10 Best Tools for Virtual and Distance Learning
With so many popular online courses and universities, the world of distance learning has never been more accessible. But with so many tools to choose from, it can be challenging to know which will best suit your needs.
This blog post will explore some of the most popular options for virtual and distance learners.
But before that, let’s get to understand more about distance learning.
What is the meaning of virtual or distance learning?
Distance learning refers to any student learning that does not take place in a traditional classroom setting. Distance learning connects students and teachers with digital tools and virtual learning platforms, whether it’s through video classes, online lectures, or asynchronous learning activities.
Since the start of the epidemic, online education like intermediate English classes has aided in the containment of COVID-19. It also allowed students to attend their classes from the convenience of their own homes, saving them time on the way to school. Now let’s find out the best tools for virtual learning.
Here are some tools that are great for virtual and distance learning:
1. Pear Deck
This tool is great for teachers because it allows them to create quizzes, presentations, and surveys easily without spending hours on it.
They can also interact with their students through Pear Chat in real-time if the class is online. The content created stays in one location, which makes record keeping easier as well. It’s free for teachers and students.
2. Blackboard
Blackboard is a powerful learning management system that enables instructors to create, deliver, communicate and manage course activities from anywhere at any time using an array of mobile devices or personal computers.
It’s great for teachers because they can spend more time teaching instead of preparing presentations in advance. They can also provide instant feedback on assignments to their students. It’s free for teachers, and they also offer an affordable monthly fee for students, which gives them access to all of the courses in the system.
3. Canvas
This is another excellent tool that allows instructors to create, deliver, communicate and manage course activities from anywhere using mobile devices or personal computers.
Teachers can spend more time teaching instead of preparing content in advance. They can also provide instant feedback on assignments to their students. It’s free for teachers, and they also offer an affordable monthly fee which gives the students access to all of the courses in that system.
4. Edpuzzle
This is a great tool that allows instructors to create videos with quizzes and other interactive features. The video content created stays in one location, which makes record keeping easier as well.
It’s free for teachers, and students can also get a monthly fee depending on how many courses they want to join.
5. Khan Academy
This tool provides an array of educational resources such as practice exercises, instructional videos, and assessments that instructors can help their students learn. They can also provide instant feedback on assignments, and the videos created by Khan Academy are free for instructors to use in their classes.
6. Edmodo
Edmodo is a great tool that teachers can use during the school year or summer break. It’s an easy way for them to keep track of their student’s progress, and it also allows them to communicate with their parents.
Students can share files, post questions for other students or teachers, create groups, have discussions in forums, and so much more.
7. Google Classroom
Google Classroom is an app that can be used with Google accounts. It allows you to have all of your students organized in one place, giving them access to class contents and materials for homework or review purposes.
You can also distribute quizzes among the group members while getting immediate feedback on their performance. The tool creates a private space where teachers collect student work and allow parents to track their children’s progress via reports generated by the system itself.
8. Flipgrid
Flipgrid is another excellent online learning tool that enables educators worldwide to gather more information about their classes by asking questions during video-rich lessons without breaking up natural interactions between participants spread across different locations, time zones, or even countries.
This tool is packed with many features, but it can be used in multiple ways to support learning by making student-to-student discussions more engaging and effective for everyone involved.
9. Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing software that allows people to meet on the same screen. It is also great for remote teams and virtual learning environments because everyone can see what’s going on at once.
10. ClassDojo
ClassDojo is a unique tool that helps teachers to manage classrooms. It works by allowing students to rate their behavior, which gives teachers a better idea of what students are doing in school. Teachers can also do this with parents, so they know how the student is behaving at home.
In a nutshell, these tools are excellent for virtual and distance learning because they allow instructors to save time, create content in real-time with students, spend more time teaching instead of preparing lessons ahead of time, and much more!
