The world of education is developing rapidly, with lots of new tools developed every week. Discovering the possibilities provided by such tools for a classroom is certainly exciting because they make the process more engaging and fun for both students and teachers.
In this article, we have gathered ten best educational tools that you can share with your friends who are involved in education to make their activities more advanced and exciting.
1. Wolfram Alpha
Description: It is an advanced online encyclopedia that works just like Google but instead of providing sites with information, it automatically generates all essential data. For example, if you type “Venus” and hit enter, Wolfram Alpha will generate all characteristics of the planet, missions and flybys, position in the solar system, images, and lots more. All knowledge is thus greatly systemized.
Who would benefit from it: teachers, K-12 students and college students regardless of courses. However, it could be used for all levels of research.
Advantages: it makes advanced knowledge accessible and computable and provides visual representations.
2. Desmos
Description: if you’re looking for a great math tool to share with your friends, you have just found it. Desmos is an advanced math online platform that calculates and graphs functions and has digital activities for math class. It also allows to create your own math activities!
Who would benefit from it: Any student and teacher who learns/teaches math.
Advantages: Desmos is a completely free tool that provides advanced possibilities for math class. By using it, one can make math fun, accessible, and interactive.
3. Kahoot!
Description: this is one of the most popular tools for creating quizzes and questionnaires for any possible subject. Lots of various functions to select from, Kahoot can make learning fun and engaging because it is designed to promote friendly competition in the classroom. For example, two groups of students can be created to use Kahoot to tests their knowledge of history.
Who would benefit from it: Teachers and students of all ages.
Advantages: the tool is designed to run on a variety of devices and has a lot of visual aids. Moreover, it brings a lot of fun and allows teachers to get an in-depth analysis of student performance. Already, there are around 30 million unique users of this tool.
4. LightSail
Description: one of the most advanced educational apps for reading, recommended by Bill Gates! It’s designed for immediate engagement of the students and accelerating literacy development, which, in turn, foster a love of reading. Thousands of books with assessments are available on the official website of the tool, so you won’t experience a shortage of materials.
Who would benefit from it: any students who can read.
Advantages: by engaging in the after-reading assessment, the students enhance their critical thinking skills, memory, and analytical skills. The teachers also can use LightSail to analyze reading performance of classes and individual students.
5. Plotly
Description: great tool for teaching students how to visually represent and interpret data. All projects are cloud-based, so you won’t have to worry about losing completed assignments.
Who would benefit from it: Teachers and students of all ages. According to the developers of this tool, the system is user-friendly and provides helpful tips on completion of tasks.
Advantages: the skill of visual representation is useful for students plus teachers are provided with all tutorials to begin working with the tool.
6. Planboard
Description: how to decrease classroom prep time and get organized quicker? This tool has the answer! It provides teachers with different resources that accelerate the process and make it easy to create rich lesson plans.
Who would benefit from it: teachers.
Advantages: a variety of lesson prep tools, such as text editors and performance trackers. And it’s accessible from everywhere!
7. Prezi
Description: a well-known presentation software used by schools and businesses. For example, professional essay writing services use it for collaboration on projects in real time. The students can learn how to engage the audience and improve design skills with it as well.
Who would benefit from it: teachers and students.
Advantages: versatility and modern design of presentations, online access.
8. Slack
Description: although initially designed for businesses, it became extremely popular in schools. This team messaging tool can serve as a platform for class communication.
Who would benefit from it: teachers and students.
Advantages: mobile-friendliness, support of files’ transfer.
9. Quizlet
Description: another popular platform for creating quizzes, games, and flashcards. By using it, teachers can also create study resources for classes.
Who would benefit from it: teachers and students.
Advantages: great opportunities for teachers who need to create custom lessons.
10. panOpen
Description: as the official site of the tool describes, it’s an open education platform that provides high-quality, peer-reviewed resources. Apparently, using only quality resources in essential in education and research, so it can be used to evaluate resources such as textbooks and course materials.
Who would benefit from it: students and teachers.
Advantages: cost-effective solutions for finding quality educational materials.
Looks like you’ve got a lot to try and share! Try these tools and don’t forget to recommend them to your friends as well!
Tom Jager is professional blogger. He works at Awriter. He has degree in Law and English literature. Tom has written numerous articles/online journals. You can reach him at G+ or Facebook.