Photo by: the girl who owns the world
Various studies have shown that by making lessons more technology based and interactive, teachers can increase their pupils’ level of engagement with any given subject. Teachers can also utilize online applications to help them plan and organize their day to day tasks.
However, with the teaching tools market rapidly expanding and new apps and updates becoming available every day, it can be difficult for the tech-savvy teacher to keep up with it all and find quality online tools that actually make their jobs easier and their lessons more interactive.
So here is a list of seven educational online tools that are quickly becoming popular amongst educators worldwide.
1) Evernote
Evernote is a very popular app that can come in very handy for pretty much anyone who needs to organize files and collate ideas. But for teachers especially, using Evernote can transform your teaching schedule, allowing you to cut corners you never thought were possible. For example, with your smart tablet you can take a picture of your whiteboard filled with notes, and Evernote will convert the handwriting into searchable text that you can save for later or share. You can also organize files, videos, pictures and capture web pages and put them onto one page – ideal for use in research based projects.
2) Planboard
Planboard is a free online tool that helps teachers streamline their planning by allowing them to keep track of their schedules, manage pupil assessments and grades, all in one place, generating lesson plans quickly and easily. For example, if lesson plans are used year on year, Planboard can replicate them easily. It will also allow you to set up templates that can remove the repetition of lesson planning entirely.
3) Book Creator
Book Creator allows teachers and students to make their own ebooks, within a delightfully engaging and intuitive interface. Teachers and students can then share their finished booklets using either email messaging or they can choose to publish their creations in the iBookstore. All ebooks made using Book Creator are also published to ePub standards, meaning that the text will stay readable, regardless of future updates.
4) Quizlet
Quizlet is an app that helps teachers create a range of learning and revision materials including flashcards, mini tests and interactive games that can make studying for an exam engaging and interactive. You can also view Quizlet materials made by other teachers and share them with your own class- making the lessons leading up to exams a breeze.
5) Audioboo
Audioboo records audio and helps teachers record and share comments and presentations made by their pupils. In the classroom setting, recording audio and hearing it played back can improve the oral presentation skills of students, as well as make for an engaging and fun lesson if all of the clips are edited together and shared to a wider audience.
6) Capzles
Capzles makes it easy to gather different types of media including, videos, audio, web pages, and documents and so on, and it can display them all as one attractive, timeline. This tool is perfect for teachers who want to make multimedia presentations, which look great and require a minimal amount of fuss to put together.
7) Classroom Carrots
With Classroom Carrots teachers can set up and manage pupil reward systems effortlessly. Younger pupils will appreciate the attractive features and fun reward system, which mixes both electronic ‘tokens’ with physical, printed rewards. The reporting feature also enables teachers to share their pupils’ progress and behaviour with their parents and other teachers.
So there you have seven great online tools that will cut down on planning time and help make lessons interactive and engaging for pupils too!
If you have any other app recommendations for educators, please leave them in comments below.
Louise Blake is a mummy blogger from Bath where she lives with her husband and baby son. She’s interested in education and what motivates pupils.
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