Online Teaching Tool Kit

Teachers are marketers in a sense. For marketers, they have to understand their consumers and attract customers by showing them value and communicating in an efficient way. Similarly, a teacher has to communicate with parents and attract students. Teachers have to understand the capabilities of students, understand their requirements and needs and ensure that their teaching is fun and easy to grasp for the students. 

The shift from offline teaching to online teaching had been an ongoing process which got it’s push due to Covid-19. Many universities have instructed the teachers to start with online teaching and coming from a family of teachers, such a sudden change has baffled most of the teachers. There are many workshops which aim to teach teachers how to teach in an online class but most of the time, what teachers require is a toolkit which would be beneficial for them. 

For any marketer, having a set of tools for performing particular tasks becomes easy. Every marketer has their own set of tools, similarly, teachers should have one too! In a series of posts, I aim to list down tools which would be useful for any kind of teacher teaching in an online setting.

While the screen sharing could currently be handled by Zoom and though Google Meets is a wonderful option for that, what most of the teachers face is content creation or presentation.  

Content Creation

While some of the teachers prefer to teach directly from the book PDF, it would be a change and very interesting for students if you use eye catchy slides or animation. Combining teaching from book pdf with other tools like whiteboard, animations websites, videos and questions from slides does the trick most of the time.  

Making Slides 

Google Slides 

For making slides, I find Google Slides to be the best because anything that is copied can be directly pasted. For eg. If I use a Snipping Tool ( This is not a tool but a blessing) I can directly copy paste snippets to the slide. 

Pros :   

• Directly copy paste from Snipping Tool 
• Use URL of gifs to insert image directly 
• Your work remains online and will not be lost  
• You can use multiple google slides deck to make beautiful slides (eg. Slidesgo , SlidesCarnival)   
• You can download it as ppt or pdf 

Cons : 

• You need internet connection to use them online 
• Requires a little practice 

 Canva & AdobeSpark

For kids, Canva and Adobe Spark has many beautiful decks which can attract their attention. These decks can be presented online or can be downloaded. It would be an easy start for people with less slide making experience. 

Pros : 

• Pre-designed decks 
• Adobe - Option to enter Video  

Cons :

• Downloads are limited

Other than slides 

With the availability of an online platform for teaching, ensuring students have a good quality net, teachers can get creative with visualization of concepts in order to teach. This move will ensure inclusion of visual learners. The Prezi blog here captures the types of learners very beautifully for your reference. 

Here is some of the content I found up until now. 

PhET Simulations : A free simulation library which hosts maths, science, biology and other simulations to make class more interesting and interactive. The NCERT and State board textbooks have activities which can be performed here for better understanding of the students. Also, it is extremely easy to use! 

Though it is a little heavy to load, teachers can prepare the simulation beforehand and then show it during the class! 

99Math : For primary grades still learning basics of addition and multiplication, this website lets you create free live games to make it more interactive! It’s free until this school year end. 

CK-12 : A website which contains interactive textbooks from all over the world. These interactive textbooks also have NCERT 9-12 textbooks which contain embedded videos and are easy to follow. This will help teachers give a flow to the class with videos!  

Teachers Pay Teachers : For teachers who want to go out of their way to make homework interesting for students should try this website. It contains a lot of free designed worksheets that could be used. 

Now comes Whiteboards for teachers 

When you absolutely have to use a board to teach students for explaining some steps, here are some ways you can write on your screen to show your students. If you are using #Zoom, there is an annotate option which allows the user to write anything on the screen. The image below makes it clearer. 

If you’re not using Zoom and you have a digital pen, here are some whiteboards you can use! All of these have inbuilt tools for making shapes and variety of pen colours to choose from. 

1. Ziteboard : https://app.ziteboard.com/ 
2. Jamboard by Google : https://jamboard.google.com/
3. A web whiteboard: https://awwapp.com/#
4. Explain everything : https://whiteboard.explaineverything.com/

List of Libraries of Flash Animations :

1. Physics 

Faraday Physics 

Fowler’s Physics Applets 

1. Chemistry 

Periodical Simulations 

Virtual Labs 

General Chemistry Interactive Simulation

1. Biology 

Online labs

Biology simulation

Biology Simulations

For this article, while doing the groundwork, I found many good startups focused on particular aspects of student learning. It is amazing to explore the tools for education. Do let me know if you would need any information on the same.