A very common question among teachers is how can they be more effective with getting students to demonstrate their understanding of the subject. A teacher could ask a question and one or two students could raise their hands to respond to the question. But what about all of the other students who might know the answer but don’t feel confident enough to raise their hand? There are ways that teachers can use technology to help get these students practicing important skills.
A teacher could create an online interactive whiteboard that is completely free for teachers called mathvis. This online interactive whiteboard enables teachers to draw on it just like they would on a real whiteboard. Then, the teacher can do things like draw lines on it, use shapes, etc…
If you’re brainstorming, organizing, or communicating ideas, it doesn’t get much better than a classroom or office whiteboard. Tablets come close, though, and these great interactive whiteboard apps take advantage of touch controls, along with easy sharing and collaborating features to help teachers and students think, organize, and create everything from mind maps to lessons to presentations. If you’re looking for a great way to help students demonstrate understanding in any subject area, look no further than this list. 
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1. Coursera
Coursera is a website that partners with universities and organizations around the world. This brings a wide variety of topics and perspectives to one searchable database.
Coursera is a powerful tool for free online education and includes courses from many top universities, museums and trusts. This gives the site an extremely wide range of in-depth courses.
Coursera is extremely useful if you’re looking to study many different topics, or want courses from different schools and groups. However, the free courses are now quite limited, so you’ll have to
2. Khan Academy
Partnering with many post secondary schools, Khan Academy offers a useable, well-organized interface. Also curating many courses from around the web, Khan Academy offers impressive depth on many different subjects.
Among the more well-known educational sites, Khan Academy is also incredibly user-friendly, which may make it easier to keep learning goals. If you’re looking for a free online education, you can’t go wrong with Khan Academy.
3. Open Culture Online Courses
If you are struggling to find exactly the material you are looking for, try Open Culture’s listing of free online education courses. The page highlights 1000 lectures, videos, and podcasts from universities around the world.
The site features a lot of material found only on universities’ private sites, all in easy-to-browse categories. This means you can find hundreds of university courses without having to visit and search each university’s site.
Open Culture’s list features courses from England, Australia, Wales, and many state universities around the United States. It’s a very helpful resource for finding many courses in one area of study.
4. Udemy
Udemy’s free courses are similar in concept to Coursera’s but additionally allows users to build custom courses from lessons.
Working with many top professors and schools, the site mixes the customizable platform of other sites with a heavy emphasis on top-quality content. This is another site, however, that mixes free and paid content.
5. Lifehack Fast Track Class
Lifehack believes in skills that multiply your time, energy, and overall quality of life.
In this rapidly changing world, traditional education skills just don’t cut it anymore. You can’t afford to take years learning a skill you’ll never really practice. Besides offering some paid courses that will help you become a better self, it offers a list of free courses which aim to train some of the Core Life Multipliers including:
- How to stop procrastinating to reach your goal – Hack Your Procrastination
These are cross-functional skills that work across many aspects of life.
6. Academic Earth
Another site with courses from many different schools is Academic Earth. Much like the three sites above, Academic Earth brings together top notch courses from many different sources and focuses on offering a wide variety of subjects.
Academic Earth lists courses by subject and school, so it might be easier to find what you’re looking for.
7. edX
Another great option for free online education is edX. Also bringing together courses from many different schools, the site has impressive, quality information for everyone. edX covers a great range of topics from universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Berkeley, meaning a high-quality, free online education is entirely possible here.
8. Alison
Unlike the previous sites on this list, Alison is a free education site offering certification in some areas. Alison offers courses mainly in business, technology, and health, but also includes language learning courses.
It’s a great option if users need a professional certificate for their learning, as Alison also offers school curriculum courses.
9. iTunesU Free Courses
A very convenient place for free online education is iTunesU, because it integrates seamlessly with your iPod or any app-ready Apple mobile device. On an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, users download the iTunesU app.
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Desktop users can access iTunesU on the upper right hand corner of the iTunes Store. iTunesU is also convenient because the store is categorized much like iTunes.
Users can search learning materials in many different ways, including by genre and topic. However, courses are often a mix of free podcasts or videos and paid content.
iTunesU does include courses on a variety of topics, but it does not integrate with Android, Google or Windows mobile devices.
10. Stanford Online
Your hub for all the online offerings from Stanford University, Stanford Online offers self-paced and session-based courses. While Coursera features some courses from Stanford, many classes are only available via other hosts. Some courses require iTunes, but most are completed in your web browser.
Stanford Online is a great site for high-quality courses, though the topics are somewhat limited compared to sites partnered with more than one school. If you’re looking for free courses, make sure to mark the “free” option on the left-hand side.
11. Open Yale Courses
Open Yale Courses echoes Stanford Online, in that it offers only courses from Yale. While the site is similarly limited to topics taught at the school, Open Yale Courses offers a lot of videos of actual campus lectures. The availability of videos makes the site a great option if you’re looking for quality courses but learn better by watching than by reading.
12. UC Berkeley Class Central
Much like the other schools on this list, UC Berkeley has a variety of free online education options. The school has slightly fewer courses than the schools above, but it includes some supplementary lectures, webcasts, and RSS Feeds, making it easy to keep up with the topics you choose.
13. MIT OpenCourseWare
Similarly, MIT offers a variety of free courses. The school has a comparable number of courses to the schools above, and it includes very in-depth course materials on the subjects available. MIT also offers free RSS feeds, a convenient way to continue learning.
Drawp for School
Collaboration tool makes digital sharing easy
Bottom line: This handy tool encourages collaboration and creative expression, and it makes sharing assignments and giving feedback a snap for teachers.Grades: Pre-K–12 Price: Free to try Get it now See full review
Whiteboard.chat
Complex interactive whiteboard offers a full instructional experience
Bottom line: Impressive, unparalleled versatility makes this more of an instructional platform than a whiteboard, but it’ll require a lot of up-front work to get comfortable.Grades: K–12 Price: Free, Paid Visit website See full review
Educreations
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Bottom line: An easy, functional way to create presentations on the fly.Grades: 3–12 Price: Free Get it now See full review
Explain Everything Whiteboard
Powerhouse tool for creating stellar multimedia presentations
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Jamboard
Versatile whiteboard with fun features integrates with Google Suite
Bottom line: Great collaborative tool for groups, whether remote or in person.Grades: 4–12 Price: FreeGet it now See full review
Stormboard
Collaborate, brainstorm in real time with easy-to-use online whiteboard
Bottom line: A versatile, full-featured online brainstorming collaboration tool that can facilitate small-group projects.Grades: 5–12 Price: Free, Free to try, Paid Visit website See full review
Doceri Interactive Whiteboard
Interactive whiteboard app for designing and recording presentations
Bottom line: Teachers and students can spice up presentations and demonstrate processes and problem-solving skills with this well-designed tool.Grades: 6–12 Price: Free, Paid Get it now See full review
Conclusion
Teachers spend hours searching for free tools to use in the classroom, so leave it to us to create a free online whiteboard for teachers. We did all the work for you, so our online whiteboard is ready to go right out of the box.