Online teaching aids software might sound bizarre, but there are a lot of great online teaching tools out there. If you’re looking for more effective ways to teach your students, then you’re going to want to check out these options. The good news is that you won’t have to spend lots of money on expensive hardware either.
You may have heard of online teaching aids software, but what exactly is online teaching aids software? Using online tools to help your students is a great idea, especially if you want to develop and enhance their learning abilities. But what is online teaching aids software? It’s an interesting concept that has become more popular today than it was in the past.
Teachable
Teachable is one of the world’s leaders and the biggest platform worldwide for placing your courses online as a trainer, for users to study in their own time and at their own pace.
Teachable also provides a very clean and stylish online school for you. Furthermore, it is very user-friendly and offers very affordable plans that accommodate all trainers and teachers looking to add their courses online.
On Teachable, you:
- Create your school
- Add your content by uploading videos, text, images or whatever content you want to add and include in your lessons
- You set the pricing of your courses and design your sales page/s (inside teachable)
Here at Symonds Training, we ourselves use Teachable for our ‘Train the Trainer Online Course’ and for our sister site’s Blogging for Beginners online course.
Google Hangouts (for Teachers)
Google Hangouts is another video conferencing service that is also great for those of you looking to provide live classes and lessons online. With hangouts you can:
- Share screens and files
- Chat
- Use a shares hangout space to collaborate
You will need to have a Google account, so if you already use Gmail you will already have a Google account that you can use for Google Hangouts. The short intro video below gives you a flavor of hangouts and how you can use it as an online trainer or teacher.
MS Teams
If you are a fan of Microsoft and already use their software such as Microsoft 365, then you will very likely love their online collaboration software.
I’ve used Microsoft Teams and it is always easy even for those people not used to working and collaborating online. I prefer ‘Zoom’ for teaching online in all honesty but for team meetings and office chats, this is as good as any option (although not the cheapest).
Skype Video
a) For Freelance Trainers and Individuals Teaching Online
Skype video has traditionally been very popular for video calls to family and friends but Skype is also increasingly being used by businesses these days and it is an excellent option if you are looking to provide both teaching and training online. Skype also, by the way, integrates nicely with Microsoft teams (see below).
As an individual offering corporate training online (i.e. if you are self-employed), you can use the personal version of Skype and this is an incredibly easy and cheap way to offer online classes and lessons 1-to-1. It’s also a great tool for researchers such as those doing Skype interviews for Masters and PhD research.
On Skype, you can easily share your screen with the people or person you are chatting with by clicking the overlapping boxes at the bottom of the interface. You will see these boxes when you are in a video call with someone (see image above).
b) For Company Training Online (and Co-working Space Online)
Skype is also excellent for Groups!
In addition to being an excellent option for team meetings and online co-working space, you can use Skype Groups for teaching and training employees and staff from afar.
Wherever in the world you physically are, you can provide external or in-house training online, for up to 50 people at a time.
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.
Zoom
for synchronous video lessons
COVID-19 has made Zoom a household name. But in addition to using Zoom to video call your family, it’s a useful tool for no-frills virtual classrooms and department meetings. Its free version far outstrips Google Hangouts and Skype in terms of participant size—allowing you to host up to 100 participants at once. It also lets you create several breakout rooms, share screens and use group chat for smaller discussions during a lesson. You can easily record calls too—useful for self-critique as you iterate your online teaching methods, and for sharing meetings with colleagues who couldn’t attend.
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.
CourseCraft
At CourseCraft, you can easily put together online courses and manage them without any hassles. The best thing about this online learning platform is its simple and flexible editor, which functions like your standard word processing program. Just type in your training module, upload images and videos, attach downloadable files, and you’re all set. You can even add some forms, quizzes, and surveys if you want to engage your learners and get some insights directly from them.
There’s no limit as to how many lessons you want to upload and share with your learners—this online teaching platform has you covered.
- Cost: Free and paid plans
- Key Features: Simple and flexible course editor, forms, quizzes, and surveys
Socrative
If you’re interested in teaching whole classes online, or if you want a way to get instant feedback from your students, then Socrative may be useful to you. It is a tool which allows teachers to set real-time questions for their students to answer, and then aggregates and visualises the results. So you can get quick feedback, perform a quiz, or poll the opinions of your students. This allows teachers to see the level of knowledge and understanding of the whole class, and tailor their teaching accordingly. It also keeps students feeling involved and interested, as they take an interactive part in the class. It is available as an app or browser-based, so it can be used as long as your students have access to a computer of some form.
LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) is another online course marketplace tailored to business professionals. With over 1,000 business courses on topics like project management, web development, and digital marketing, they’re an excellent platform for working professionals looking to keep their skills up-to-date.
They also offer certifications that you can add to your LinkedIn profile, showcasing your expertise and improving your online resume.
What does LinkedIn Learning cost?
Monthly fees tie to a premium LinkedIn membership, which is $29.99/month or $24.00/month if you pay annually.
Conclusion:
Teaching is tough! Many people who are passionate about a subject find themselves teaching others, whether they like it or not. I fall into the latter category — I have to teach mathematics because my students need to understand it! Fortunately, technology utopia we live in grants me the privilege of speaking and writing online. In fact, teaching online seems like an oft-forgotten gift.