eds of digital education tools have been created with the purpose of giving autonomy to the student, improving the administration of academic processes, encouraging collaboration, and facilitating communication between teachers and learners. Here we present 11 of the most popular.
Ever wanted a better chance of succeeding at learning something, but didn’t know where to start? That’s pretty common. It can be hard knowing what tools will work for you and which ones won’t. With that in mind, here’s a selection of the best online learning tools that I’ve had good experiences with.
The Most Popular Digital Education Tools For Teachers And Learners
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. TED-Ed
TED-Ed is an educational platform that allows creating educational lessons with the collaboration of teachers, students, animators—generally people who want to expand knowledge and good ideas. This website allows democratizing access to information, both for teachers and students. Here, people can have an active participation in the learning process of others.
6. cK-12
cK-12 is a website that seeks to reduce the cost of academic books for the K12 market in the United States and the world. To achieve its objective, this platform has an open source interface that allows creating and distributing educational material through the internet, which can be modified and contain videos, audios, and interactive exercises. It can also be printed and comply with the necessary editorial standards in each region. The books that are created in cK-12 can be adapted to the needs of any teacher or student.
7. ClassDojo
ClassDojo is a tool to improve student behavior: teachers provide their students with instant feedback so that good disposition in class is ‘rewarded’ with points and students have a more receptive attitude towards the learning process. ClassDojo provides real-time notifications to students, like ‘Well Done David!’ and ‘+1’, for working collaboratively. The information that is collected about student behavior can be shared later with parents and administrators through the web.
8. eduClipper
This platform allows teachers and students to share and explore references and educational material. In eduClipper, you can collect information found on the internet and then share it with the members of previously created groups, which offers the possibility to manage more effectively the academic content found online, improve research techniques, and have a digital record of what students achieved during the course. Likewise, it provides the opportunity for teachers to organize a virtual class with their students and create a portfolio where all the work carried out is stored.
9. Storybird
Storybird aims to promote writing and reading skills in students through storytelling. In this tool, teachers can create interactive and artistic books online through a simple and easy to use interface. The stories created can be embedded in blogs, sent by email, and printed, among other options. In Storybird, teachers can also create projects with students, give constant feedback, and organize classes and grades.
10. Animoto
Animoto is a digital tool that allows you to create high-quality videos in a short time and from any mobile device, inspiring students and helping improve academic lessons. The Animoto interface is friendly and practical, allowing teachers to create audiovisual content that adapts to educational needs.
11. Kahoot!
Kahoot! is an educational platform that is based on games and questions. Through this tool, teachers can create questionnaires, discussions, or surveys that complement academic lessons. The material is projected in the classroom and questions are answered by students while playing and learning at the same time. Kahoot! promotes game-based learning, which increases student engagement and creates a dynamic, social, and fun educational environment.
12. Buncee
Buncee makes it easy to create interactive course content that students love. Create presentations, lessons and many customizable virtual school activities from Buncee’s Ideas Lab template library. Teachers can easily share links, downloadable files and group projects with students.
The Buncee dashboard can be accessed from Microsoft Teams, which makes it easy to open discussions, share resources and communicate with kids and their parents.
13. Hapara
Hapara is an organizational tool that allows educators to make learning workflows in Google Workspace. You can also use other edtech tools such as Pear Deck, Kahoot and EDpuzzle with Hapara to enhance the quality of course content.
It’s no wonder that teachers embrace Hapara for its accessibility to curriculum-aligned lessons, privacy and security features.
14. Explain Everything Whiteboard
The Explain Everything Whiteboard app is one of the top digital whiteboards. It’s a fabulous offline and online tool perfect for traditional and hybrid class environments. It also encourages collaboration between teachers and students.
15. Bloomz
Bloomz is a one-stop platform that eliminates the need for multiple apps and concerns surrounding security.
Bloomz allows teachers to connect, organize, and stay in touch with students and parents. Parents and teachers won’t have to open and close several apps, making it simple and stress-free for you to communicate and share information.
Teachers have the option of selecting the free or premium upgraded classroom plan. The premium subscription comes with more features and benefits for $7.99 per month.
16. Khan Academy
As a non-profit organization, Khan Academy boasts a list of subjects for teachers and students to choose from including math, science, reading, language and life skills. All courses are suitable for students in grades 1 to 8 and beyond.
Khan Academy is free for students and teachers. Donations are welcome and encouraged to keep the platform accessible to everyone.
17. Seesaw
Seesaw provides a great alternative for creating learning loops that connect teachers, students, and parents. It provides a meaningful way for teachers to observe student performance and encourages the use of creative tools such as draw + record, video, creative canvas and more.
Teachers and students can sign up for free!
18. Kahoot!
Kahoot!’s online game quizzes gained popularity with students and teachers during the pandemic. Kids can access countless games from Kahoot!’s library or they can even make their own game.
Teachers can also distribute Kahoot! challenges to students for learning outside of the classroom. Kahoot! challenges integrate with Google Classroom and make it easy to track missed questions and scores to help determine where students may need more help.
19. Slack
Slack puts organization and communication together into one platform. It’s easy for teachers to file course content related to individual topics, connect with students one-on-one or in groups, and send out relevant class material. Slack helps students get involved and remain engaged during online learning.
20. Habyts
A mom who understands what it means to limit the time kids spend on social media created Habyts. This platform puts teachers in control of screen time, ensuring kids stay motivated and focused.
Habyts helps teachers and parents curb excessive screen time while promoting fun activities and learning for kids.
How to monitor student performance effectively in distance learning
When students are learning online, it can be tricky to find meaningful ways to oversee student progress. The good news is that most online software tools allow teachers to track and measure student responses.
Here are three constructive ways to assess and supervise student performance:
- Keep the lines of communication open. Unlike traditional school settings where students can talk with teachers in person, online contact is necessary to keep kids motivated to hand in assignments on time and stay on track. As well, holding daily office hours with email, phone and chat capabilities can help prevent kids from falling behind in their studies.
- Curriculum-based testing. Teachers may find curriculum-based testing is a good way to ensure students can apply what they’ve learned. Frequent evaluations help teachers determine where students struggle with lessons and make plans for addressing unfinished learning. Formative assessments such as quizzes, short evaluations, and conversations with students can help them correct mistakes.
- Set up learning targets. Learning targets help students to reach specific goals in each lesson. For instance, if a student struggles with subject-verb agreement, teachers may consider breaking down lessons into smaller targets to make it easier for the student to to apply proper grammar to their writing.
Conclusion
If you’re a student, a professional, or a hobbyist, you want to be able to learn new things to make your better at what you do. But learning a subject from scratch can be challenging. You have to take it slow or else you don’t retain the information. So, if you’re committed to learning something new this year, here are some of the best online learning tools that I use.