By Jessica Sanders
Educational technology is quickly becoming a normal part of classrooms around the world, bringing the demand for more tools to an all-time high.
Because of this, whether you use technology to organize your lesson plans, manage grades and attendance or engage every student in class, there’s a tool for you.
However, finding the best ones can be time consuming, not to mention some of the most popular tools are expensive to use, so we did the work for you. Here are 16 little-known tools that every teacher can use to make their life easier and their lessons more fun—and almost all of them are free.
LiveBinder
Use: Organization
Top benefit: Collect and organize resources into one easily accessible, online binder. Create and share various sections for substitute teachers, students, parents and yourself.
MyAT
Use: Organization
Top benefit: Customize attendance tracking for as many students and classes as you want.
Google Cultural Institute
Use: Lessons
Top benefit: Bring amazing museum exhibits and collections into your own classroom. Use World War II Looted Art: Turning History into Justice to enhance your classroom discussions about this period of time in the world’s history.
Visme
Use: Engagement
Top benefit: Students can explore their own creative talents in a digital format, creating Infographics and online presentations.
Whooo’s Reading
Use: Engagement and data
Top benefit: Kids get excited about reading, while you get an overview of their reading progress via Lexile Scores.
EDpuzzle
Use: Engagement
Top benefit: Cut videos—from YouTube or your own—down to focus on the important topics, and then add questions for them to answer at certain points in the video.
Loilo Note
Use: Engagement
Top benefit: Students take notes in a variety of formats, including text, image and video, and then connect their notes, called “Cards,” in the same way you would the topics of a mind map, allowing them to make connections with complex topics and lessons.
Quipper
Use: Engagement and data
Top benefit: Create and send assignments in one platform. When students start answering, you see real-time data on how they’re performing.
ProcessOn
Use: Information sharing
Top benefit: Easily build charts online to help students better understand a complex lesson or topic. Create a group for your classroom and share your charts with students within the ProcessOn platform.
Easy Attendance
Use: Organization
Top benefit: Collect attendance information and access glance-and-go data reports at any point in the year—think: parent-teacher conferences or mid-term reviews.
Smart Seat App
Use: Organization and engagement
Top benefit: Use the random student selector, a feature that highlights one student in your seating chart, for class discussions. Once you’ve called on that student, he or she will not come up again, so you can be sure to engage everyone in class.
EdShelf
Use: Professional development
Top benefit: Create a “shelf” and drag and drop the apps you want to use or learn about onto your shelf. You can create multiple shelves, organizing apps by lesson, subject or class.
Paperback Swap
Use: Classroom resources
Top benefit: Save money by filling your classroom library with used books, found on Paperback Swap. There are currently more than 850 members and more than 4 million books available for swapping.
Track Class
Use: Student organization
Top benefit: Students can see their assignments and exam schedule at a glance with the calendar feature, making it easier for them to plan homework and studying time.
Today’s Meet
Use: Engagement
Top benefit: Students can have constructive conversations in your digital classroom while a lesson or presentation is happening. Leave the room “open” for as long as you want to encourage further discussion outside of class.
Classloom
Use: Communication
Top benefit: Share homework and important documents directly with parents, who you can place into classroom-specific groups for easier sharing.
Pingback: 16 Little-Known Teacher Tools | teaching knowledge and creativity
Pingback: OTR Links 07/05/2015 | doug — off the record
Pingback: 16 Little-Known Teacher Tools | Learn2Earn Blog | Instructional Know-How