Ever since the COVID0-19 outbreak came about, both students and their concerned parents resort to online teaching via virtual classrooms. To get the best result from online learning, students, teachers and parents need to know the best tools for online teaching. This post is the best place to get all your answers. Follow closely!
To meet the current demand, several top high schools and college teachers take part in online teaching sites. They aim to help respective students in lesson planning. Plus, these teachers can even create a formative assessment of each of their performance over the course of their time.
Importance of Online Learning
Online classes help eliminate the wastage of time, like spending valuable time travelling or making appointments. It offers teachers and students to interact with each other in real-time and take part in engaging and productive online learning at their mutually agreeable time of convenience.
However, While There Are Lots Of Perks In Online Learning- The Biggest One Being Student Engagement, it Also Doesn’t Come Without Its Challenges!
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For Starters – Not all subjects or some of their respective topics transfer well from the teacher to their students online.
This is more so when dealing with the new student in a completely new platform. Establishing an emotional connection may well be challenging for online tutors, particularly for subjects such as science and mathematics, without the tutor actually being physically present in their students’ same room.
Another possibility is that your students’ attention may wander in the absence of an in-person supervisor. This is a very common occurrence in distance learning and something the respective teacher has to hold while educating their pupils.
Fortunately, Inconveniences As Such Can Be Easily Resolved…!
You heard it! When you scour through the web, you will find new software and intuitive tools for online teaching to get the task done properly. Plus, you will also find different approaches to teaching to arouse the interests among respective students.
What are the tools used in online teaching?
So, Without Delaying Any Further, Let’s Check Out 8 Off These Awesome Tools For Online Teaching.
VIDEO CHAT –
For personal and utterly engaging personal learning on a 1 to 1 basis, Video chat is one quality tool that reaps lots of perks. The 2 most popular ones are Skype and Google Hangouts.
They are both free, enabling unlimited use. They allow easy chatting, screen sharing, voice calling, and more.
Taking specifically about each of them –
- Skype also provides a premium plan for students to indulge in engaging group calling.
- As for Google Hangouts On-Air, it allows students to schedule group learning/interaction sessions beforehand easily. Respective students can record their interactions, notes, and lesson explanations to re-watch afterwards whenever they need to.
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So, it is safe to say that with video chatting and calling features present in both Skype and Google Hangouts On-Air, students will have no issues in making sense of every teaching session. And through them, students can get the best understanding on all their concerning subject topics without confusion or loss of concentration!
THE VIRTUAL WHITEBOARD APP –
The second in our list of top tools for online teaching is this Virtual Whiteboard app.
When we talk about whiteboard tools for teachers and students, you will find a lot of quality options at present over the web. And each of them is wonderful for grasping touch topics for subjects like science or mathematics. With these apps, teachers can simulate the real-like teaching experience for a single exercise, text, or even practice exam paper.
For your knowledge, some of the popular virtual whiteboard applications include as follows –
- Idroo – This whiteboard application includes features like a drag-and-drop option for including images to the educating canvas. It is also compatible with a host of mobile devices like Max, iOS, Windows, and Android.
- Groupboard – This whiteboard is another great tool for both students and teachers, respectively. It permits 5 users at one time for using its whiteboard features. Moreover, if you are a tad partial to using Google Hangouts, then this whiteboard presents a slick integration which easily set in it to your hangout sessions
- Bailboard – It is a free whiteboard application that allows students unlimited use. Teachers can also use this to conduct group sessions with up to 40 students at the same time. It is iOS compatible and allows students to browse and share weekly discussions and lesson planning through their iPad. Plus, students from all around the world can use this whenever they need to!
- Scribbler – This amazing whiteboard application empowers quality English tutoring due to persistent classrooms that let respective students fall back on previous sessions and stay on track of the curriculum from one week to another.
- WizIQ – it offers a full online learning platform that covers all important aspects off subject learning. What’s more, it also features learning management systems like Blackboard and Moodle!
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GOOGLE CLASSROOM –
Besides these two tools for online teaching, if you need a quality LMS – Learning Management System, then it is wise to opt for Google Classroom. Its intuitive and user-friendly nature will help you streamline your remote teaching endeavours.
You will also find the application syncing with other sites and Chrome extensions, apps, and Google docs.
The only thing you require is to create an online Google account. And once done, you as the teacher can check on your students’ assignments and curriculum progress.
Moreover….!
- You can dispatch reminders to your fellow students who are still not done with their assignments
- You can check and rectify your students’ writing work via using Google docs or slides in quick time
- Plus, you can also deliver personalized feedback via the comments section; grade Google form tests, exit tickets, and quizzes automatically
- And you can aptly facilitate online classroom discussions via using the Ask a question option
LOOM FOR RECORDING LESSONS –
Loom is another popular tool for screen recording. It happens to be a Chrome extension that saves your screen records as a link and not as a file. Using this app, you will easily be able to refer to your saved lessons whenever they want to.
Another thing about Loom is, ever since the COVID-19 outbreak, this app has rid itself of its recording limitations from its free version. This means that you can record lessons and even post as much as you want for your student’s needs.
That said, just to keep your options open, you can also try out the Screencast-o-Matic and Screencastify – which also happen to be Chrome extensions!
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HYPERDOCS –
Hyperdocs consists of different resource web links for resources, sites, and assignments. They prove useful for students as a scaffolded hub for resources or for their own-paced learning model.
The tool reduces the need and frustration on the students’ part to either wait or question their respective teachers on what you do for specific lesson topics. If you wish to know more about this wonderful tool(s) for online teaching, search the web for ready-to-use hyperdoc templates and their existing resources.
WEBQUEST –
Another smart online tool for student-centric learning is the WebQuest! Respective students have to find, recite and even amalgamate the info online as WebQuest is mainly an inquiry-based learning model.
Teachers can give specific links to their either structured or open-ended learning guide. Plus, they can test their students’ ability by posing crucial questions and watching how they gather accurate data by themselves.
To know more about this wonderful learning app, feel free to click!
FLIPGRID –
As a teacher who wishes to see their students’ faces every time while indulging in video calls or chats, then Flipgrid is the tool to go for. From the students’ point of view, it allows them to acquiesce short video responses and organize videos in the grid.
This tool is great for facilitating web interactions. Giving each of them a voice be it whenever they met an assignment proposal, share a presentation, and liver a book talk!
Podcasts –
At times, going through bulks of unending reading assignments can be unappreciative tedium. To prevent their students from going through this boring way of learning or gathering information, teachers can use podcasts to mix things up.
With the help of podcast tools, students can easily test out their literary skills whenever listening. The convenient aspect here is that both students and teachers can access podcasts using smart devices whenever and wherever!
Surmising!
There you have it! Names of some of the best tools for online teaching! Each of these tools is easy to use. They are highly interactive. Plus, they make studying online a lot easier and engaging during such uncertain times.
Interestingly, you will find the names of some of the tools quite familiar. But, if you were never sure about using them, then now probably would be the best time to use it for your educational learning.
The tools are also favoured by several top-teachers who use it daily to impart the necessary education to their respective students. And with the kind of success they’ve had during this pandemic situation, it most certainly will benefit you too for your online learning.
If you have any more questions about these online tools, then feel free to look them up on Google. Or you can also ask your concerned subject teacher about its usefulness in your online learning.