What Are the Best Tools for Teachers to Use?

  Being a great teacher isn't just about having knowledge in your head to impart to your students. Teaching has always involved having the right tools at your disposal, even if it's just the traditional text books, blackboard and chalk.

 Today, teaching can be either live in a classroom or virtually via the internet. Of course, virtual teaching is particularly vital at the moment, during the pandemic, but whichever medium you're using, you need tools that will benefit today's students. Here are some of our top suggestions.

 Virtual Classroom Solutions

 If you're teaching online, it's essential to ensure you have the tools to manage your virtual classroom. Google Classroom uses the Google Suite for this, which most teachers and students will already be familiar with. You can use it for everything from giving presentations and quizzes to providing worksheets and homework.

 Edmodo allows teachers not only to provide work for their students and grade them, but also to provide learning materials and interact with the students. One particularly useful element is a library of content that can be searched with hashtags.

Online Whiteboards

 If you're teaching online, it's vital to have an equivalent of the whiteboard you'd use in a physical classroom. This allows you to write notes and draw diagrams as you go and interact virtually with your students.

There are numerous excellent whiteboard tools for you to use, such as LearnCube and Bramble. We've recently posted an analysis of twelve of the best online whiteboards, which we'd recommend you take a look at.

Presentation Tools

 Whether you're teaching virtually or in the classroom, good presentation software can make a vast difference to your lessons. MS PowerPoint is the default system — it's straightforward to use, and it interacts with other Microsoft apps like Word and Excel. Prezi is an alternative, which interacts with platforms from Zoom to YouTube and offers design and video components. Google Slides, which can be used as part of Google Classroom, allows collaborative input.

Video Conferencing Platforms

 In order to teach students face to face online, whether as a class or one-to-one, you need a good video conferencing platform. Google Hangouts works well with Google Classroom and perhaps works best for more informal chats. Zoom has quickly consolidated itself during the pandemic as the platform of choice for general purposes, and it offers some distinct advantages for online teaching. Both teacher and students can share their screens to offer presentations, students can be divided into small discussion groups, and the sessions can be recorded for future reference.

Making Learning Fun

 Whether you're teaching children or adults, most people learn best when there's an element of fun in it. Perhaps the best tool for this, whether online or in the classroom, is Kahoot! which offers game-based learning.

 Kahoot! provides options for surveys, questionnaires and quizzes, which can be answered alone or in groups. It also incorporates the option to add excitement by making the process competitive. Whether you're teaching live or online, great tools help you to be a great teacher. These are just a few of the tools out there. Sign up with us to find out.