I have been so impressed by how quickly so many teachers adapted to the current situation. Most of us have never considered whether our teaching resources and strategies would work long distance. Many of us have had to adapt extremely quickly in order for our students to continue their learning from home. 
Now normally I blog on strategies that I have tried, practiced or recommend. However, as we are only a week into online learning my initial attempts to adapt include Live Streaming on YouTube, Zoom department meetings and Microsoft Team interactions. So I decided to do some research into E-Learning, Online Teaching and Distance Learning to see what else is out there to make teaching online easier.
I have collated this research into the most popular websites, strategies and apps so that you can see what is available and how these might meet your current teaching needs. My plan is to try a number of these websites and strategies over the coming weeks and blog on whether they work or not.
My top to try:
- YO Teach: Create a student room with a discussion question
- Padlet: Create a padlet board for students to share ideas
- NowComment: Upload a document for students to comment on. One side is the document the other column is for feedback, interaction and engagement.
Strategies for Students:
- SelfCAD: Cloud based 3D software to support designing in STEM subjects
- Prezi: Presentations
- Scratch: Programming such as music, graphics and photos used in gaming, animations and slideshows.
Quizzes:
Strategies for Teachers:
- PowerPoint: With a completed powerpoint, press ‘Slideshow’ along the top and then ‘Record Audio’ to record a voice over to be saved with the presentation.
Student Discussion:
- IDroo: Real time collaboration whiteboard
- Microsoft Teams: Live streaming and interaction with student comments
- BigBlueButton: Student conferences
- Google Jamboard/ Classroom
Don’t forget to join TES for free subject resources.
If you have any other strategies, websites, ideas or app recommendations please comment 🙂