5 Free Digital Tools to Boost Students’ Engagement Online

Issac Glantz
By Issac Glantz 7 Min Read
free digital tools to boost students engagement online

Online learning is a novel experience for many students. And despite their best efforts, they are prone to getting sidetracked and losing interest. Many students are giving negative feedback on remote learning, saying that they feel disconnected and find it hard to concentrate.

As a result, more students may decide to quit school or have to retake their classes. Additionally, distance learning is slow to adapt to students with learning disabilities and special needs.

We identified five practical ways to make online learning more productive and approachable for students.

Notion

Notion is a collaborative document editor accessible offline and through the cloud server. It allows students to take and exchange notes during class and keep track of their assignments with to-do lists.

With an official email registration, you can enjoy unlimited cloud storage and file upload allowance, which means you can upload essay writing examples for your next assignment and modify it according to your needs using the platform’s built-in editing software. Notion might be the ideal workplace for teachers to organize their lesson plans, notes, assignments, grades, and much more. You can either construct a wiki for the class or design your course syllabus and share it with your students.

The templates provided by Notion can make life easier for both students and teachers. Students can access resources for personal budgeting, job applications, and grade calculators. At the same time, Notion allows adopting ready-to-use templates for class directories, schedules, and lesson plans.

Notion is free to use with no paid subscription required. It even features built-in spell-checking and text editing software, including for uploaded files of any format, which means you could practice your writing skills right there on the website. Don’t miss out on this highly engaging and capable learning tool.

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Mural

Mural is a platform for visual collaboration in the workplace. You can register for a free facilitator account as a teacher and begin working with other teachers and students. Up to 10 team members (who can edit, facilitate, and create murals) and 20 guests (who can only collaborate on murals you grant them access to) can access your mural areas with the educator account. With Mural, you can hold virtual brainstorming sessions and employ expert-designed canvas layouts and frameworks for various tasks (business model, mind-mapping, empathy map, and many others).

You can divide your classroom into groups so that the teams of students can work together in various areas.

Sli.do

With Sli.do, you can give your students the freedom to participate in the lecture by giving them a straightforward Q&A and polling tool. This is an excellent resource for encouraging active learning in online classes. By using live polls, quizzes, and brainstorming, you may engage your audience in your lecture and give them the chance to freely express their opinions. There are a lot of options.

You can find out if the substance of your presentation resonates with your pupils by using polls. They can also serve as the catalyst for important classroom conversations.

Use quizzes to gauge how much of your lectures your students have retained;  Recap the information from the last lecture, and encourage your students to pay attention in class.

Flipgrid

A free social learning tool called Flipgrid allows users to make and share brief but excellent films. As a teacher, you get free access to the program and can create several grids, or classrooms, and discussion topics. You can provide your students with the individual codes found on each grid so they can access the subjects and videos submitted by their instructors and peers. It is an excellent tool for creating strong learning communities within your classes and for reflective learning. Whether they are learning in a classroom setting or at home, students can react to discussion questions by posting brief videos. Flipgrid is totally cost-free.

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Zoom

Zoom has been established as the most popular video conferencing program, used by companies and academic institutions worldwide. It works well for holding conferences, calls, meetings, and webinars. You can have face-to-face interviews with up to 100 participants and hold group conferences lasting up to 40 minutes with a free account. Due to the epidemic, Zoom has eliminated the 40-minute time restriction for educators. All you have to do is set up an account using your organization’s email address.

   Final thoughts

Engaging kids online is very different from doing so in actual classrooms. It can be difficult, particularly during times of crisis when students are dealing with increased stress and anxiety. Though, the digital world is quickly adapting to face the challenge. The pandemic was a wake-up call for educational facilities to keep up with the times and go digital. If you are new to online learning, our list of digital tools is sure to help you make your studying more productive and efficient, whether you are a student or a teacher.

Charlotte Banks is a former student counselor who now hosts a few online learning courses.

She has always been a passionate educator. Her counseling experience gave her knowledgeable insight into student mindset, and her teaching gave her a good understanding of modern challenges faced by students worldwide.

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I'm Stuart, a tech enthusiast and experienced writer. I've worked with multiple tech blogs over the years, leveraging my 8 years of digital marketing expertise. My journey began when I was searching for ways to make money online and stumbled upon blogging. Back then, starting a blog on Blogspot was the norm. Aspire to be one of the best bloggers in the world, I've witnessed how the age of the internet has revolutionized technology journalism. In this era of social media and video marketing, it's essential to recognize the importance of reading articles to gain in-depth knowledge and insights. Let's explore the fascinating world of tech together!
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