Working in education has always been challenging, but today, the demands have reached new heights. When compared with similar working adults, about twice as many teachers reported experiencing frequent job-related stress or burnout, according to the 2024 State of the American Teacher Survey. Balancing lesson planning, grading, engaging students, and staying updated on new teaching methods can feel overwhelming.
Luckily, technology has become an invaluable ally for teachers, offering tools that lighten the load and enhance the learning experience. With the right apps, your iPad can become a powerhouse for organizing lessons, tracking progress, and even sparking creativity in the classroom. In this post, we’ll explore five of the best iPad apps for educators in 2025 that are designed to make teaching more efficient, interactive, and enjoyable for both you and your students. Let’s dive in!
PDF Expert for grading and providing feedback
PDF Expert is an extremely easy-to-use PDF editor that makes it enjoyable to add highlights, comments, and edits to student assignments. If students turn in assignments in formats other than PDF, you can quickly convert them; for hand-written papers, you can scan them first with PDF Expert and add your comments. Sharing graded assignments is quick through email or Cloud storage.
PDF Expert is trusted by 30 million users worldwide and is praised for its intuitive interface and advanced toolset.
Features we think you’ll love:
- Record audio comments when you want to leave detailed feedback. Tap and hold whenever you want to add an audio comment, and select Sound from the pop-up menu.
- Extract main points and summaries from PDFs with AI Chat can help when preparing a quiz or a reading recommendation for students.
- You can use stickers and Stamps (and even add your own) to streamline the grading process and add fun.
- Merge several PDFs into one document and compress its size to save storage space on your iPad and Cloud storage.
Pricing: PDF Expert offers a special 50% discount for educators. Even though this represents fantastic value for money, there's also a free version with a basic feature set.
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iDoceo as a grade book
This app, considered one of the best iPad apps, has a learning curve, but the magic begins once you get used to it. It provides a customizable grade book with icons, text, rubrics, and the ability to calculate averages quickly. Additionally, you can use it as a lesson planner, attendance journal, and seating plan. iDoceo allows you to organize all the information the way it works for you, providing templates and tools for it.
Features we think you’ll love:
- Add attendance and marks right from the seating plan.
- Add grades to the grade book with an Apple Pencil - just like you would with a paper book.
- Integration with ChatGPT and Dall-E will help you with ideas and content creation for lessons and assessments.
Pricing: one-time purchase from the App Store with all features included for $19.99
Explain Everything for collaborative whiteboarding and videos
It is one of the best tools for whiteboarding for teachers, tested and tried by 24 million professionals across the globe. There are three main ways you can use it: 1) Make engaging presentations with videos, drawings, and slides; 2) Easily record explanation videos and tutorials in Khan Academy style; 3) Provide your students with a platform for collaborative projects. You don’t need to start from scratch; instead, you can upload the images and documents you have to the whiteboard and use them for presentations or videos.
Features we think you’ll love:
- You can use image libraries if you run out of pictures and photos.
- Straightforward and fast video editing - you don’t need additional video production software.
- There are many templates to choose from: daily planners, lesson plans, and math axis.
Pricing: Free to start with limited features, $89.99/year for an advanced plan.
Kahoot! for engaging quiz-based games
Kahoot! is a well-known app for creating quizzes for students to help them learn subjects in a fun way. You can instantly create a quiz based on your lesson or use existing ready-made games. There is a lot of gamification to layer in: game modes, characters, and rewards. Kahoot helps turn assessments into a fun experience and boosts students’ motivation through challenges and competition.
Features we think you’ll love:
- Millions of ready-made learning games you can choose from for your class
- Students can also create their own quizzes to help them review the lesson information or prep for the exam
- Track learning progress over time for formative assessment.
Pricing: $4.99/month for a basic plan
Scanner Pro for instant scanning
Scanner Pro makes high-quality scans from your iPad, allowing you to save documents, forms, articles, and handwritten notes in digital format. It automatically detects the document's borders and later enhances the quality of the scan, removing shadows and distortions. Scanner Pro lets you organize all your scans into folders and automatically back them into cloud storage, so you always have your digital library ready.
Features we think you’ll love:
- Use OCR to turn scans into text documents, translate them, and search for specific information
- Export scans into a Cloud storage, other apps, email, or share them through a link
- Password-protect private documents
Pricing: Free, with Scanner Pro PLUS subscription available for $29.99/year with a 7-day trial.
These best iPad apps for teachers are more than just convenient—they’re designed to elevate your teaching, streamline your workload, and help you connect with students more meaningfully. Embrace the power of technology and discover how it can transform your classroom experience, allowing you to focus on what truly matters—educating and inspiring the next generation.
More resources for educators:
Yevheniia Dychko 
