These days, education has taken a leap from physical to online or virtual methods of learning. The main aim of this has been to open access to education and effective learning, and to cope with the changes happening in the education sector.
At present, distance learning is growing at a rapid rate. From 2018 to 2026, online learning will have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1%, as studied in the article by Devlin Peck. The same article also states that America’s online learning industry will be worth $687 billion by the year 2030.
Moreover, with the classrooms no longer limited to classes, traditional boards, and printed textbooks, some great digital educational tools can make distance learning easy for students and keen learners of today.
5 Digital Education Tools Making Distance Learning Easier For Students
There is a wide variety of digital education tools at your disposal nowadays, created to open access to education, upskill, encourage collaboration, and much more.
Check out 5 of the interactive learning tools to make distance learning easier for students:
- Google Classroom
Google Classroom is a powerful learning management system (LMS) that works to streamline online communication between a teacher and a student. It allows the teacher to teach online through PowerPoints with the screen share feature, create assignments, grade the work, and provide efficient feedback on the spot. This is a great place if there are many students under one teacher.
For students, it sure is effective to keep hold of their work, submit it online, track their progress, and interact with educators and peers for help in studies or resolving queries.
Some Google Classroom feature lists:
- Assignment creation
- Grading of assignments and projects
- Communication is smooth
- Access to learning materials and video lectures
- Great tool for independent learners
- ClassDojo
ClassDojo is a digital education tool that enhances communication and engagement of present-day online classes and distance learning. It helps the teacher keep track of students’ behavior, manage their progress, and increase parent involvement in distance learning. It’s an ideal platform that works best for students under the care of teachers and virtual learning.
Through this, teachers can encourage engagement with students that fosters positive reinforcement with online learning. This also keeps the learning environment from dulling down for all. Just like in real classrooms, teachers can pass on as real-time notifications like, “Well Done, Anna,” and “+1 Points or star for David”, etc., to endorse their students.
Some other key features to note in this tool are:
- Track behavior of students
- Build student portfolios
- Support broader languages
- Classroom Challenges
- Manage Performance
- Video Chat
- Moodle
Moodle is an open-source learning platform. It is to put “the power of e-learning” in your hands. It empowers educators of today to open education and make it flexible, secure, and customizable for online e-learning.
The platform supports a range of tools, including discussion forums, blogs, quizzes, assignments, and grade books. This makes it a versatile platform for learning across many ages and learning streams.
Features that make Moodle:
- Creation of courses with multimedia support
- Collaboration within activities
- Quizzes, assignments, and grading features
- Customization is available for individual learning needs (for eg, Students who have some developmental delay)
Plus, using Moodle for my online Digital Marketing Course with an independent educator has been such a breeze with its innovative features and easy-to-use interface.
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- Kahoot!
Kahoot! is a game-based platform that turns quizzes, surveys, and discussions into engaging and interactive activities.
Teachers can create or choose from existing quizzes to assess student activities in a fun and interactive way. This allows them to create questionnaires, discussions, and surveys that take academic lessons and make them fun for their students. The teachers can deliver lectures while creating interaction through games such as Q&A sessions.
Key features of Kahoot!:
- Create interactive quizzes and games
- Students can engage in real-time competition
- Create a healthy study environment
- Can be used for revision, assessments, and learning checks
- Accessible on a variety of devices
- Storybird
Storybird is a platform that enables users to create, share, and publish their digital books. It is widely used by students, teachers, and writers to enhance creativity and storytelling skills.
The platform also allows writing stories and integrating high-quality illustrations into them, making the work personalized and visually appealing. It is fun, interactive, new, and a great way to blend your work and stories in one space.
Key features of Storybird:
- Story creation
- Book Publishing
- Illustration Library
- Collaboration over projects
- Draft writing prompts
- Classroom management
Last Thoughts Before You Hop Off!
Learning has become highly digitized, and the norm of physical classes will be nearing its end. Our list of the above-mentioned five digital educational tools makes distance learning easier for students and teachers alike, as well as independent learners.
With these tools and the internet, you can score new skills, make your summer holidays productive, and even make the best of the online courses available for free these days.
Remember these words for motivation,
“The experts you see today were once beginners.” – Helen Hayes
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