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5 Apps You Should Add To Your Back-To-School List

August 5, 2015 / 5:55 PM CDT / CBS Texas

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NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Are tablets and phones the new backpacks? James Denke of the Dallas test-prep school The Waterton Group thinks so.

He says a vital part of back-to-school shopping also includes apps. "It's what technology you have that will help itemize your studies and then manage it."

His recommendations focus on organization and taming the summer slide. These are the FIVE most commonly used apps by the students he coaches.

1) Study Cal ($1.99 on I-Tunes)
Denke says it helps students and parents organize their schedules on a shared calendar to keep track of upcoming projects and quizzes.

2) Evernote (Free on I-Tunes and Andriod)
Think electronic notebook but, with some cool features!
Denke says its "web clipper" feature helps students store and search for websites they like to visit for projects. They can also save images and scanned documents.
3) Fast Scanner (Free on I-Tunes and Andriod)
The app helps kids' create PDFs that can be emailed, searched and archived.
"Students in a class may have handouts that they receive all throughout the week," says Denke. "With fast scanner, they pick out their phone and basically take a homework selfie."

4) Quizlet (Free on I-Tunes and Andriod)
Quizlet is the modern day flash cards. Whether you're studying for a test or just practicing. Quizlet lets you create study sets that can be stored for future use and also be shared publicly for others to use.

5) Khan Academy (Free on I-Tunes and Andriod)
This app can help students brush up on those forgotten skills. This app provides online tutorials by experts in their field right at your fingertips.
"It offers thousands of online tutorials for someone who, say is bad in math or never learned physics before can learn to really get a foundation."

So there you have it -- 5 apps you could add to your back to school list.