Sometimes as a teacher it can be pretty difficult to come to terms with the fact that we live in the digital age. The trick here is not to fight the fact, but embrace it.

These days, having technology on your side could score you some major brownie points with your students, and it can successfully aid the learning process.

There’s no doubt that having smartphones and tablets in the classroom come with a number of challenges, but there are some huge benefits too.

The difficulty with the plethora of teaching apps available out there today, however, is to figure out which ones are legitimately useful when trying to bridge the education and technology gap in your classroom. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite apps (for different ages and uses. Here they ar

Epic Unlimited Books for Kids

Encouraging kids to read can be quite a challenge for some teachers. Thanks to the move towards merging education and technology, finding great books for your students to read can now be incredibly easy and free.

This app allows teachers in America and Canada access to a huge number of books (approximately 15,000) that are appropriate for children. The choices include the likes of National Geographic Kids to the Goosebumps series.

A wonderful added extra for teachers is that the app includes lesson suggestions as well as videos to ensure that your students get the most out of what they read.

Funbrain Jr.

This app is for the teachers who have the tiny tots in their class (ages 2 and up). This wonderful app is the perfect blend of education and technology for little ones. The app has five games with cute little characters that help them learn about numbers, letters and patterns. The games include having to pick the highest number, or picking the next picture in a set to complete the pattern.

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Duolingo
If you are a language teacher, you probably already love the ability to mix education and technology because it makes teaching languages that much easier. Take, for example, Duolingo.

This phenomenal free app is a wonderful extra resource for your students to practise languages in their own time or as a part of class activities.

It provides a fun, interactive and simple way to learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Irish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and English (to name but a few of the languages on offer).

Sushi Monster
This exciting game will help your students to hone their math skills. The games in the app allow you to teach your students addition and multiplication according to what the monster seeks. Students can earn stars, points and trophies and go up in levels of difficulty as they progress.

BrainPOP Featured Movie

This app is one of the best examples of how well education and technology can work together. Every day, the app puts up a new educational, animated movie for children to watch. Once children have viewed the movie, they take a short quiz regarding the topic covered in the film. The range of topics go from astronomy to famous artists.

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Giving children the tools they need to learn quickly and well is vital. At Miniland Educational Toys, we embrace education and technology. So much so in fact, that we have developed PLAY Miniland, a new model of learning that promotes a combined approach to real and digital play. Miniland Educational toys are supported by innovative digital resources, so as to provide a fun-filled learning experience.

At playminiland.com, you can access all the lesson plans, activity sheets and digital games, which exceptionally enhance learning and the fun of real play.

PlayMiniland