Learning online isn’t just for students, it’s for teachers too. There are so many innovative online teaching tools that can help make your life easier, but which ones are the best? My team and I have put together a comprehensive list of innovative online teaching tools that every teacher should know about. You’ll find all the best digital tools for students and also the best online teaching tool websites.
You’ve checked out our guide to online teaching tools for teachers. But there are also some online teaching tools for students. That’s right, there are digital tools that can help students study and learn at home, in a way that teachers find far more convenient than old-fashioned homework sheets. This is a great way of bringing the classroom to your students and supporting them remotely — as long as teachers use these digital tools in the right way.
Prezi
- suitable for students of all ages
- suitable for teachers
Prezi is a digital software for creating interactive presentations. According to their research, the innovative way in which Prezi helps you make presentations – by zooming, leads to more effective, more persuasive, more effective, and more engaging presentations compared to presentations made with PowerPoint. If you are still unaware of what you can do with the software, we strongly recommend that you check it out and present it to your students. Who knows, maybe this would be one of the digital tools for classroom that would help you keep the attention of the kids.
Google Classroom
This Google service allows teachers to organize their class, interact with students, grade their work, check on their progress, and much more. Because it’s available on smart devices and only requires a Google account, Google Classroom brings in a certain amount of flexibility to both teacher and students alike.
It works pretty simply; the teacher creates a class and invites students to join by sending them an invitation via Gmail. The students then join the class and they have instant access to all the materials that the teacher provides. Moreover, the teacher is able to create quizzes, assign essays, tests, even create a class calendar with important dates, so students could always stay updated, etc. The teacher has access to students’ ongoing work and has the ability to provide insightful feedback. In a word, this tool is a virtual classroom that’s always open.
Editing Services
Some students are talented writers and have no problem with creating any type of written content. However, not all of the students are the future Hemmingway and often struggle with essays and other written assignments. Editing services can help students with their term papers, book reviews, research papers, proofreading, etc. These types of online services allow students to take some of the load off, in case they have too much on their hands. Additionally, the proofreading feature allows students to learn from their mistakes and get better at spelling and grammar.
However, this tool is not only for those that are not gifted writers. International students can also achieve more and progress faster with the help of online editing services.
ClassMarker
This simple tool allows teachers to create an online test that is instantly graded, which can save them a whole lot of time and allow them to focus on more important issues. What’s really good about this tool is that it allows multimedia content, so teachers could add pictures or videos to the test sheet to make the whole experience even more attractive and interactive.
The teacher has the ability to create groups and give each group a separate test, but also has the option to create a single test and share a link to the test with the entire class via email. The students get the test results instantly, and all of the tests are stored in the teacher’s personal database, which is a great way to keep track of each student’s progress. Additionally, ClassMarker allows setting a time limit for each quiz and availability dates, which can help teachers in case they have a large number of students to pay attention to.
Edmodo
Another useful tool that not only makes the teaching experience easier but also helps integrate teachers, students, and parents in the learning process. Edmodo allows teachers to create groups, quizzes, assign papers, manage students’ progress, etc. It’s also possible to connect Edmodo with your Google or Microsoft account and transfer files from one service to another seamlessly.
This tool is a great way to keep parents up to date with future events, current grades, progress, etc. Since teachers can allow access to both students and parents, each user has a certain level of access to Edmodo content. This way parents will be able to see where they should jump in when it comes to helping their children achieve better results.
Talking about achieving more, Edmodo also allows teachers and students from all over the world to share knowledge and resources with each other. One of the features of this tool is the ability to share any type of content with other users and get access to materials that others decided to share.
Kahoot
Did anyone say that games are not educational? Kahoot is a learning tool that allows teachers and students to create fun games in order to test knowledge and engage the entire class. There is virtually no limit to the number of questions or their format; you could place videos, images, and even diagrams to each question to make the game more interesting.
This type of learning experience can really keep the whole class engaged, as each student joins the game via their smart devices while the results appear on a shared screen for everyone to see. Forming multiple teams can build a competitive atmosphere which students would enjoy. In addition, the online nature of Kahoot allows you to include even those students that are unable to attend the class, but are willing to participate in the game. Furthermore, teachers could assign homework using this tool, and have instant access to results.
iSpring Free
iSpring Free is an eLearning authoring tool that allows you to turn boring PowerPoint presentations into mobile-compatible online courses with quizzes. The main advantage of the tool is its simplicity. Its intuitive interface enables any novice course developer to create an unlimited number of courses quickly and easily.
Calendly
Stay in control of who you meet and when with Calendly, a free calendar booking app. Calendly integrates with your calendar so you are never double-booked – a miracle when teaching – and allows you to save time when booking in your parent-teacher appointments or meetings with colleagues.
Edpuzzle
With Edpuzzle, you can create interactive video lessons with embedded audio notes, assessments, and quizzes. Its analytics tool enables you to track how students are watching your videos and if they understand the content.
ClassDojo
A favourite among teachers, ClassDojo is a free school communication platform that teachers, students and parents can use every day to build close-knit communities by sharing what’s being learned in the classroom through home photos, videos and messages. Parents can track their child’s progress, and children can showcase their learning. There are also free class behaviour management tools system and lots of added features for teachers too. Check out this free beginner’s guide for teachers to learn what ClassDojo can do for you.
Starfall
Starfall is an online service that was initially designed to teach children to read. Its phonics-based learning model supports online games and print series, which can be downloaded for use at home and in the classroom. Now, it also features animated songs, movies, and mathematics activities for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and Grades 1 to 3.
Schoology
An award-winning learning management system, Schoology allows teachers to create a private social network for their students, parents and colleagues. Communicate with families and students, manage your classroom, collaborate with your colleagues, plus much more.
Asana
Asana is your personal teaching secretary all in one powerful app that gives you control over your tasks, projects and to-do lists.
Essentially, Asana is a productivity management solution for teams, individuals or anyone that needs more control over their tasks.
Teachers will enjoy Asana for a number of reasons.
Firstly, from a simple angle of gaining control over the multitude of to-do’s and projects that teachers need to manage, this app will do it all.
Some ways that teachers can use Asana in their teaching life can include:
- Creating lesson plan tasks with manageable subtasks that have deadlines
- Managing students’ information, progress and other important details
- Helping with teams of teachers to manage projects that need to be completed
- Create online lesson plans that allow teachers to see what parts of the lesson were and weren’t completed
This app is great for teachers in brick-and-mortar schools as well as online teachers who need to gain control over their schedule by focusing on what matters each day.
Additionally, if you are a teacherpreneur building your own online teaching business, Asana will be your go-to place to make sure that everything in your business is running smoothly.
With the free account, teachers will be able to create projects and tasks through a variety of different layouts.
Conclusion:
There is a great deal of available online teaching tools that can help with the educational process. These innovative online teaching tools allow teachers to teach students in ways that are innovative and engaging, and students to learn in ways that are unlike the traditional process. There is a great deal of variety of these innovative online teaching tools from making slide decks, doing interactive presentations, checking on student progress and overall understanding utilizing mobile devices and more.