Actively Engaging Students: Virtual Resources for Teachers
Actively Engaging Students: Virtual Resources for Teachers
By Christina Gibson
Looking for ways to keep your students actively engaged while working remotely? The best teaching in schools doesn’t look like kids passively completing worksheets. Great teaching is active, thoughtful, rigorous, and interdisciplinary. Check out these tools to keep students actively engaged while learning from home.
Virtual Discussion Platforms
Kialo-edu.com is a free platform for group discussions.
NowComment.com is a discussion platform that allows students to mark up and discuss texts.
Yoteachapp.com allows teachers to moderate group discussions with real-time feedback.
Virtual Group Project Platforms
Drawp.it Encourages creativity and collaboration on group projects. Students can share assignments for feedback from teachers.
Voicethread.com students work together on projects utilizing voice, video, and image capabilities.
Class Dojo offers a variety of opportunities for remote instruction, collaboration, and feedback.
Mural.co facilitates lesson presentation and group project collaboration.
Virtual Multimedia Engagement
ExplainEverythingWhiteboard.com Interactive presentations for both teachers and students
goosechase.com/edu Create digital scavenger hunts for students
penpalschools.com Give students global perspective with pen pal projects for authentic, cross-cultural collaboration.
We recommend picking one best tool for your class and implementing it instead of trying to implement several new things at once. A key to a successful transition to virtual learning is keeping things simple, yet engaging.