Online Teaching Apps like Zoom can be used to package your online classes and trainings. Zoom is safe, easy, and effective. It is one of the most user-friendly online meeting and video conferencing software. This application has a cloud-based system and comes with a big list of features like: video conferencing tools, whiteboard feature, organization tools, voice and video clarity, cloud service and more.
Here are a good platforms too try.
Skillshare.
Skillshare is a large marketplace focused on creative education. Topics include anything from graphic design and music production to fine art and cooking.
They also have classes on more technical topics like data science, analytics, and e-commerce. Skillshare has more than 5 million users and has paid over $5 million to teachers.
Each class is 20-60 minutes broken down into shorter lessons, plus projects and a community discussion forum to connect with other students.
The open discussion is very beneficial for their creative topics, as students can share their progress and get feedback from others. They also can help premium members with production, course planning, and can even help with online course creation at their studio in New York.
What does Skillshare cost?
It is free for creating a premium course experience. They pay instructors $10 for paid membership referrals and monthly royalties for each minute of content watched.
Advantages
They have a large user base of creators and entrepreneurs. If you are offering content that would be suited for a creative audience, Skillshare is a great platform to get noticed.
Lessons on web design, building your email list, photography, painting, personal branding, and creative topics are the most popular.
The quality of the classes is reliable. They pride themselves on professional, high-quality courses. They can help with outlining your course based on the needs of their audience, and can also assist with production.
Disadvantages
Earnings run through a royalty system. Each month, between 30 and 50% of Skillshare’s premium subscription revenue goes to a royalty pool for teachers.
The remaining funds go to marketing and promoting classes, supporting the platform, and running day-to-day operations. This royalty system works for well established teachers, as the more minutes watched, the more revenue share you receive.
However, this makes it difficult for new instructors to receive much compensation when they’re just starting. Plus, students who watch at 2x speed only count as half the minutes toward the royalty pool.
Another disadvantage is they only offer email support. Although they have helpful support articles, the only option to contact them is via email.
Skillshare Review: Final Verdict
Skillshare is an up and coming online course marketplace with over 4 million students. With a large user base of creators and entrepreneurs, it is a great option for instructors in creative fields.
Their classes are all high quality, and they can help make sure that your class will best match the needs of their audience for maximum impact.
However, based on the royalty system for earnings, and no live support, you may be able to make a lot more sales with a marketplace. If you’re a creative course creator and want to reach a new audience, their online courses are worth a try.
Sign up with Skillshare and get 2 months of free classes.Try Skillshare
BigBlueButton
Description: Live whiteboards, presentation tool, chat, built-in polling, recording management, and other features for teachers.
Pricing: Ranging from $150/mo to $300/mo
AnyMeeting
Description: A simple, low-scale virtual meeting platform
Pricing: A free tier for 4 participants (which is an odd limit, no?) up to $12.99/mo for up to 30
Webex
Description: Cisco-owned Webex is a standard business platform that offers many of the traditional features for video streaming for online meetings, from video conferencing to larger, online events and team whiteboarding. This one may be a better fit for a school department or district event rather than teacher to student interactions.
Pricing: Free tier up to 100 participants; prices for paid plans range from $13.50 to $26.95/mo
Skype
Skype has been around since 2003, and it’s still among the most popular video chat tools that are available today.
Chances are pretty good that you’ve already used it to talk to family members or friends from around the world at some point.
It’s a good Zoom alternative for live class instructors who have a smaller group of students. While Skype allows for up to 50 people in a single call, it also limits you to only 250 people on your contact list at a time.
So if you have more than 250 customers, you may want to look at other platforms.
Otherwise, you’ll be constantly at your cap and needing to add or delete people.
As long as all of your students also download Skype, it’s completely free to connect with them to teach live online classes through the platform.
Skype is a great choice if you’re on a budget and just need a basic video presentation or lecture.
The platform offers HD video and crystal clear audio, as long as everyone in the call has a decent internet connection.
You can also use Skype’s instant messaging features to communicate with students between your live classes, hold group chats, and more.
If you just want the basics, then Skype is a great choice.
Although it won’t allow you to do any extras like screen sharing, recording your meetings, enable live captions or subtitles, or other options that are available in more advanced webinar software.
Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts is another free option that I think you should consider before looking at paid Webinar software.
Like Skype, Google Hangouts offers a free way to teach live online classes if you find yourself suddenly unable to teach in person. It might be the right choice for you if you prefer Google products.
Hangouts is available on mobile devices, tablets, and computers. So your students can video conference with you anywhere, even if they don’t have a PC at home.
Not only does it include the ability to instant message, call, or text your contacts. But it’s also easy to combine use of it with other Google products.
It’s easy for people to join your Google Hangout by simply clicking a link that you send out. Although they will need a personal Google account to be able to connect.
Most people already have a Gmail account, so this isn’t usually an issue. But it may exclude or inconvenience those who don’t.
Google Hangouts video conferences are limited to 10 participants at a time, including yourself. And there is a 150 user limit for your contact list.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbcrnI_TLy8
So much like Skype, it’s best suited for smaller businesses and more intimate live online classes.
But it’s a great place to start, and you can always move to another platform as your business grows if it no longer suits your needs.
GoTo Meeting
Description: A longtime business staple for virtual meetings, GoToMeeting offers screen sharing, conference calling, video conferencing, and mobile use as well. It also offers meeting transcription which could be useful for school meetings that require documentation.
Pricing: Ranging from $12/mo for 150 participants and $16 for 250 up to Enterprise pricing
Sococo
Description: A virtual meeting platform that integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, and Microsoft Teams
Pricing: Starting $13.49/mo for up to 49 ‘seats’
Microsoft Teams
Description: With Skype integration, Microsoft Teams is useful for online teaching. Like Slack, Trello, and other online team-based platforms, Microsoft Teams is far more of a ‘teaching platform’ (though it’s not designed expressly for teachers) than Zoom. It’s basically a kind of communication and resource hub that you can use to anchor your remote teaching–allowing you to consider using an alternative to Zoom that may have fewer features since you’ll be using Microsoft Teams to communicate, plan, share, and document, etc.
YouTube Streaming
Description: YouTube streaming is likely best for individual ‘learning channels’ that deliver consistent education-based content rather than a way for a teacher to host a classroom. That said, the latter is possible with a little planning if you already use and have extensive content on YouTube.
Pricing: Free
Whereby
Description: Browser-based video calling with screen recording, chat, screensharing, and more.
Pricing: Free for one user and one room; an available Pro account is $9.99/mo and offers one user three rooms while a business account offers multiple users and admins for up to ten rooms for $59.99/mo
FormsApp
This is another important app for teachers and educators that enable them to be productive with their teaching strategies. The app lets teachers to create google forms and edit on the go.
This is a great option for then to create different forms for course evaluation, student assessment, questions form, feedback form or conduct classroom surveys without sparing much time.
App Features
- Work on forms even offline
- Share forms and get response through notifications
- Draft your incomplete Google Forms
- View responses on the go
Rating: 4.3/5
Installs: 5,000,000+
Download: Android
Read Also : 15 Best Learning Apps For Kids 2021
Conclusion
There are a variety of online teaching apps like Zoom that can greatly help you build your business and start generating more leads. Let’s take a look at the virtual classroom solution that is currently considered one of the best video call software platforms.