5 Must-Have Apps for Teachers
The COVID-19 crisis has not been easy for anyone. As an educator, it can be unsettling to have been cut-off from your students so abruptly and not be able to get in touch with them as frequently as you’d like. With schools shut, this could be a good time for you to explore some of the highly recommended mobile apps for teachers! Here are the five apps which you must try this summer.
google Forms
It is a great tool to create quizzes and send them to your students for assessing their performance.
Benefits:
Easy to use
Allows for customization
Objective questions can be graded automatically, so helps save time
Ways to use:
Take online quizzes for students
Conduct surveys among students to understand their challenges, emotional well-being etc. better
Collect feedback from your students
A quiz created on Google Forms
What you need:
A Gmail account. Here’s how you can create it.
Video Conferencing Tools
Video conferencing tools could help you get in touch with your school staff and multiple students at the same time.
Google Meet
Google Meet can easily be integrated with your google email account and allows you to invite participants easily from your Google contact list. You can connect with 100 participants at the same time using it.
What you need: You and those who wish to participate in a video chat require a Gmail account
Zoom
Zoom is a more comprehensive tool and gives the option to write and draw on a whiteboard but the free version allows the calls to last 40 minutes only. Zoom allows you to connect with 100 participants at a time.
What you need: All the participants need to download the Zoom app.
Ways to use:
Check-in with school staff
Take coffee breaks with your colleagues
Invite your students for a catch-up
Host a small group doubt resolving session
Just support your students emotionally!
Benefits:
Share your screen to present what you’re teaching
Share files and resources on chats
Both apps can be used on mobile as well as a desktop
Jamboard
This mobile application provides you with a virtual whiteboard. If you ever feel that you could explain a concept to a student much better by using a board but feel handicapped by the limited capabilities of an audio call, Jamboard is the place to go. It allows you to pin sticky notes, attach pictures to the board and change boards quickly. Its assistive drawing tools read even badly written text and pictures and make them look presentable.
What you need:
Jamboard application
A Gmail account
Each student who wants to view your board would also require the app and Gmail account. Here’s everything that you’ll need to know to get started.
Ways to use:
Draw a diagram and ask students to identify its parts
Make mind maps real-time
Make different students work on the same Jamboard and create something together
Watch this video to learn more!
Benefits:
It is free
Features like colours, markers and drawing tool help engage students
Students and teachers can use the board simultaneously to interact
Google docs
Docs is a simple tool to work with your students on text documents. You do not have to worry about losing any of your documents or forgetting to save your work since everything gets stored online.
Benefits:
Add pictures, text of different fonts and colours
You can work on a document from different devices (laptop, phone etc.) as per your convenience
Ways to use:
Give feedback real-time
Create and share worksheets and resources with students
Collaborate with your colleagues and share resources with them
We have curated some world-class tools to help teachers teach from home. Check them out!