Why Journaling is Good & The Best Journaling Apps for Teachers & Educators
Syeda Zahirunisa
June 13, 2025
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5 min read
In today's fast-evolving, often stress-inducing and information-driven world, the importance of mindful practices cannot be overlooked. Be it pensive meditation, deep breathing or quiet walks in nature, taking some time off can be rewarding physically, emotionally, mentally and even professionally. One such mindful practice that has gained immense traction is that of journaling.
Journaling is essentially the practice of writing down your thoughts, feelings, experiences, and reflections on a regular basis in a designated journal, notebook, or digital platform. Your journal can be your best friend, sounding board, confidante, venting space, brainstorming pal or simply a space to doodle or scribble and let loose.
For a long time, we have relied on paper journaling, where physical diaries and notebooks were used to record our thoughts, ideas, and other important information. However, with the advent of digital technology, journaling apps have transformed the way we capture and manage our personal and professional insights. While putting pen to paper and writing in an old-fashioned diary has its own charm, digital journaling provides a quick, easy and accessible way for busy professionals to reflect, create and manage stress. Digital journaling applications not only allow us to store our thoughts in a more secure and efficient way but also to reflect on them in a structured manner that aids personal growth and professional development.
Digital journaling, also known as online journaling or e-journaling, involves using journaling apps or software to record our thoughts, feelings and observations, instead of using a physical notebook.
Here are some key features and benefits of digital journaling:
The best journaling apps offer a user-friendly interface, allowing users to easily navigate through their entries, attach multimedia files, and even share their journals with others if desired. This combination of features ensures that journaling remains a practical and rewarding habit, even for those with the busiest of schedules.
Now, to the main point. As a teaching professional, you play an important role in shaping students' learning journeys. Whether as a coach, teacher, instructor, or tutor, you strive to create, deliver, and engage only the best student experiences. However, in this all-consuming process, you often begin to neglect your own growth and well-being.
Journaling is a powerful tool for self-improvement, and when integrated into the daily routine of educators, it can lead to profound professional growth. Whether through traditional means or digital journaling apps, the act of documenting experiences allows you to analyze teaching methods, track progress, and maintain a record of your professional journey. Journaling also offers numerous mental health benefits, including better self-awareness and improved clarity of thought and problem-solving skills.
Moreover, with the constant mental ups and downs that you may experience on a daily basis, journaling is a healthy outlet to vent and release your feelings and emotions. Digital journaling, in particular, offers numerous advantages over conventional pen-and-paper methods. For modern educators, who are constantly juggling multiple responsibilities simultaneously, journaling on-the-go, either on their phone or laptop, is the preferred choice.
Reflective journaling offers educators a space to review teaching practices, assess lesson outcomes and successes, and identify areas for growth. By regularly documenting and reflecting on successes and setbacks and planning further, you gain valuable insights into teaching styles and empower yourself to make strategic changes to refine your methods over time. This practice fosters a growth mindset, turning challenges into opportunities for improvement and encouraging continuous improvement.
Dealing with student shenanigans, being answerable to parents and superiors, meeting deadlines—the life of a teaching professional is not easy, and some days can get particularly overwhelming. Mindfulness journaling creates a safe space to express and process emotions and manage stress after challenging days. It also provides a space to consciously focus on gratitude and happy moments, shifting focus toward positive aspects and boosting overall job fulfillment.
By maintaining a teacher reflection journal, you can better understand your students' unique needs and learning styles. By documenting classroom observations, student progress and struggles, you can identify patterns in student behavior and engagement. This enables you to tailor your approaches to create a more personalized and supportive learning environment where every student feels understood and engaged.
Digital journaling helps you unlock your creativity by documenting new lesson plans, brainstorming new ideas, and experimenting with innovative teaching techniques and approaches. Over time, this reservoir of ideas becomes a valuable resource for curriculum development.
Journal templates help you consistently track your teaching journey, covering key areas like objectives, challenges and next steps. Reviewing these entries regularly provides a clear picture of progress and areas for further growth. This process not only boosts confidence but also serves as a motivational tool, pushing you to pursue excellence.
Ready to get started? Here’s how to journal efficiently without disturbing your busy schedule:
Based on your goals and preferences, decide between a physical notebook or a digital journaling tool. If you choose to go ahead with a journaling app, consider a cross-platform option like Day1 for seamless syncing across devices.
Create or download a journal template that is tailored specifically to educators, such as sections for lesson reflections, student observations, and mood check-ins. A grid diary format offers customizable boxes to track multiple aspects at once.
Block a fixed time everyday—at the beginning of the day, during lunch break, before going to bed—for a quick diary entry. Treat your journaling time as a non-negotiable appointment to ensure consistency and develop a habit.
Don’t force lengthy entries. Keep them natural and modify them based on your mood and schedule. Some days, you could use prompts to write detailed answers: “What went well in today’s lesson? “Where did I face challenges, and how did I overcome them?” “What new teaching strategy will I try tomorrow?” On other days, you could simply use bullet points to capture critical insights. The goal is regular reflection, not perfection.
Day One, available on both the App Store and Android, is possibly one of the best electronic diary out there. It lets you create journal entries with just a single click and offers a variety of templates for daily journaling. Additionally, you can enhance your entries by adding location, weather data and hashtags, inserting photos and videos, creating handwritten entries or drawings and even dictating reflections with voice transcription. Your digital journal is automatically backed-up to private servers and can be further protected with password and biometric security. The cherry on the top? With multiple platform support, your journal is accessible, synchronized, and secure across all your devices.
Penzu, available for Web, iOS, and Android, serves as an intuitive digital journaling app, replicating the experience of writing on a pristine sheet of paper. It has a seamless interface, keeping all your entries in a single journal online. You can customize your journal entries with different covers, fonts, and backgrounds and can also set custom reminders to ensure you stay consistent. Moreover, the app features the unique ability to send entries to your future self, allowing for a trip down memory lane. With the pro version, you gain the added benefit of securing individual journal entries with distinct passwords separate from your account password.
Grid Diary, a daily journal app available on macOS, Android, and iOS, combines an electronic diary with a digital planner. It offers a unique grid format, customizable templates and reflective prompts to enhance your journaling experience. Furthermore, users can create their own custom grids, save them as templates, and even organize entries for dedicated themes. Stickers, tags, attachments, an in-built calendar, and a timeline view are also available for easy entry and review.
Daylio, an online journaling app for iOS and Android, stands out for its wordless approach (you don’t actually have to write, really). A bullet journal with a goals, mood and happiness tracker, Daylio lets you fully express yourself through customizations like emoji themes and the ability to track specific categories such as emotions, sleep, health, chores, and more. Just select one of the five smiley face icons to indicate your mood, and the app will prompt you with relevant questions based on your chosen categories. Moreover, both mood options and activities are fully customizable. Additionally, you can set up daily digital journal prompts to encourage regular journaling.
Diarium is accessible on Windows, Android, macOS, and iOS. It offers a comprehensive monthly calendar view that allows you to incorporate various media types (photos, videos, audio recordings, PDFs) into your online diary entries, enhancing your digital journaling experience. The Map view lets you revisit places you’ve visited and explored, while "On this day" notifications remind you of past events and adventures. Moreover, you can further personalize your entries by rating them. How cool is that?
Perhaps you're already familiar with Notion - a versatile productivity tool accessible on Web, Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. It is an all-in-one workspace that allows you to create and manage content with ease. It's not only the best digital note-taking app or task manager, but is also perfect for digital journaling and organizing various types of content. On its user-friendly interface, you can personalize your journal entries, integrate media, and organize your content into to-do lists, tables, charts, tags and pages. You can easily find hundreds of free Notion journal templates, and customize them as you like.
Here are some teacher journal ideas to help you reflect and grow in your journey as an educator:
"We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." – John Dewey
Teaching is a demanding profession, requiring you to be ever-present and attentive. Journaling creates a non-judgmental space for educators to express, experiment and introspect, and in turn, achieve personal and professional growth. With the constant pressures and requirements of teaching, the practicality and accessibility of writing a journal online make it an ideal tool for busy class providers to incorporate into their daily routines.
If you're managing a teaching and learning business, Classcard is an intuitive platform designed to alleviate the administrative burdens of class management, from scheduling classes and online bookings, to automated communications and attendance and payment tracking. With an intuitive class management system like Classcard, you’ll not only streamline administrative tasks but also carve out the time and mental space needed for self-reflection, clarity and creativity. It’s time to focus on what truly matters—your students and your well-being. Sign up for a free demo today and experience how seamless class management and mindful reflection go hand in hand with Classcard.