app for vocabulary words. This app features various activities that aid students in learning important definitions in their coursework. There is the more traditional flashcard feature which allows students to type in the word one side of the electronic card and the definition on the other. The flashcards will also read the word and definition aloud. Additionally, there are multiple choice activities, matching games, spelling tests, and other features that really help students to learn terms rather than just rote memorization. My favorite feature of the Quizlet app is that you can use sets that have already been created by other users. This saves time and allows teens to focus on studying.
Duolingo
Duolingo is a foreign language learning app that makes practicing a second language highly interactive and fun. Duolingo provides practice for a number of languages—from Spanish to Swahili. Teens can practice reading, speaking, listening, and forming sentences with this app which makes a game out of learning a foreign language. Duolingo has expanded the features offered on its app to include reading comprehension practice via interactive stories as well as sessions that allow speakers to practice their speaking skills with other learners.
Another bonus feature of Duolingo which enhances the learning experience is the Duolingo podcast. If your teen is learning to speak Spanish, the Duolingo podcast includes the real-life stories of native speakers from various Spanish-speaking countries that provide cultural snapshots of native speakers.
Organization and Time Managment
Google Classroom
Google Classroom is another platform that is great for organizing assignments for homeschooled teens. It’s a hub that allows you to place assignments, keep track of due dates, receive and make comments on paperless assignments, as well as keep track of grades. We’ve used Google Classroom for cooking class, history, literature, and chemistry so far and its been amazing.
A number of online applications also integrate seamlessly with Google Classroom allowing your teens to have a highly engaged, interactive learning experiences with material they’re studying. I share the basic features of Google Classroom as well as the potential applications for homeschoolers in my video.
Cozi App
Cozi is a calendar application that enables family members to input important dates, meetings, and events. With so many different schedules between the six of us, it has been great to be able to immediately brain dump important dates and information into our family calendar, receive reminders, and know that all of us can keep up with each other’s schedules. If it wasn’t for this app, we would be lost.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a cloud storage app that allows teens to save passwords, files, and photos from literally anywhere. Teens can use up to 2GB of storage space before having to pay for additional space. Deleting a few items in storage so that the memory stays below 2GB is a simple solution for keeping Dropbox free. My favorite feature of Dropbox aside from being able to access important files on any smart device is ability to share folders between yourself and your teen. This eliminates emails and allows both of you to access and make changes to documents. Dropbox is also of great use to help your teen keep their files organized.
Adobe Scan
This scanning app is excellent for turning scanned images into pdf files. It easily allows you to capture pictures of multiple pages and save them as one file. It is also super easy to save the files into Dropbox. This app has been a godsend for my daughter who often has to quickly take pictures of her notes and work during a timed test where she only has a few minutes to turn in this work. It’s much faster than using a traditional printer-copy-scanner and as it’s a phone/ipad app, it’s easy to travel and get her schoolwork turned in as a single file.
Trello
As my teenagers have gotten older and taken online classes, lesson planning and time management have become more of a collaborative effort, which is why I love the Trello app. The Trello app was traditionally a project management team collaboration tool, but it has been a godsend for me in terms of lesson planning. This app allows both myself and my teens to view their assignments each week. This app has saved us tons of paper, time, and headache when it comes to keeping track of assignments and weekly schedules. I’ve even created a Youtube video where I show you some of the basic features of Trello and its benefits. This app has helped my teens learn how to manage their time and given them greater independence, while still keeping me in the loop as to their progress.
Course and Learning Resources
Youtube
I know Youtube has a number of videos on pop culture, pranks, and influencers that teens love to watch, but Youtube is also highly educational. There are a ton of great videos covering a plethora of topics. I have also used Youtube to gauge the genuine interest in certain areas of my teen prior to investing money in certain extracurriculars. For example, my daughter expressed an interest in learning how to decorate cakes. I knew she was serious about pursuing cake decorating however, because I constantly saw her watching Yolanda Gamp’s How to Cake It videos and other cake decorating tutorials. She learned a lot just from watching these videos and would often share things she learned when we baked together. I had no problem then paying for cake decorating classes (which can be expensive) because I saw that she had genuine interest.
Khan Academy
Homeschool parents like myself are always looking for free resources to help ensure our kids are well-prepared academically. Khan Academy is an excellent resource that contains entirely free online courses in a number of academic disciplines. It is especially helpful for high school math and SAT prep—areas. Keep your fingers crossed that in the future Khan Academy will offer foreign language and creative writing classes!
Udemy
Udemy offers paid and free courses that are unique and cover a range of topics from web design, to piano, and even photography. You’re able to preview videos from the courses before you purchase. Udemy has great sales pretty frequently throughout the year, so if you have your eye on a class that seems a little out of your price range, wait for a sale and you can purchase the class (with lifetime access) for a significantly lowered price! I’ve purchases many classes on sale for 9.99 and also gained great information from some of the free courses offered.
What apps would you add to this list?
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