Obviously, the internet and its infinite capabilities has been an incredible resource for instructors and teachers who wish to conduct lessons online. And while there are numerous sites offering instructions and coursework, not all of them are created equal. To help you weed through the garbage, we’ve compiled a list of the best tools for online teaching.
Online Tools for Teaching Online is designed for teachers and instructors who teach one course or a few courses a year. It describes and illustrates the key features of useful online tools in easy-to-follow steps with pictures to make it easier to find and use these tools quickly.
Teaching online is a dynamic and ever-changing field. In order to be successful, you need the best tools for the job. Fortunately, there are many free online tools for online teaching as well as paid online tools for online teaching that will help make your job easier.
As online teaching has become the new norm, teachers need resources adapted to this new mode of instruction. Online Tools for Teaching Online provides a list of the best digital tools broken down by whether they are suitable for synchronous or asynchronous learning. There are also tools listed for recording, self-assessment and testing, and other learning formats.
The Most Popular Digital Education Tools For Teachers And Learners
Visme
Visme is an online design tool that anyone can use to create presentations, infographics, concept maps, schedules, reports and more.
It’s packed with tons of features, like free photos and graphics, customization options and an easy drag-and-drop editor that both non-designers and designers love to use.
Many tools are directed either at the educator or the student. In the case of Visme, our integrated design tools benefit both.
How Visme Can Help Teachers
Teachers are always creating content for their students to learn with. From slide presentations to fillable worksheets and more. With a Visme education license, teachers and students can use the tool together for a creative and interactive educative experience.
Below are some of the solutions Visme offers for educators at any level.
- Interactive content as presentations and infographics
- Visual posters and infographics
- Webinar materials
- Interactive schedules
- Syllabus and lesson plans
- Printable lists and worksheets
- Embed third-party content like quizzes and forms
- Share news about a class on social media or email
- Personalized report cards
- Personalized certificates
To help you get started, here are some handpicked Visme templates for teachers. Click on the button below each template to customize it for your own use.
Class Schedule Template
Create a class schedule in the form of a presentation and share it with your students to help them stay on track with their weekly lessons.
This class schedule template is designed with engaging colors and visuals to make it easier for students to remember the information.
Customize this presentation template and make it your own!Edit and Download
Lesson Plan Template
Use a template to create a fully visual lesson plan to share with your students.
Simply input all your information and download it as a PDF or image. It’s easy to then import into your LMS or send it to students via email.
Customize this template and make it your own!Edit and Download
Report Card Template
At the end of each semester, show students their grades by adding a little fun.
Use this report card template to input each student’s final results and inspire them to continue performing well for the rest of the year.
Customize this template and make it your own!Edit and Download
Certificate of Completion Template
If your course isn’t part of a school curriculum, you can still instill a sense of accomplishment in your students with a certificate of completion or achievement certificate.
Use this template to add your course information and personalize it with the student’s name.
Customize this template and make it your own!Edit and Download
How Visme Can Help Students
Visme also helps students get their work done for their online classes. Teachers can assign all sorts of assignments to be created with the tool.
Below are some ways students can use Visme:
- Book report presentations or infographics
- Research projects for any topic as presentations or infographics
- Graphic organizers for research and mind-mapping
- Venn diagrams for comparisons
Here are some useful Visme templates for students at the school or university level. Click on the button below each template to customize it for your own use.
Idea Web / Mind Map Template
Students thrive with graphic organizers and visual mind mapping tools. Visme makes it easy and fun to create idea webs, flowcharts and mind maps. This idea web template is perfect for finding similarities between two different topics.
Customize this infographic template and make it your own!Edit and Download
Presentation Template
Research projects and book reports have been assigned as presentations since we can all remember. Help your students create better presentations with our Visme templates for students.
Customize this presentation template and make it your own!Edit and Download
Timeline Infographic Template
Many assignments involve understanding how things happened over time. This type of visual can be apple to projects for history, literature, and social studies.
By creating a timeline infographic, students understand the process of the topic and enjoy creating it along the way.
Customize this infographic template and make it your own!Edit and Download
WIth Visme you can also create any type of graphic organizer from scratch using the free design tools that come built-in with the editor.
Google Classroom
Google Classroom is the low-key most versatile online teaching tool available.
This Learning Management System (LMS) is part of G Suite, which means teachers can use Google apps to create lessons, quizzes and documents all inside Google Classroom.
To use the Google Classroom app, you’ll need a G Suite for Education account. Many schools and teachers transitioned to this LMS when schools were closed due to the pandemic.
For anyone using Google products regularly, Google Classroom is easy to tackle. Inside the app, educators offer the content for the lessons, quizzes, assessments, and tests. They can also communicate with the students and parents via message boards or email.
The best thing about Google Classroom is that you can create all the content for your classes with the software of your choice. For example, you can simply use Google apps to prepare lesson materials or import any visual created with Visme.
In 2020, Google Classroom is easier to integrate with Google Meet, the new version of Google Hangouts. This has made it even easier to conduct an online class.
Zoom
You might know Zoom from business meetings but did you know that it also works great for online teaching?
There are two ways of using Zoom; Meetings and Webinars. The most suited for interactive online teaching is Zoom Meetings, while Zoom Webinars is better for lectures. Teachers can choose with which to work at any given time.
Zoom Meetings have practical features that make online teaching easier, such as breakout rooms. These help teachers separate the students into groups, much like you would do in a normal classroom setting.
Each group can communicate with each other and the teacher can be notified to come in and help if needed. Since Zoom became so popular for distance learning, many other online teaching tools have incorporated seamless integrations.
Edmodo
Edmodo is an educational tool that connects teachers and students, and is assimilated into a social network. In this one, teachers can create online collaborative groups, administer and provide educational materials, measure student performance, and communicate with parents, among other functions. Edmodo has more than 34 million users who connect to create a learning process that is more enriching, personalized, and aligned with the opportunities brought by technology and the digital environment.
Socrative
Designed by a group of entrepreneurs and engineers passionate about education, Socrative is a system that allows teachers to create exercises or educational games which students can solve using mobile devices, whether smartphones, laptops, or tablets. Teachers can see the results of the activities and, depending on these, modify the subsequent lessons in order to make them more personalized.
Projeqt
Projeqt is a tool that allows you to create multimedia presentations, with dynamic slides in which you can embed interactive maps, links, online quizzes, Twitter timelines, and videos, among other options. During a class session, teachers can share with students academic presentations which are visually adapted to different devices.
Thinglink
Thinglink allows educators to create interactive images with music, sounds, texts, and photographs. These can be shared on other websites or on social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. Thinglink offers the possibility for teachers to create learning methodologies that awaken the curiosity of students through interactive content that can expand their knowledge.
Google Meet
Google Meet for teachers is another popular software application for online tutors, virtual teachers and anyone conducting classes online because of its integration with Google’s suite of other apps like Google Classroom and Google Drive.
Google Meet offers the following free options for its users:
- Share screen to your students
- Adjust your layouts
- Group classes up to 1 hour
- Chat with students in the chatbox
- And other normal features of a virtual video conferencing platform
Anyone with a Google account can create a video meeting or virtual class of up to 100 students (participants) and meet up to 60 minutes for free.
If you are conducting one-on-one tutoring classes, you can spend up to 24 hours together (but why would you?!).
GoToMeeting
GoToMeeting, as stated on their website, puts the “class in online classes.”
They are an up-and-coming competitor to some of the larger video platforms because of how they gear their functions to suit teachers and students in an online class.
With their free account, you can expect:
- Personal URLs for students to join the class
- Instant messaging, file sharing & screen sharing
- Powerful mobile capabilities for students
- Clean and simple interface with powerful functions
Unfortunately, their free version is quite limiting but it will allow you 40-minute classes/meetings but with only up to 3 participants.
GoToMeeting free would be perfect for independent tutors who have 1-3 students and classes under 40 minutes.
Document Management Tools
From test papers to lesson plans, there’s an array of documents teachers have to maintain regularly. A central location to store, organize, and manage all these documents is essential to properly keep track of them, especially when you are teaching remotely.
Tools such as GSuite, MS office, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Evernote simplify the process of maintaining the documents you own.
- Store all documents, files, etc. in the cloud which allows you and your students to access them with any device from anywhere
- Neatly organize documents in relevant folders and subfolders making it easy to retrieve them
- Quickly share files and documents with anyone with a single link or as a file. You can also adjust permission settings, changing them to Edit, View, and Suggesting mode on GSuite apps.
- Collaborate with students on editing and reviewing documents, add comments and suggestions and track changes with version history
Conclusion
If you’re looking to create an online class, you’ll have to decide what tools will help you achieve that goal. Whether you’re teaching with video, using social networks, or planning interactive course design, there are a number of tools out there designed for distance education. And now that mobile learning is on the rise, the spread of online tools for online teaching is exploding as well.
Teaching online has a variety of tools to help both you and your students. You can use these tools to improve communication with your students and better teach them at all levels. There are also a few minor tools that should be useful to all teachers, regardless of their location.