13 Useful Resources For Managing Your Online Classroom

Managing an online classroom can seem to be a great challenge. Nevertheless, teachers found a good deal of ways to manage their students work in an effective way. All thanks go to online tools and resources that make educators lives essentially easier. Here’s a list of 13 apps and websites for those teachers who are involved into online learning.

1. Google Classroom

This tool is a great help for teachers, since it drastically saves time, makes workflow faster and more convenient, lets constantly stay in touch with students . Educators don’t need special skills to set the tool up, they can add students to the system within a minute or two. Note that Google Classroom is available just for users  with a school-provided Google Apps for Education account.

2. Collaborize Classroom

It’s a learning platform that offers a vast range of helpful options both for students and educators. It’s possible to create conversations (where students discuss various issues or take polls), groups (which are based on different criteria like school subject, assignment, work group, language proficiency and so on) and tests/lessons/assignments (which you can share with other teachers). Downloadable reports let you see test/quizz results and academic progress of your students.

3. Edmodo

Alike to the previous tool, Edmodo is also a learning platform, which allows creating groups, discussions, assignments, polls and quizzes. Teachers are able to follow academic progress too. Edmodo creators claim their tool makes learning more social, because it helps teachers and students interact in a productive way, and what’s more, educators have a chance to join a global community of teachers and share experience with each other.

4. Socrative

Thanks to this system you’re able to create a variety of quizzes (with the variety of questions) and receive student feedback in real time. There’s a few automatic grading tools that make work easier and more effective. Additionally, reports allow teachers monitor student activity and thus see the big picture of the progress.

5. Edudemic

It’s a website totally dedicated to education and technologies. Those teachers that are eager to be in step with time can enjoy a special section with how-to articles, news, educational trends and so on. There’s also The Teacher’s Guides To Technology And Learning, which is supposed to provide educators with the great resources for better teaching.

6. eLearning Industry

One more useful website for educators is eLearning Industry, where they can borrow a few ideas for their in-class and online activities. There’s a huge number of materials on elearning, blended learning and learning tools available here. A great source of inspiration, isn’t it?

7. Smart Classroom Management

This online resource is actually a collection of useful tips  for all occasions. For example, you’ll certainly find information about how to attract students attention, how to deal with different types of students, how to build strong classroom strategies, how to relieve stress etc.

8. Unplag

Unplag is an anti-plagiarism software useful both for students and teachers. Nowadays students use the Internet as a main source of information while working on their academic papers, and thus accidental and deliberate plagiarism happens. So in order to make check for plagiarism automatic, Unplag developers created a number of handy features. For example, teachers can scan works in a background mode while being busy with other activities. It’s also possible to check a few works at a time and then download or share a plagiarism report.

9. Engrade

Engrade is a platform created “to empower teachers, students, parents, and administrators”, and it combines best features of the LMS and assessment tool. What teachers can do with the help of interactive means provided by Engrade? Create lesson plans and conversations, write instructions, manage curriculum, assess students with grading and survey tools, track study progress and many other things.

10. Digital Chalk

This is a complex tool that combines a number of features: Chalkboard (great for creating online courses, users can add audios, videos, PowerPoint slides, chapter points and other useful things and synchronize them), Test (good for creating tests and quizzes), File (allows uploading any file type to one’s online course), Assignment (educators can add tasks for online course takers), Web Archive (it’s possible to upload zip files from the computer or external URLs and import content to the platform) and others.

11.Schoology

One more LMS in the list: Its developers say that their LMS “can be used beyond the classroom”. So in such a manner students and tutors have a chance to proceed communicating after the classes. Also Schoology allows group work and integration with a set of different programs.

12. Kwiksurveys

An easy-to-use survey building tool Kwiksurveys is the one that can be of assistance to any user despite his or her computer proficiency. Besides common quizzes and surveys, there’s an option of creating video polls (standard and YouTube ones).

13. Wikispaces

Meet a social writing platform for education with simple structure and easy management system, where students and educators can collaborate and share workspace. Teachers have a chance to monitor student work and have a general view on academic progress, create teams and work groups, provide students with assistance and feedback.

Choose any of these tools or resource and take delight in your work!

About the Author:

Michael is a former school teacher, currently working as an ESL tutor. Teaching is his favorite way of finding inspiration. In spare time he enjoys volunteering and provides a lot help to wild and homeless animals. Connect with Michael via Twitter and Linkedin.