9 Online Apps & Tools for Teaching

Teachers around the world have had to adapt to a lot this year. For many teachers, it meant teaching from a computer at their own kitchen table. At the same time, the way students learned was changed too. According to many students and teachers, the way this virtual learning experience turned out for them depended largely on the tools they were able to use for teaching and learning.

The Best Online Apps and Tools for Teaching

There are a number of online apps and tools for teaching to choose from, but they aren’t necessarily the right ones for you or your classroom. Here are nine online apps and tools for teaching we recommend that will benefit teachers and students alike.

Swift Polling

Classroom polling is an invaluable tool for educators. With Swift polling software , you have the easiest and most straightforward way to set up and launch polls to share with your students. These can be used for a number of purposes in the classroom. For example, you can poll your students to find out which subjects they want to cover in more detail before a test, or ask them about their summer plans to engage and interact with them.

Quizzes Live

Rather than an old fashioned quiz taken with a paper and pen, why not quiz your students using the devices they are already glued to? Quizzes Live by Swift Polling allows educators to create and launch interactive quizzes in a matter of minutes to distribute with their students. Then, your students can complete this quiz on their computer. The quiz results will be shared to your user dashboard in real-time, giving you an accurate picture of where your students stand on particular subjects, and what might need to be covered in more detail.

Polling games from Swift

If you want to make learning fun, consider trying polling games. This is another tool included in Swift’s suite of polling tools, and it’s one that’s fun for students of all ages. You can create a polling game to either gather feedback or test your students on a particular subject. If you want to promote a friendly sense of competition between your students, you can also display the game results on a real-time results leaderboard. In fact, when students know they are competing against one another, they are more likely to pay attention because the stakes are higher. To raise the stakes even further, why not offer a small prize to the student that finishes first? It could be something simple like a colorful pencil or a piece of candy.

Nearpod

Known for making learning more interactive and engaging, Nearpod has quickly become a top tool for teachers to create engaging media and to launch formative assessments. Educators can upload and make their PowerPoints, Google Slides, or any video interactive, including those from YouTube. It also offers Zoom integration and they regularly add new features to meet the changing needs of teachers around the world.

Viper

For teachers that use Windows, Viper is another online voting tool to consider. This free anti-plagiarism software allows teachers to quickly identify plagiarism within written texts.

TooNoisy

The creators of TooNoisy were certainly thinking outside of the box when TooNoisy was made, but it was proven to be a valuable tool for many teachers. For $4.99, teachers get access to this tool for measuring the noise level in a classroom. Depending on the results, TooNoisy will say if it is an appropriate level of noise or if it’s too much. This is particularly useful for teachers who instruct younger children, as well as those who teach in a physical classroom rather than online.  It’s available for iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and online.

Attendance

Ask any teacher, and they’ll tell you what a headache taking attendance can be! With a tool like Attendance, available on Google Play, it makes the process less challenging. Teachers can import student lists from text files and use their phones to track attendance. Additionally, teachers can import photos for each student to help identify them.

Miro

Hosting a brainstorming session with your students? A virtual whiteboard is a great way to collect and display ideas. Miro is one of the most popular web whiteboard tools, and for good reason! It’s easy to interact and engage with students using an online whiteboard, and it also saves cleaning up a real whiteboard or chalkboard. This software includes a number of other helpful tools for classroom collaboration and you can see them all here.

Articulate

Creating online courses has become the norm for many teachers. Without them, there would simply have been no way to teach this past year! Tools like Articulate have taken a lot of the guesswork out of creating online courses. To date, this tool has been used by more than 106,000 organizations, including 99 of the Fortune 100. Additionally, millions of courses have been created with it. In addition to e-learning, they also offer online training services, including several pre-built business lessons.

Try These Online Apps and Tools for Teaching in Your Own Classroom

Now that you’ve had a chance to read these nine awesome tools and apps for teaching, which one are you going to try first? Maybe you’re looking for a noise control app to manage young students. Or perhaps you’re focused on the best way to poll maker and quiz students in real time. No matter what, there are tools and resources out there waiting for you to give them a try!