Student And Teacher Approved Apps For The New School Year

NAHANT (CBS) - It's back to the books for Simone Nardizzi of Nahant. As a senior, she's juggling college applications on top of a rigorous course schedule that includes several Advanced Placement classes. "It's a lot to handle," she said.

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But there really are apps for everything and Simone uses several to help ease that workload, including Mathway.

"You put the problem in and then it solves it for you and then you click on a description for it, it goes-step-by-step," she said.

But this isn't just about kids taking the easy way out, according to Chelmsford High School math teacher Dr. Matthew Beyranevand.

"It does promote the understanding of what you would do to solve it and not just give you the answer as a way to quote – cheat," he said.

There are also free graphing calculators, like Desmos, MetaCalc and Geogebra, that work as well as the handheld models that can cost $100 or more. But according to Beyranevand, many teachers don't allow their students to use phones in class and they are definitely a no-no during the SAT and ACT college entrance exams.

Most experts agree that organization is critical for student success. For that there's My Study Life. It can help students track assignments and class schedules which can be complicated at many high schools.

"At least twice a week you get a text from someone, 'what classes do we have tommorrow?'" Simone said.

For help with research papers, there's Easy Bib.

"Citing sources is probably the most complicated thing in the world," Simone said. "Having an app that you just put in all the information and it creates it for you, it's really helpful and teachers approve of it," she added.

Offtime is one that parents might like. It tracks phone use and shuts down the device for certain periods so students can concentrate on what they are doing.