Teaching online is not an easy task. It demands a lot of hard work and you need to be technically proficient in many areas. There are several online teaching platforms for teachers available for free which can drastically improve your productivity and ability to concentrate on the job.
Have you heard about online teaching platform for educators? They are very popular among the teachers because they offer so many different benefits. I’m sure you did, that’s why you’re here. This post will help you to understand what is it, how they work and where to find free online teaching platforms for teachers free.
RCampus
One of several online learning platforms, RCampus can be used to create courses, student assignments, keep grades, hold class discussions, and post many types of educational content such as videos, links, images, etc. It can also be used as an ePortfolio management system in which both students and faculty can “build multiple, fully-functional presentation portfolios for demonstrating their skills and knowledge or for career development”.
Learnopia
This free online learning platform enables instructors to design and offer courses consisting of a combination of videos, audio files, PowerPoint presentations, and documents such as PDF files, as well as tests consisting of multiple choice questions. Instructors can choose to make their courses freely available or charge a fee for them. Learnopia takes a percentage of all for-fee courses.
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.
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:
Want to learn about online teaching platforms for teachers? If you’re like me, you’re probably a teacher who thinks his profession will last forever. Then, one day, you realize all the people you grew up with have moved on from their teaching career and it dawns on your that now you’re getting old! You start thinking how boring it is to just teach in an ordinary classroom and how you really want to do something more challenging. In fact, if you’ve been teaching for a long time, it might be time to think about giving online teaching a try.