Online tools and resources greatly support teachers in and out of the classrooms and make it easier for them to instruct students, collaborate with them, their parents and with the broader teaching and learning community. Online tools help teachers to stay
organized, save them time and effort and improve their entire teaching experience. There are so many tools that are designed to aid teachers in their teaching and to ease out the process for them. The already existing tools are being constantly improved and many others keep on coming up to serve a variety of needs and purposes of teachers.
There are a number of tools that are being increasingly adopted by a large number of teachers and as a result, have become very popular among them. Teachers can depend a great deal on these tools to support their teaching while adhering to their teaching styles.
Here’s a compilation of 10 most popular tools among teachers:
Edmodo : Helps teachers and students collaborate and connect with each other as well as with the resources. It provides teachers with tools that bring classrooms to life, provides insights into student performance and educational apps to augment classroom learning. Teachers can carry classroom discussions online, create polls for students and award badges to them based on performance. Teachers become a part of a connected network of students, parents, other teachers and administrators and access world’s best resources and tools for high quality education. Free Report Available here.
Socrative : Is a smart student-response system that enables teachers to engage their classrooms through a variety of educational exercises and games via. smartphones, tablets and laptops. It is very easy to use and using it teachers can setup their classes in minutes and load them quickly. It can be used on all Web enabled devices and engages all students of a class very fast. Overall, Socrative enhances classroom engagement, assessment and personalization.
YouTube : Provides thousands of high-quality educational videos created by leading experts and organizations covering a wide range of topics. Teachers can leverage videos to educate, engage and inspire their students. They can find tips and tricks and a number of curated video playlists that are aligned to Common Core. Using it they can flip their classrooms, be more available for their students, establish global connections, customize videos, create open-ended videos quizzes and more.
Skype : Is one of the most popular video-conferencing tools that teachers can use to collaborate with the students of their class or of other classes, no matter where they are. They can find guest speakers and invite them to their class and can take a virtual field trip anywhere in the world. They can use it to provide after school help to students who need extra attention, and also for their own professional development by connecting to educators around the world and sharing their experiences. You may want to keep this list of Dos and Don’ts in your mind for using Skype in your classrooms. Here’s a great short guide including tips from educators on using Skype in Classroom.
Twitter : Is a micro-blogging, social media tool which is a great source of professional development and collaboration for teachers to add to their personal learning networks. Teachers can use Twitter to make announcements, give and receive instant feedback, ask/answer questions, collaborate with educators around the world. They can also enable discussions outside the classroom, keep parents informed, set up polls, and communal hashtags for students and professionals alike to use and exchange their views and lessons.
Google Apps : Are a suite of apps and tools offered by Google. With tools like Google Drive and Hangouts, teachers can collaborate, communicate and share knowledge with others. Google has a special section called, Google Apps for Education, where it provides educators with diverse services to use in their classrooms. Teachers can use these apps to collaborate on lesson plans and projects, find templates they can use to deliver lessons and more.
Evernote : Is a great tool for teachers to record notes, organize lesson plans, collaborate on projects, save photos of whiteboards and more. Everything added on an account is automatically synced and made available on all devices that are used. Teachers can also create lists and add checkboxes to them, so they can tick them off to stay on task. They can clip webpages using its web-clipper and add any type of file to access from anywhere. Free Report Available here.
Class Dojo : Is a classroom tool that helps teachers improve behavior in the classrooms quickly and easily. It generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators. Teachers can award feedback points for class behavior in real-time and keep students engaged with instant notifications. It also improves communication between teachers and parents with timely progress reports of their students.
Dropbox : Is a free online storage service that makes it easy to synchronize and share files anywhere. Teachers can use Dropbox to share files with students or other teachers, they can make students submit their work on iPad and then send it to Dropbox, students can also take notes on their iPad which are automatically saved to Dropbox, teachers can share a folder with every student and provide individualized feedback, and can keep lesson plans organized on it.
WordPress : Is a Web software using which teachers can create beautiful websites or blogs. This allows teachers to integrate course content into their personal website to enhance student learning. Teachers can also add videos to their sites. It is a Content Management System (CMS) that allows teachers to take full control of their blogs or websites.
I encourage teachers to use these highly reliable and credible tools to enhance their teaching and provide their students with better learning experiences. If you know other popular tools for teachers, do share with us. The Comment Box awaits you.
