The 11 Best EdTech Tools To Enhance Your Classroom

The days of relying solely on books and other traditional source materials in classrooms are long gone. Education Technology (EdTech), among other emerging technologies, is now finding its way into classrooms.

While in-person interaction remains an essential component of classroom learning, incorporating technology into education can enhance the learning experience for students and help teachers access high-quality teaching materials.

Therefore, it is a mutually beneficial choice for both students and teachers to embrace these new teaching techniques and improve student outcomes through EdTech. The latest EdTech tools are transforming the classroom experience by making learning more interactive, engaging, and accessible.

This article will provide a list of the top 11 EdTech tools that teachers and students should consider using to enhance their classroom experience. Read on to find out more!

Google Classroom

Image Source: Google Classroom

One of the popular EdTech tools, Google Classroom aims at making grading, distribution, and creation of content as seamless as possible.

It also supports other EdTech tools to make for an easy and engaging classroom experience utilizing the best features of multiple tools. Students can see Pear Deck presentations or play interactive trivia quizzes from Kahoot!, all within Google Classroom hence, diversifying the classroom experience.

It is a free platform that provides teachers to communicate with their students while also collaborating with their colleagues on the side. Educators create assignments with due dates, attachments, and instructions all the while keeping track of the student’s progress.

Moreover, it works as an organizer enabling teachers to share the class material with the students. There is also a centralized location i.e the built-in messaging system for teachers to communicate with students privately or in groups. It saves time and effort spent on communicating separately.

Besides that, teachers can share their resources with the rest of their colleagues and collaborate using other integrated Google Apps such as Google Sheets, Docs, and Slides.

According to Google, this tool is “mission control for your classroom” as it essentially has everything you will ever need.

Tips on Using Google Classroom

To improve the classroom experience, communicate the expectations for grading assignments and quizzes from the beginning of the academic year
To save time, look into some features such as templates for assignments
Use Google Docs and other Google apps to provide feedback and make the workflow smoother

Kahoot!

Image Source: Kahoot!

Want to retain the attention of your students through exciting quizzes and surveys? Kahoot! is your best bet!

This interactive tool is ideal for both distance learning and in-person classroom interaction. Kahoot! allows teachers to create games, quizzes, exit questions, and check-ins with a user-friendly interface that is fairly easy to use and get started.

Using Kahoot!, teachers can also easily assess the understanding and learning of each student. Besides that, they can use it to make quizzes and games for every subject. The options are endless.

Tips on Using Kahoot!

Use the tool for making quizzes or choosing to play the pre-made content for group work and assessment
Allot points to each answer or win to further challenge your students and encourage participation in the form of a healthy competition
Use distance learning features to engage with students virtually
Allow students to create their games as well to test each other’s abilities and knowledge
Assess their learning through the game reports

Edpuzzle

Image Source: EdPuzzle

As an educator, making your lessons fun for your students can be tiring and costly. Edpuzzle is one free assessment EdTech tool that enables teachers to make free video lessons reducing the burden to an extent.

Teachers will love recording content for students who can access it later without any time constraints. Moreover, it supports other sources such as Youtube, Ted, and Vimeo to add interactive audio and questions besides the videos.

Alongside making engaging videos and interactive quizzes, Edpuzzle’s features include student progress tracking. The analytics will help teachers analyze the students’ understanding of the subject matter.

Moreover, they will also be able to give timely, personalized feedback to their students on the quizzes and their overall progress.

Tips on Using Edpuzzle

Use it remotely or in an in-person class to make lectures more engaging and interactive
Create or choose only short videos to show to retain the attention of your students
Give your students timely feedback so that they can fastly improve
Ensure that students engage with what they watch by making sufficient questions about the Youtube videos
Make strategic questions that reiterate the main concepts, enhance what they are learning, and can help in assessing the understanding of the subject

Quizlet

Image Source: Quizlet

Like Kahoot!, Quizlet is a learning platform that enables educators to make flashcards and quizzes among a plethora of other activities. The tool also has a huge library of practice tests and study materials that are easily accessible on any device.

Teachers can create this study material to make it easier for students to memorize, review and recall information. Alongside that, Quizlet offers activities such as games for students to make the learning process more fun.

Tips on Using Quizlet

Customize study materials such as flashcards and quizzes for students to address their learning problems and memorize the material
Educators can make sets of concepts and vocabulary so that each student can access them at their own pace
Teachers can review the performance of students with real-time progress tracking. Hence, they can make any changes to their curriculum by reviewing the performance of the students and won’t have to wait longer to change their teaching methods
Students can also create games among themselves to make the experience more engaging and exciting

Nearpod

Image Source: Nearpod

Nearpod is a flexible tool that allows teachers to make interactive presentations, virtual field trips, and engaging quizzes. Other features include 3D, Draw It, VR, and open-ended questions.

Teachers can create engaging presentations quickly to keep students involved in the lecture and save time. Also, the student response system in the tool enables teachers to evaluate the understanding of the presentations by the students in real-time.

The VR features can help educators take students on virtual field trips which are a great means of exploring new cultures and places to diversify the minds of the young generation.

Tips on Using Nearpod

Encourage student participation during presentations through quizzes and cross-questions to increase engagement
Implement a variety of multimedia elements in the classroom to keep students alert and excited
Utilize the tracking feature to find out the areas where the students need additional help

Flip

Image Source: Flipgrid

Do your students learn better through a face to face interaction? Then Flip (formerly known as Flipgrid) is one of the best EdTech tools for the task. Used mainly in remote schooling environments, Flip is a video discussion platform that teachers and students use to have conversations in real time.

Teachers can share a video prompt with their students and students can answer the same way by recording their responses. Next, teachers give feedback at their convenience on the student’s responses.

Students can also interact amongst themselves to talk about fun things such as books or films. Be it presentations, discussions, performances, or other video content, Flip is for classrooms that need a little more face time.

It can turn the classroom into a lively learning experience while everyone is physically apart. This encourages healthy communication and collaboration between students recreating the classroom experience where they can share meaningful ideas and build relationships with their classmates.

Tips on Using Flip

Outline clear instructions to students on how to make the video prompts and submit their assignments
Give constructive video feedback to students timely on their responses
Increase participation by encouraging students to respond to each other’s videos

Seesaw

Taking things a step further in the EdTech industry is the tool, Seesaw. This is not only a tool for learning but also to create a digital portfolio of the student’s work.

Essentially teachers here also create assignments and learning tasks. The tool allows teachers to incorporate various multimedia such as photos, videos, drawings, or files in the assignments. But what makes it stand out is how it collects a student’s digital and physical work in a portfolio.

Besides that, teachers can make a blog for student interaction, curate activities from a library, and communicate with not only the students but also their families. It incorporates the teacher, student, and parent feedback in one place.

Students benefit from Seesaw by showcasing their work and reflecting on the progress achieved. Thus, it enables self-reflection and assessment among students by seeing their digital portfolios.

Tips on Using Seesaw

Use the tool to encourage students to establish their own goals. They can also track their progress over time themselves
Encourage students to assess their work and reflect on it
Provide constructive feedback to students as well as their parents by keeping them in the loop

Padlet

Image Source: Padlet

Unlike other EdTech tools, Padlet is a community-centered virtual bulletin. It allows users to collaborate to make a digital bulletin of content such as links, documents, videos, audio, and images.

For classrooms, Padlet lets teachers create a bulletin board for their students. It is a great tool for collaborative projects such as classwork. Thus, facilitating students to work on their assignments without any conflicting schedules and also observing any updates on the board.

Padlet promotes collaboration among students, critical thinking, and creativity. It encourages students to upload their notes, complete assignments, and share their ideas on the board with the rest of their classmates.

Teachers share boards through links or QR codes that quickly fill up with different forms of multimedia content. Additionally, they can add moderators to enable voting features and comments for collaboration.

Tips for Using Padlet

Make the bulletin board more interactive and engaging by adding different multimedia content
Ask students to introduce themselves by posting a video or selfie on the board at the start of the academic year
Ask open-ended questions to encourage critical thinking and motivate students to also respond to their classmates’ answers
For group work such as presentations, divide the class into groups and let them research the topic and give their findings in each form of media
In a virtual study session, allow all students to pool notes on the bulletin board

Screencastify

Image Source: Screencastify

Screencastify is a video and screen recording tool that facilitates teachers to personalize their lectures for classes. Educators make engaging content for presentations and lectures by recording their screen as well as the webcam together.

In this way, the students can understand complex concepts by looking at the teacher and the screen simultaneously.

The tool contains editing and annotation features to add text to the video and highlight crucial points. After the teachers are done making the videos, they can save and share them with students using Google Integrations.

Lesson plans can also be shared with colleagues and videos with absent students for improved learning outcomes.

Tips on Using Screencastify

Allow students to make pre-recording presentations to improve their confidence
Keep videos short and to the point to retain the attention of students and encourage engagement
Use different visuals such as graphs, images, gifs, etc to make the videos more appealing
Bring students to the video recording activity to indulge in idea generation and creativity

Remind

Image Source: Remind

Communication between teachers, students, and parents has never been this easy. Using Remind, parents can keep open communication with the school. Teachers using the tool can easily send messages to parents or students through email or text.

Moreover, this tool has a message translator that can translate up to 90 languages enabling conversation with non-English speaking students and parents.

Remind essentially achieves an easier communication management system to separate it from the learning coursework. Teachers share files such as images, docs, or PDFs through Remind. They can also make polls and surveys to collect feedback from parents and students. Thereby, educators can provide feedback to students through the tool as well.

Tips on Using Remind

Keep messages concise so that the parents and students can easily read, understand and translate them
Let parents and students know beforehand what you will be using the tool for. Whether it is for reminding them of upcoming assignments or school holidays
Put everyone on the same page by using the translation feature while teaching non-English speakers

Anchor

Image Source: Spotify for Podcasters

Among a sea of video-sharing and recording tools, Anchor takes a different approach to Edtech by focusing on audio recordings. It can be considered a podcasting tool for students to share their insights with the rest of the class.

Anchor allows teachers to make audio recordings or podcasts for their lectures or discussions. Therefore, students can have an alternative way of learning and get a much-needed break from watching lessons.

By publishing podcasts, teachers can share their valuable knowledge with plenty of other people to benefit several students.

They can also record themselves reading the work of each student and providing them feedback on the writing assignment. Thus, it can improve understanding of the feedback rather than simply getting corrections on a document.

Tips on Using Anchor

Keep the recording engaging by showing excitement and enthusiasm in your voice
Encourage students to make podcasts and share their thoughts with an audience to build their confidence
Students may have a low attention span, thus keep the recordings short so that they completely listen to them

FAQs

How do EdTech tools help in the teaching-learning process?

These tools enhance the classroom learning experience by providing students with an alternative interactive way to engage with their coursework. EdTech tools provide a more exciting and fun approach to studying that gauges the attention of each student.

Besides that, these simplify communication and the feedback process between students and teachers. While these tools are fit for use in both in-person and virtual classes, they are especially beneficial in catering to each student’s problems in a remote learning environment.

How can teachers use technology in the classroom?

Teachers can incorporate gamification, interactive whiteboards, and educational applications in the classroom infrastructure. Using these tools, the teachers can personalize the learning experience for each student.

Moreover, through messaging tools like Remind, they can also keep the parents in the loop to provide timely feedback on the student’s progress. Through quizzes and automated grading systems, teachers can quickly identify the shortcomings of a student to work on them separately.

Summing Up

EdTech tools are the future of classrooms. To keep students engaged and knowledgeable, teachers will have to step ahead from using a board and marker.

In fact, by using these tools, educators can provide a more informative, interactive, exciting, and personalized experience to each student in the classroom. Hence, more schools should incorporate them into their curriculum.

So, if you happen to start using these EdTech tools for your classroom, spread the good word about these incredible tools that will shape the education industry for the future generation.