I’m a firm believer in providing free tools and advice—if you need help crafting blog posts, improving your online presence, or building traffic to your website, send me an email. But many of my colleagues are running their own online courses. I was fortunate enough to chat with several of them about the tools they use to teach their courses, and I rounded up their responses in this post.
If at any point you’ve taught a class and felt the need to implement technology, you know how many resources exist and where to find them. You can do all class preparation, communication, testing, grading, lessons, assessments, lessons again, grades again, more grading…in your head, but it can be tiring.
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.
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.
Teacheroo, the online teacher community
Teacheroo is a dedicated, friendly space for teachers everywhere to connect, share ideas and browse 1000s of free resources. Share posts, blog and stream live video from your Teacheroo profile. Search, follow and chat with like-minded educators, join groups, and get tailored news, tips and insights straight to your feed.
Create an account and prepare to be inspired. From epic lesson plans to clever classroom design, Pinterest is the place to be. Create your own boards to collate all your ideas in one place and share your best boards with your students.
Pixlr
Pixlr is an online photo editing tool that allows you to design, create and edit your photos and images easily. Right now, Pixlr for Education is offering an upgraded version of Pixlr for free, for teachers and educators.
Loop
Ask your students anything in under 30 seconds on Loop’s easy student feedback app and website. Free for teachers and students.
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.
Edmodo
No teacher is an island – join Edmodo’s global education network and connect with your fellow teachers and students now. Collaborate in groups, administer and provide educational materials, measure student performance and communicate with parents to create a more personalised and enriching learning experience for both you and your students.
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.
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.
Free resources to boost engagement in your online lessons
There are tons of free resources online that will help boost the excitement in your online lessons.
However, the majority of content out there are in the form of PDF worksheets, text-heavy documents and websites built on outdated javascript and HTML.
If you are looking for powerful and interactive resources that let you build lessons that students will love, then look no further than Boom Cards and Nearpod.
Boom Cards
Boom Cards are self-checking interactive activities that give students real-time feedback on their responses.
Here’s how they work:
- You create the Boom Cards in advance or use pre-created decks from other teachers
- You use the fast play option (for free) and get a link to send to students
- Your students are shown one question at a time and given real-time feedback on their answer
- They can correct themselves or simply discard the card
- You can also differentiate instruction with Boom Cards and assign certain cards to certain students
You can only use the fast play option with the free version and you will not be able to track progress but you can upgrade at any time under different price packages.
I love the idea of Boom Cards for a creative way to assess students where they won’t even realize they are learning!
Nearpod
Nearpod allows teachers to make any lesson interactive. Take those boring worksheets and make them fun and engaging.
Or, pull in videos and other interactive content into your Nearpod lesson.
Let’s check out how it works:
- Jump over to Nearpod and create a free account.
- Browse Nearpod’s thousands of lessons in the Nearpod Library or create your own.
- Once you create your own lesson you just add slides like you would in any presentation software.
- The difference is that instead of just adding text or images (which you still can), nearpod has lots of other fun options like quizzes, polls, and games to make it fun.
- You give your students a code to enter and then you are ready to go!
The difference between Nearpod’s free and paid version is the amount of storage you get and the number of students that can join at one time.
Free tools to stay organized and productive
If you are a teacher struggling to stay organized with your students and the many tasks that go into teaching then look no further than apps like Asana and Trello.
Secret: my favorite is Asana!
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.
Trello
Trello is another online productivity app that works similar to Asana but has some differences.
Trello is a collaboration tool that lets you organize your projects into boards.
It can tell you what’s being worked on and where your tasks are in terms of the completion process.
Of course, it also lets you add to-do lists, tasks and other similar features to Asana.
Best online assessment tools
Quizlet
Quizlet is a free tool that helps teachers create learning activities for students, like flashcards, study material and interactive quiz games.
The amazing thing about Quizlet is that it can really be used at any grade level and any age! Students love the game-based feature of Quizlet and you are helping them get prepared for assessments without even realizing it.
So, let’s take a look at how it works:
- You, as the teacher, create study sets for your students.
- These study sets can be used as review activities or it can be a quiz game to help students review for a test.
- The student can log in and choose the appropriate study set, either created by the teacher or by others.
That’s it! It’s that easy.
In my opinion, Quizlet is great for students because it allows the teacher to:
- Differentiate instruction with the activities that you create
- Teach collaborative skills because students are working together
- Help prepare students for assessments and tests
Quizlet, while is a great free tool for teachers, does have limitations and should be used as one resource in your classroom among the many others that you have access to.
Kahoot
Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes it really simple for teachers to create and share learning games or quizzes in a matter of minutes with their students.
Once you create a Kahoot quiz or game, you share a simple access code that lets students log on and join the game.
Teachers can create their own assessment games or use premade lessons from other teachers in the Kahoot library.
Here are the steps to making the magic happen in your virtual or online classroom:
- Create – you can design your own kahoot with images and diagrams to make your questions more engaging and to support all learners who are playing
- Play – Once the kahoot is created, teachers share the unique PIN with their students who can join on their own device wherever they are located. It is best played live in a group setting either in a classroom or a virtual classroom. However, teachers can also send challenges that players complete at their own pace (ie: homework or remote learning)
- Share – Kahoots can be shared with the broader Kahoot community which lets others access your Kahoots
Conclusion
Online teaching can come with a lot of challenges. From communicating with students to actually delivering the lectures, there are many ways it can be difficult. First, you’ll need to create your online teaching platform, essentially creating your own online classroom. Although this can be time consuming and even costly, there are several free options available.