People expect to be bored by eLearning—let’s show them it doesn’t have to be like that!
- Cammy Bean, e-learning instructional designer.


The private tutoring industry quickly realised that new technologies had to be integrated into the normal learning experience of any pupil or student.

These days, you can access private lessons or video-call classrooms for free on many websites. You can revise all subjects, maths, physics, chemistry, history or geography and even French.

Some of the greatest ways to engage kids and help eradicate procrastination are through educational applications and interactive learning tools. Educational applications and tools enhance learning by providing a different perspective on academic subjects and segmenting them into more manageable chunks.

It is predicted that 15.5 billion app downloads will occur in the UK in 2018. That is a crazy 236 app for every single person living in the UK.

The app market grew by 6% in 2017 and will keep growing in the years to come.

With 96% of A-level students owning a smartphone, it is no wonder that e-learning has been booming in recent years.

Whilst textbooks will always have their place, educational apps provide valuable learning tools on the go, helping to keep students’ minds active even when they’re out of the classroom. Likewise, these resources present tutors with a number of new ways to approach teaching and measure student success.

We summed up a few apps that you could use to help your students further by providing them with the right tool for e-education.

Children playing with smartphone.
Children can now use smartphones to play around with their hand-drawn art. (Toca Boca)

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1. Numberland

Inspired by the Montessori method of learning and teaching (which is thoroughly detailed in the Note to Parents on the main page), this app was developed by 3 parents to avail the lack of playful learning software.

This app is aimed at kids aged from 3 to 5 years old and will help them in learning numbers.

Montessori Numberland is an educational app that teaches kids the numbers 0 through 9 through counting, writing, and exploring.

With each number having its own story showing a boy and a girl in a different scene, the two characters can be clicked on to activate different activities. The app also contains lots of drawing and tracing options for the kids and is full of positive reinforcement to strengthen the learning experience.

What we like:

  • Each number can be learned separately and includes playful animations.
  • The user experience has been made very easy for parents and kids.
  • Kids learn to write the numbers and their quantified values too.

What we like less:

  • With the advent of smartphones and tablets comes the question of "What age is old enough to be introduced to smartphones?". We think that every parent will have a different opinion on this matter and that every kid is also different.

See how you can use educational games in your tutoring sessions...

2. DragonBox Big Numbers

This math game is aimed at kids slightly older, from 6 to 9 years old.

It will introduce kids to the "World of Nooms" and will get them to learn about long addition and subtraction.

The game and activities on this learning app also introduce children to strategic methods to get them to trade resources to gain access to more worlds.

The app is designed to be increasingly difficult every time a child adds and subtracts correctly, allowing the game to adapt to the kid and to challenge them more and more.

The further they go in this learning game, the bigger the number gets and the harder the operations are.

Six different worlds can be accessed and explored and in each one resource can be collected and traded.

  • A very playful app.
  • The progressive learning curve of the game.
  • No need to know how to read to play.

All this make DragonBox the perfect app to introduce preschoolers and toddlers to the basic of maths in an intuitive way.

Again, every parent will have to decide if they think that giving access to screens to their children is good or not but we also advise that parents and educators should accompany the children in their learning experience.

This is just one of many online resources and apps for learning you could recommend to your students. Try this educational app today!

3. Shakespeare

Shakespeare is exactly what the aptly named Shakespeare app does, as the name suggests.

The complete works of the English playwright and poet are available for free in this useful study resource, which gives users access to six poems, 154 sonnets, and 41 plays.

Understanding Shakespeare has never been simpler thanks to an integrated lexicon containing more than 21,000 obsolete words and phrases. Simply tap on a word to see its definition before moving on to the next one.

This is a great resource for students studying English at both secondary and university levels too. Many of the curriculums will require students to examine his works and this app could give you a significant advantage in your exam preparation.

Students can search the author's entire body of work using the app, as well as highlight and annotate specific passages. The ability to share notes produced on the app with friends and classmates makes it simple to collaborate on projects and compare notes.

This Shakespeare app is your one-stop shop for everything and anything related to the English playwright, complete with additional study materials on scansion and pertinent poetic words.

Have a look at jobs for ex teachers here.

Teachers following a class.
Teachers also have to learn and usually take classes every year to keep up to date with the current methods of teaching and the National Curriculum.

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4. Cite It In

The nightmare that is citations is one that every student who has ever had to write an essay is familiar with. The last thing you want to worry about after writing a 2,000 word essay is getting your bibliography correct, especially if you could spend that time performing some last-minute editing.

If you are a university student or have already graduated from your course then it is likely that you have lost some sleep over the citation process. This can be a difficult system to grasp for even the most academic students when they initially enter third-level education. Considering that you will be deducted marks if you hand in an assignment that is incorrectly cited, or your bibliography isn't in order, this learning tool might just help you to improve your grades.

When you finally have to organize your citations, it can be frustrating because there are many requirements based on various sources and style manuals. So that's it. Cite It In is a handy little tool that eliminates your fear of doing this assignment!

Simply enter your source information into the website, and it will create the proper citation in accordance with the citation style you have chosen, be it APA, MLA, Harvard or Chicago. If writing essays could be so easy.

This is a great place for students to get their citations correct, but perhaps more importantly it will teach them how to correctly cite using the respective style required by their university so that they can do this all by themselves!

5. World Geography - Quiz Game

World Geography is a quiz game that will help children (and adults too) to learn everything about countries - maps, flags, capitals, population, religion, language, currency and much more.

This quiz game will help you learn everything about geography in an easy and playful way.

With more than 6000 questions ranging from easy to really hard, this game is accessible to all.

What we like:

  • Any student, at any level, can play and extend their general culture
  • Even though it is called World Geography, the game approaches various subjects such as the economy, history, physics and social studies.
  • The game is available in 6 different languages.
  • The difficulty of the game increases as the player progresses.

One of the main positive things about this game app is that it is completely free.

It will be a great and easy way for students that just want to improve their knowledge or for children who have some difficulties with formal classical education, to learn at a pace and setting that fits them better.

Nevertheless, this is but one way to make tutoring fun for your pupils!

Teacher helping a student in class.
A good teacher-student relationship is crucial for children to feel comfortable and for them to be able to learn in the best conditions. (by BES-Photos)

6. Memrise

This app is a language learning software.

If you're looking to revise French or Spanish or to learn a completely new language like Japanese, this app is for you.

Learn Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian, German, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Polish, Norwegian, Turkish, Dutch, Icelandic, English or even Mongolian.

This app won the Best iPad App of the Year 2016 in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. A very big deal since the education system in Scandinavian countries is renowned for being better than the rest of its European neighbours.

With more than 200 courses edited by expert linguists, Memrise can be used in the tube, on your bed or at your desk and will get you bilingual (or multilingual) in no time.

But such a good app will come to a price, however, it is not much as you can access all the app's features for 4.99 (per month!).

7. BioInteractive App

BioInteractive, your one-stop shop for all things biology-related, is jam-packed with a variety of tools, from instructional applications and animations to quick movies and virtual labs.

BioInteractive takes the concept of interactive learning to a higher level with information geared toward college students and high school students.

See lectures from leading inventors and scientists, watch one of their brief films to learn about a novel biological concept, or participate in the virtual labs where you'll need to use data to analyze your findings.

Similarly, if you're a tutor, you can locate a variety of teaching aids and resources from other instructors to get some ideas.

You would be hard-pressed to find a more interesting and intriguing science site with contributors that include award-winning scientists and speakers.

American graduation ceremony.
Graduating college is usually the achievement marking the end of studies for most students. The graduation ceremony is particularly important in most countries.

8. TED

Probably aimed at an older crowd, the TED app, by the TED Talks organisation is worth mentioning.

This library of more than 1,000 videos of some of the most influential speakers in the world, can introduce you to many fascinating subjects.

The videos are also proposed in more than 90 subtitle languages and the subjects range from business to technology and education.

You can even download them to watch them when you don't have any Internet access, which is ideal if you're taking the tube to school.

These inspiring talks will leave you feeling motivated and will leave plenty of food for thought. Your inspiration might just translate across to your academics and boost your performance at school.

Regardless of what you are applying yourself to, TED will make these insightful talks that bit more accessible for you to consume.

And best of all, it is free.

So is this expanded guide to making lessons fun!

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Emma

I am passionate about traveling and currently live and work in Paris. I like to spend my time reading, gardening, running, learning languages, and exploring new places.