What is the best online platform for online teaching? That depends on what type of courses you need to offer and who your students are. As many of us have realized, the number of available online course something big market. This is great because it offers us all more options, but can be overwhelming at the same time. The key is to narrow down which online learning platforms are best for your needs, as an educational professional and future student. Let me help you by telling you about some of my favorite online learning platforms for teachers, students and universities.
Are you interested in learning about an online platform for online teaching? Online teaching platforms are available for teachers to use and for students. When you choose an online platform for online teaching, you want to choose one that offers a lot of features and is beneficial to both the student and the teacher.
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.
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.
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.
Kahoot
Kahoot is a game-based learning platform that lets you create fun learning games. You can make quizzes on any topic and in any language, and customize those quizzes with videos, diagrams, and images. Students participate in “kahoots” (games) by logging the game codes on their device or application.
Podia
Best All-In-One Online Course Platform for Webinars, Downloads, and Memberships ($39/month)
Podia is an all-in-one online course platform with over 50,000 members that is great for digital downloads, webinars, and memberships.
Its main types of courses include:
- Standalone courses that include images, video and audio files, MP3x, PDFs, quizzes, and more.
- Pre-sell your course by taking payments before launch.
- Cohort-based courses with a future start date.
- Drip courses deliver your course in a section-by-section format.
- The ability to add coupons and memberships.
They truly excel with their membership options. You can grow your own online community by interacting with members, bundling products for specific groups, offering tiered plans, and connecting with Facebook Groups and Slack.
Podia also acts as a webinar platform to host either live or on-demand webinars.
Another awesome feature is the ability to run your own affiliate program inside of Podia. You can view all of your affiliates in one place, view helpful reporting, and make payouts based on your own customized commission structure.
There is 24/7 support, no transaction fees, and a simple three-step process to get your course website up quickly.
Although they don’t charge fees, their payment processors have transaction fees of 2.9% + 30¢.
Pricing:
- Mover ($39/month) – Unlimited everything, zero transaction fees, sell courses, digital downloads, and 5k emails sent per month.
- Shaker ($79/month) – Everything in Mover, plus the ability to create membership communities, add affiliates, and 15k emails sent per month.
- Earthquaker ($179/month) – Everything in Shaker, plus dedicated account manager, personalized onboarding, and 50k emails sent per month.
Overall, if you’re looking for strong membership functionality and the ability to increase your sales with the help of affiliates, Podia is a unique and worthwhile course builder to try out.
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.
WeTransfer
The answer to your prayers. Transfer large files easily to colleagues and keep your ideas moving. It’s free and does not even require you to create an account. Just upload files, enter the recipient’s email and you’re away.
Canva
A brilliant, free graphic design tool you can use to create educational visuals and infographics for the classroom. It couldn’t be more intuitive and is loved by both beginners and experts alike. We guarantee you’ll be hooked.
Zoom
Zoom is probably the most popular online software in the market for holding meetings, classes and online get-togethers, especially since the start of the pandemic.
Zoom offers the following to their users:
- Chat function to
- chat with your whole class or individual students
- Breakout rooms to separate students into groups for discussions
- Share screen function to share your screen or allow students to share their screen
- A built-in whiteboard with text and drawing features to share with your students.
The free version allows up to 100 participants, unlimited one-on-one meetings but a limit of only 40 minutes for group meetings.
Zoom is a great option for teachers who need a platform to teach their students since this app is used worldwide and most people are comfortable and familiar with its functions.
EdApp
EdApp’s new public microlearning courseware platform Educate All is free for teachers, students and anyone else on the planet who has a desire to learn. Together with UNITAR, EdApp is redefining what we mean by ‘team micro teaching’ by creating a true global village of educators.
EdApp’s authoring tool is an excellent way to effectively educate your learners with vital knowledge and skills. EdApp’s content library is populated with course topics ranging from addressing global challenges, leadership and entrepreneurship to hospitality and physical exercise. Powerful learner metrics are available for learner assessment, and EdApp’s Brain Boost spaced repetition feature is next to none. You can access EdApp’s mobile-based LMS for free!
Seesaw
Seesaw is a digital portfolio app that captures student work through the use of photos, videos, and audio. This free teacher tool enables students to showcase their work and collaborate with their peers. Using the Seesaw blog platform, students gain an authentic sense of authorship and are able to share ideas and feedback constructively in a safe teacher-moderated space.
The app is also a fantastic way of enhancing parent-school engagement (which we all know is a key factor in positive student outcomes), as they are able to sign in with QR codes. The reflective opportunities Seesaw provides is my favourite feature. By getting students to reflect on teacher feedback, it completes the learning loop—essentially promoting ‘feeding forward’ rather than feedback as an effective learning model.
Baamboozle
This is another free online game site. Its main advantage is that it’s set up so that students can play online in teams, but they don’t have to go into different breakout rooms. In other words, students can select a question to answer and talk among themselves in front of others to determine the correct answer (other students are waiting for their turn to choose another question). If that explanation is a bit confusing, it will be very clear once you go to the site itself.
Quizizz
This is a free online learning game site that is incredibly easy to use, has zillions of already-made games on just about every topic that are fun activities for reinforcement and formative assessment, and has recently added a simplified Nearpod-like feature (for those of you familiar with that popular tool) called student-paced “Lessons.” My students love playing Quizizz games in teams divided into separate Zoom breakout rooms. Unlike other game sites, students can see the question and the possible answers on the same screen and don’t have to split them into two.
Math Learning Center
This virtual manipulative website is a staple in mathematics classrooms where students interact with familiar manipulatives such as base 10 blocks. Teachers can customize the site by creating problems, saving templates, and sharing private links with students. The best part is that the tools encourage flexible thinking as students explore multiple ways to model their understanding.
Conclusion:
If you have been planning to learn anything online, you should first think about the platform where you will be learning. Your choice of learning platform can play a very important part in the success of your learning. Today, there are many platforms for educational purposes. However, with so many choices it may be hard to make the right decision on which one is best for you.