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Tools for Success - Teaching Online

This guide is for faculty members looking for tools that can help them be successful facilitators of online education. Specifically created during the COVID-19 crisis, the tools listed in this guide can be useful for anyone teaching distance courses.

 

A NOTE ABOUT PRIVACY AND COMPLIANCE

It is important to note that the use of any 3rd party affiliate tools (tools not found inside Blackboard), like those listed below, could violate FERPA and other privacy rules (unless noted) and should always first be discussed with Marshall University's Design Center experts: onlinelearning@marshall.edu

 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

The below list has been compiled by librarians to organize, in one place, tools and resources for possible use by faculty looking to supplement their curriculum, create content, and/or enhance assignments in order to foster learning and engagement. Please remember that they are not endorsed by MU Online, and should always be carefully reviewed by faculty and then discussed with the Design Center before implementation. 

VIDEOS & PRESENTATIONS / STREAM & RECORD

  • Adobe Spark - Make videos, explainer presentations, memes, newsletters & more. (Not available via MU IT Adobe contract, would need to subscribe/purchase individually).
  • FlipGrid – A free video discussion platform from Microsoft that helps educators see and hear from every student in class and foster a fun and supportive social learning environment. Educators post discussion prompts and students respond with videos.
  • Powtoon – A video and presentation creator to engage and explain with impact using short, simple cartoon or live videos. (Free to sign-up, but all features are not available.)
  • Screencast-o-matic – An easy-to-use program for recording your computer screen with or without audio (such as a Powerpoint, or, a Blackboard screen) and easily sharing the final product. (Recording is free, editing is paid.)
  • Sutori - A collaborative instructional and presentation tool for the classroom, either for teachers or students. (FERPA-compliant.) (Free and Paid.)

 

CREATE PRESENTATION CONTENT

  • Autodraw – A free online tool where you can draw anything, keep and/or edit it, or use the platform's machine-learning software to turn it into a more professional version; plus, add text, shapes, colors, and, download.
  • Canva – A free & easy graphic design/content creation platform for anyone (who never learned Photoshop) to create or edit images, flyers, presentations, etc. (Free and Paid.)
  • Flaticons – Free icons to use for jazzing up presentations or documents. (Free and Paid.)
  • Microsoft Lens –  Office Lens trims, enhances, and makes pictures of whiteboards and print documents readable. Convert images to PDF, Word and PowerPoint files, and save images to OneNote or OneDrive.
  • PiktoChart – A platform for creating beautiful infographics, flyers, posters, presentations and reports easily with absolutely no design experience. (Free and Paid.)
  • Pixton – A free and easy-to-use comic, comic book, storyboard, & graphic-novel maker.
  • Tes Teach with Blendspace – Easily and freely create digital interactive lessons, projects, presentations, and more in 5 minutes, including quizzes and discussions.
  • ThingLink –  Seamlessly make your images, videos, and 360° content interactive with text, links, images, videos and over 70 call to actions, creating memorable and unique experiences with 360° media. (Free and Paid.)
  • Wakelet –  The free and easiest way to capture, organize and share multi-media resources with students, teachers, and learning communities. Save, organize and share content – such as articles, videos, images, Tweets and more –  from across the web and put them into stunning collections.

 

CURRICULUM ENHANCEMENTS

  • Hypothes.is – A free Chrome extension that allows you to go to any webpage, PDF page, or ePUB file and annotate it, with anyone, from anywhere.
  • Infogr.am – An intuitive visualization tool that empowers people and teams to create beautiful and engaging content like infographics and reports in minutes. (Free and Paid.)
  • InsertLearning – A free Chrome extension that allows you to insert instructional content on any web page, and scaffold text with questions and media to help students learn.
  • Kahoot – Create polls, quizzes, and games in minutes using Kahoot’s content bank or start from scratch. Easy for students to use from any device or computer. (Free and Paid.)
  • Quizlet – A way for you to engage your students in and out of the classroom, with interactive study material, learning activities and games.

 

STUDENT PROJECT ENHANCEMENTS

  • Bulb – A simple, powerful digital portfolio to organize and showcase what you’re learning and working on. (full name: Bulb Digital Portfolios) (Free and Paid.)
  • Infogr.am – An intuitive visualization tool that empowers people and teams to create beautiful and engaging content like infographics and reports in minutes. (Free and Paid.)
  • Padlet – A free collaborative productivity software great for group projects.
  • Sketchboard – an interactive online whiteboard to take your student’s group projects to the next level, designed to boost collaboration. (Free plan has 3 editable boards, up to 5 users, but more features available via paid subscription only.)

LEARN MORE

The following presentations are provided via the Online Learning Consortium (OLC)'s 2019 Accelerate conference and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 2020 Digital Learning Section's Virtual Poster Session, and feature many of the above 3rd-party resources: 

​The below resource is a PDF of suggested tools with links to resources.