It’s no secret that when people are having fun, they are more likely to learn. This is where online teaching tools can help! They can make things easier for you as the teacher, but also help you create lessons engaging, interactive, and interesting. This post contains 14 online teaching tools for teaching English and helping you manage your online English teaching classroom, and some of them just to gather content for your lessons.
Any of these online teaching tools can be used in your classroom whether it is online or face to face.
Must Have Online Teaching Tools
We’ve chosen these online teaching tools because they are easy to use, free or have a free trial or budget friendly and because they can help you with a range of activities in your online classroom such as:
- Creating online quizzes
- Giving online presentations
- Tracking student progress
- Managing your online class
Plus these online teaching tools help with:
- Creating an engaged online classroom
- Improving student outcomes
- Making you look professional to your students
Quizlet
Quizlet is a great online tool for creating interactive games and quizzes to help your students learn vocabulary, grammar, and concepts. It’s also great for review before tests and exams. Quizlet allows you to create your own games and quizzes or use ones that others have already created.
Vocabulary.com
Vocabulary.com is a great online resource for teaching vocabulary. It has a database of over 140,000 words and allows you to create custom lists of words for your students to learn. It also has games and quizzes to help students learn the words. This can be particularly useful for ESL students who are learning new vocabulary words.
Glogster
Glogster is an online tool that allows you to create interactive posters. These posters can be used to introduce a topic, present information, and/or create a visually appealing way to review information. Glogsters can also be used as a form of assessment by having students create their own poster.
Padlet
Padlet is a online tool that allows you to create a virtual bulletin board. This can be used to post information, links, and resources for your students. It’s also a great way to have students share ideas and thoughts on a particular topic.
Thinglink
Thinglink is a online tool that allows you to create interactive images. These images can be used to provide more engaging content for your students. You can add text, audio, video, and links to images to create an interactive experience for your students. Thinglink is great for making infographics and for visual learners.
Storyboard That
Storyboard That is online tool that allows you to create storyboards. These storyboards can be used to tell a story, show a process, or provide information in a visually appealing way which can be very useful when teaching English no matter what the niche is, whether for children or adults you can set your lessons apart from other teachers. Storyboard That also allows you to create comics which can be used for a variety of purposes such as telling a story, making a point, or reviewing information.
Canva
Canva is online design tool that can be used to create a variety of visual aids such as posters, infographics, and presentations. Canva is very user friendly and has a wide variety of templates that you can use to create your designs. You can also upload your own images and illustrations. You can create slides, branded assessments, e-books, lesson plans, Zoom backgrounds, the list is endless. Canva is particularly useful for those who want to limit the amount of tools they use just for the sake of cost or keeping things simple.
Voicethread
Voicethread is an online tool that allows you to create narrated slideshows. These slideshows can be used to present information, tell a story, or show a process. Voicethread is great for visual and auditory learners. And you could also use it to create lessons for courses so they get dual usage.
Animoto
Animoto is an online tool that allows you to create video slideshows. These videos can be used in class, online or to create a course. Animoto is great for those who want to create engaging content for their students. Animoto is great for visual and auditory learners.
Powtoon
Powtoon is an online tool that allows you to create animated videos, which could help create a very engaging learning environment for children whether online or in a classroom. You can use Powtoon to create video tutorials, product reviews, and more.
Storybird
Storybird is an online tool that allows you to create digital stories that can be used in the classroom or online. These stories can be used to teach a lesson or review information or whatever you can come up with. Storybird is great for visual and auditory learners.
Kahoot
Kahoot is another online quiz tool that is similar to Quizlet. It allows you to create your own quizzes or use ones that others have already created. It also has a library of over 50 million questions. Kahoot allows teachers to assess student learning in a fun and engaging way
Gimkit
Gimkit is an online quiz tool that allows you to create custom quizzes for your students. It also has a library of over 1 million questions. There are many different online quiz tools, so which one you choose may depend on what you are looking for and what your students need
Plickers
Plickers is an online assessment tool that allows you to assess student understanding without the need for paper or devices. Plickers is great for those who want to go paperless or for those who want a quick and easy way to assess student understanding.
Google Forms
Google Forms is a great online tool for creating surveys, polls, and quizzes. It’s also great for collecting data from your students. Google forms also allows you to create online forms for registration, sign-ups, and more.
Jotform
Jotform is an online form builder that allows you to create online forms for surveys, polls, quizzes, and more. Jotform is great for those who want to collect data from their students or give them quizzes, it will even mark them for you and email the responses.
Flipgrid
Flipgrid is an online video platform that allows you to create custom videos for your students. Students can watch the videos and then respond with their own video. This can be really handy for homework or speaking assessments.
EdPuzzle
EdPuzzle is an online tool that allows you to create interactive video lessons. You can add quizzes, questions, and comments to the video. EdPuzzle is really useful for those who want to create engaging and interactive video lessons for their students
SlideShare is an online platform that allows you to share presentations. It’s a great way to share your lesson plans with other teachers, especially if you are selling them. You can also use SlideShare to create online courses.
ClassDojo
ClassDojo is free online teaching platform that provides real-time student feedback from parents and teachers on how each child is doing throughout the day. Teachers can also keep attendance records and class behavior scores on file so that both parents and students are aware of what is going on in the classroom.
Skedula
Skedula is an online grading system that allows educators to monitor student progress and grades within their class or school without having to check grade books for hours at a time. Teachers can use this tool to access information on attendance records as well as assignments completed throughout each semester, allowing them to always know where each student stands academically. This is also useful for keeping track of students who qualify for gifted programs!
Nearpod
Nearpod is a single app that contains both virtual lessons (iPad only) and interactive quizzes created by teachers all over the world using tools such as Google Docs, Dropbox, and others. Educators use these digital presentations to teach students using slideshows that include embedded videos, images, links, and even social media posts.
Quizizz
Quizizz is a platform that transforms any website into an interactive learning game for students of all ages and abilities! Teachers can use this tool to create their own quizzes with unique questions, multiple choice options, and answer sheets that allow them to see how well each student is progressing as the lesson progresses. Ideal for quick tests or homework assignments!
Khan Academy
Khan Academy provides over 100,000 videos in 12 different subjects such as biology, chemistry, and calculus. Students are encouraged to watch these short videos online at any time and from any location so that they do not miss out on important information throughout their educational journey. This online teaching tool is particularly useful for English teachers who teach academic English or have students who require specific outcomes in their English lessons.
Nearpod Engage
Nearpod Engage is yet another online lesson platform where educators can create their own interactive lessons, quizzes, and presentations using tools such as Google Docs or Dropbox. This tool allows teachers to upload their own videos to the program so that students can watch them directly from Nearpod Engage on any device that is connected to the internet!
TED Ed
TED Ed provides hundreds of short educational videos on a variety of topics that can be accessed by both students and teachers for free 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These clips feature experts in each subject speaking about various topics while presenting interesting facts, analogies, and so on! Each video is only two to five minutes long, but it contains enough information for students to learn something new from each one and a great way to learn English.
Coursera
Coursera provides thousands of courses in a variety of subjects taught by world-class instructors. These lessons are available online, allowing students to attend class from any location with an internet connection! Coursera has created several career paths for their users to follow as they progress through the program, and they even offer certifications that show employers how well each student is progressing through the program. You can use this for yourself or for your students.
TED
TED is a platform where people with big ideas become speakers and share them with audiences all over the world in short 18-minute clips (TED Talks). Each presentation covers something new, interesting, or unique about topics such as science, technology, and so on, providing viewers with enough information to learn about these subjects without becoming bored at any point during the presentation!
This is a great online teaching tool to recommend to your more advanced students. To make things easy for yourself you could pick a few presentations and use them in rotation as homework for your students, and then in the next lesson you can ask them some set questions about the presentation to assess their understanding of the topic.
Duolingo
Duolingo a language learning app that teaches students a new language through interactive lessons, games, and quizzes. Users can choose between English and another foreign language, such as German or French, giving them something to do while learning the fundamentals of another language! The app has over 30 million registered users who speak 60 different languages in total, making it simple for anyone anywhere in the world who wants to learn more about these subjects to find what they need on this platform in minutes.
You might think you are doing yourself out of the job by recommending this online teaching tool to your students, but it may help them learn faster, and it’s fun, so it looks good for you!
Quora
Quora is a question and answer website where people can ask questions about almost anything and get detailed answers from experts in that field of study all over the world. This online teaching tool is ideal for students who want to learn more about subjects they’re struggling with or who want to broaden their knowledge on something new! It’s a great way to find out topics to teach your students, or for them to discuss their thoughts on particular topics.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia with hundreds of thousands of articles covering almost any subject anyone might be interested in learning more about. Students typically use this platform as a jumping-off point before diving into another resource, so they know exactly what information is being presented without having to sift through pages and pages of results first. Wiki also provides reliable sources at the bottom of each page, connecting users directly to the original source of whatever information students want to learn more about.
You can use Wikipedia as an online teaching tool to discuss ideas with your students and to make them feel more confident when speaking.
Crash Course
Crash Course is a YouTube channel that offers educational videos on a variety of topics ranging from math, science, and history to language arts, economics, and so on, making it ideal for anyone who wants to learn as much as they can without feeling overwhelmed by too much information at once! These clips also include closed captions, allowing viewers to read along if necessary. This system is fantastic because it allows students to pick and choose which lessons they want based on their own personal interests or needs, while still having access to a wide range of subjects all around!
Conclusion
We’ve all heard that interactive and engaging lessons are the best way to learn. There’s no need to spend hours trying to keep our students’ attention spans with a boring lecture or PowerPoint presentation in an age where they want instant gratification. But you also want to keep things as simple as possible for you as the teacher!
Let us know which of these online teaching tools you’ve used before and whether they improved your student learning experience!