Which Software Is Best for Online Teaching?
With the current coronavirus pandemic, many high schools, universities, colleges, and training centers are shifting to online learning environments – for the first time. Adapting online teaching and making sure that there is a positive learning experience will totally rely on the technology selected for the work. So, what virtual teaching software can you utilize so as to make online learning successful?
What to Consider in an Online Teaching Software
Your online teaching toolkit largely depends on the size of your high school and student base, your subject and specific role, as well as any other learning requirements. Also, a budget will factor in, with bigger schools being in a position of paying for more robust learning management systems (LMS) even though there are free online teaching platforms for teachers out there.
Also, you ought to consider equity, user-friendliness, and software performance to attempt and lower the anxiety that is associated with learning new technology. Equity is crucial since not all your learners will access the same privacy, devices, or bandwidth while at home. Here, you ought to look for ways of collaborating and learning outside of real-time video calls.
Lastly, it is crucial to note that your online training toolkit should not just assist you in crafting a great virtual lesson; it must assist you in everything happening outside it. You are entering unfamiliar territory from a traditional learning environment. Choose the best virtual classroom software tools that bring about structure to your day and make it easy to stay in control, visible, and connected.
Crucial Online Teaching Software
There are online teaching platforms for teachers out there for each different instruction approach imaginable, provided to various abilities, needs, and ages. Best online teaching software covers everything from video classrooms and colleague communication to time and schedule management.
Synchronous Virtual Classrooms
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- Zoom: The current coronavirus has made Zoom a familiar name. Zoom can be used for department meetings and no-frills online classrooms. It enables you to host over one hundred participants at once. It also assists in creating numerous breakout rooms, utilizes group chats, and share screens during lessons. Additionally, you can record calls – crucial for self-critique when iterating your virtual instruction techniques, as well as for sharing meetings with students who could not attend.
- Google Classroom: An LMS software can provide a single space for the whole school’s admin, reporting, documentation, as well as learning requirements, including creating assignments, host online lessons, and plan to teach. With technology dominating the online collaboration space, it is not surprising that Google provides a good platform for collaboration. A Google Classroom can bring together all standard G Suite tools – such as Hangouts, Sheets, and Docs – to assist in managing and delivering online instruction.
- Microsoft Teams:Â Microsoft Teams offers the same suite of online instruction tools such as Google Classroom. It permits collaboration, content, and conversions to take place in one unified online space. It’s crucial for streamlining staff communication, sharing feedback and assignments, and creating secure online classrooms.
- Blackboard: If you are searching for a purpose-built higher education learning management system with an intuitive feel and modern, check out Blackboard. It facilitates user-friendly learning settings with several specialist solutions thrown in. These ranges from Blackboard Analytics for Learn, which assists in identifying barriers to the success of learners, to Blackboard Intelligence and Blackboard Predict, which assists in keeping learners on track as well as optimizing the performance of the school. A great learning management system for delivering sophisticated, making sure every individual gets appropriate assistance and engaging virtual teaching experiences.
Communication and Asynchronous Support
- Slack: delivering sophisticated is the base of distance learning collaboration – it democratizes communication, enabling every person to access conversions across the department and talk when it simply suits their learning schedule. Most eLearning teams have now comprehended that email is not the best space for that and are rather utilizing messaging platforms such as Slack for the bulk of their daily communication. Slack breaks all team communication effectively into thematic groups – known as threads – enabling teachers to dip in and out of conversations that worry them. It is the best tool that’s used in building a virtual peer community – forming spaces for counterparts to share best practices, share a global update, and exchange ideas.
- Floop:Â For online learners, Floop is the online equivalent of raising your hand in the classroom. Educators developed Floop to assist in solving the challenge of offering personalized feedback and support to individual learners studying remotely. Learners can fast send images of their assignments with anchored comments; hence they can determine where they are stuck and raise queries. Educators simply require to reply to comments in order to offer targeted feedback.
- SmartSurvey: Feedback is important for making online learning work – particularly in the initial days by adapting your approach to a virtual setting. In case you go in for one of the heavy-duty LMSs detailed above, you will likely have a few choices for reviewing engagement data and posing questions. But in case you do not, easy online survey platforms such as SmartSurvey are the best option. Utilize it with learners to see how well you explained specific concepts.
- Edmondo: Edmondo assists high school teachers in centralizing all tutor-parent and tutor-student communications. It is an effective social platform – with direct messaging functionality and familiar post – for learning organization and discussion. You can utilize Edomondo to share learning materials and assignments, assist learners in exploring new online tools, chatting directly with students, and post classroom updates. It is an important instruction tool for learners who might not have a strong Wi-Fi connection and have access to a computer.
Time Management, Structure, and Organization
- Timely: Changing all infrastructure and teaching to cyberspace is characterized by a meaningfully increased workload. When factoring in day-care, distance learning comes with competing demands – a sure recipe for stress. Timely assist in controlling by creating a perfect online timeline for your daily activities, which is crucial in your education. It has an intuitive calendar interface that assists you in time blocking your day. Also, the Reports feature assists you in checking each assignment is getting its attention. Also, the “People” feature breaks down the exact number of hours you and your team work every day; hence every person might stay visible, get proactive assistance, and stick to their times. It is best for the management of faculty staff remotely and organizing your schedule.
- Dewo: As assignments increase, you will require to cut down all the senseless organizational and admin tasks which clog up your day – and attaining scheduling a prime candidate. Gratefully, it can take the whole slog off your hands, handling all coordination back-and-forth for you. With a blend of artificial intelligence, time preferences, and calendar data, it suggests discretionary meeting times that maximize the accessibility of focused time for all the participants of the meeting.
- Todoist: If you are searching for an online to-do list that is a cut above Notes, check out Todoist. Apart from planning out all your coursework in a central location, it assists users in prioritizing assignments and keeping your most crucial forthcoming tasks in focus. With incorporations for a ton of many online collaboration tools – as well as Google Calendar and Dropbox – it functions as an organization’s tool for doing things.
Virtual Teaching and Collaboration Aids
- Dropbox Paper – for the collaboration of documents
This is a free online teaching tool for teachers that is used for document collaboration. Dropbox Paper is your remote-friendly word processor tool. It offers users a clean space for processing, editing, as well as sharing work with their colleagues in real-time. It is a good option for learner assessment, enabling teachers to add comments through the document. You do not require a Dropbox subscription to utilize it either; it is totally free. It has a Slack integration that is a nice bonus if you want to communicate neatly tied together.
- I drop – for live annotation and virtual whiteboards.
Online whiteboards are a no-brainer in case you train utilizing diagrams or equations, but they also assist in making all kinds of online collaboration more dynamic and easier. This educational software for teachers enables them to paste Word documents, PDFs, and PowerPoint presentations live annotation. They just require to create a web account in order to get started.
- WeTransfer – used in sharing large documents
Want to send your colleague a document that is too big to attach to the email? So, long as it is smaller than 2 GB, you can send it through a free browser tool. In case you want to create a joint file repository for students or staff, check out Google Drive File Stream (or Dropbox for a less user-friendly but free solution). Additionally, shared folders assist every user in quickly accessing and sharing crucial templates and documents.
