As the new coronavirus, COVID-19, spreads throughout the country, more and more schools are canceling classes and shifting their in-person instructional time online.
Edmodo:
Edmodo is a distance learning toolkit. As educators, you can send messages, share class materials, and make learning accessible anywhere. Families can receive class updates, support the learning that is taking place at home, see classroom activity, and monitor their child’s grades all from within the platform.
Free Services Offered: Always Free
How to utilize: Visit go.edmodo.com/distancelearning/ and sign up for a teacher account.
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Flipgrid:
Flipgrid is a social learning communications platform. Educators create grids, which are the meeting place for your class, and then discuss the topics you have uploaded. Your students can share their ideas, stories, and work by recording short videos based on the assigned topics and share them within the app.
Free Services Offered: Always Free
How to utilize: Visit https://auth.flipgrid.com/signup and register for your educator’s account.
G Suite:
G Suite for Education allows educators to facilitate learning, keep track of tasks, and create opportunities for critical thinking. Google is giving all current customers free access to advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities. This allows for larger meetings (up to 250 participants), live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers, and the ability to record meetings and save them in Drive.
Free Services Offered: Advanced Hangouts Meets video-conferencing for existing customers
How to utilize: Follow the instructions that were sent to G Suite Admins or visit the learning center page.
Hāpara:
Hāpara is a digital instructional suite that helps teachers with virtual classroom management. When using Hāpara to provide instruction, your students see what you see. The platform gives you the ability to monitor the webpages that your students have open during the session, share files and assignments directly to student Drive folders, and co-teach all in one workspace.
Free Services Offered: Free access until the end of June 2020
How to utilize: Fill out the form on their website to get your free access.
Kami:
Kami is a remote learning platform that integrates with Google Classroom, Schoology, and Canvas. The platform gives you interactive tools (such as the ability to provide text, voice, or video feedback to your students), real-time interventions, in-app assignment submission, and a built-in grading feature. Kami can even be used offline! Once a file has been opened you can work on it knowing that Kami will save your pending changes and upload them once you are back online.
Free Services Offered: School-wide license activated until April 30th (with the option to extend as long as your school is closed)
How to utilize: Send an email to [email protected] to sign up.
Pronto:
Pronto is a self-described ‘communication hub’ that will connect you with your students via chat and video. You can have a group video chat with up to 10 people for collaborative projects or broadcast your video live to up to 400 students. Within the app you can send announcements, share files, and create lists so students can keep track of their tasks. Pronto is also has accessibility features – such as screen readers and dynamic text – and is FERPA compliant. You are connected without sharing phone numbers or emails.
Free Services Offered: Available for teams and teachers at no cost during this time.
How to utilize: Fill out the form located on their website.
Zoom:
Zoom is a video conferencing platform that allows for both video and audio conferencing. For students who don’t have access to computers at home, but do have a phone, they can call in to join the meeting! Zoom’s free license allows you to have an unlimited number of video meetings that up to 100 students can join. There is also a chat feature that would allow your students to ask you questions while you are presenting.
Free Services Offered: Free License
How to utilize: Visit Zoom’s website and register for a free account.
Edpuzzle:
Edpuzzle is a platform that allows you to take any video and make it interactive! As the teacher, you can track if your students are watching the videos you assign and how many times they’ve watched it. You can add your own voice narration and questions to any video (you can use videos from YouTube, Khan Academy, Crash Course, and more). They even have the ability for you to record your own video and upload it. Only one teacher from your school needs to fill out the form.
Free Services Offered: Full Access to the Platform
How to utilize: Create an Edupuzzle account and then fill out this form
Explain Everything:
Explain Everything is offering extended free access to Explain Everything Whiteboard. This virtual tool can be utilized for online scenarios by helping you create explanation videos. Within the platform you get infinite space to create, annotation tools to mark everything you have put on your canvas (including videos!), and all-in-one recording & editing features.
Free Services Offered: Extended Free Access to Explain Everything Whiteboard
How to utilize: Fill out the form on the website.
Nearpod:
Nearpod is an online platform that allows you to create interactive lessons in minutes. You can choose to import existing lessons, add in virtual field trips, create quizzes and polls, and even use matching pairs activities. Nearpod can also add these features to your presentations in Google Slides. As the teacher, you can synchronize and control the lessons across all student devices, evaluate student responses (individually or as a class), generate post-session reports, and even create game-based learning opportunities for your students!
Free Services Offered: Free Access to Nearpod
How to utilize: Fill out the form on the website by clicking the ‘Request Support’ button in the middle of the page.
Pear Deck:
Pear Deck was founded by educators to help engage every student, every day. With the Google Slides add-on you can create interactive questions and prompts for slideshows. Once you have created your presentatio, you can either control the speed at which you present the material or allow students to move through at their own pace. Pear Deck even offers the ability to publish a notes document that shows the information from the session!
Free Services Offered: Complimentary Access to Pear Deck Premium
How to utilize: Request Individual Access or District-Wide Access on the website.
Screencastify:
Screencastify is an online platform that helps with blended learning. You can add the Google Chrome Add-on to recording full or partial lessons, recording assignment solutions & explanations, and provide verbal student feedback. Screencastify also helps your students make their voices heard – great for speech and language practice! You can also save time by recording Professional Development, lesson plans, and parent communication. Screencastify is COPPA, FERPA, and SOPIPA compliant, and integrates with Google Drive and Google Classroom.
Free Services Offered: Free Chrome Extension, other services upon request
How to utilize: Email [email protected], they have tweeted that they will do whatever they can at no cost!
Slido for Education:
Slido for Education is a package for educators to increase interaction during lectures and virtual classes. Slido for Education integrates with PowerPoint, Google Slides, Zoom Video Webinar, and provides improved Slido Quizzes. You can integrate interactive polls, quizzes, and audience Q&A right in your presentation.
Free Services Offered: Free for teachers & students globally until July 1.
How to utilize: Send an email to [email protected] & [email protected] to get access!
Book Creator App:
Book Creator is a simple way for your students to make their own ebooks. This platform can be used to create for any subject across any grade level. The resources hub gives you a range of lesson ideas, or create your own assignment that lets your students get creative to demonstrate their knowledge! There is also a list of... ways that Book Creator can help with remote learning on the website.
Free Services Offered: Premium feature – real-time collaboration on books
How to utilize: Create an account, start the collaboration trial, and fill out a short form to get access to this feature.
CommonLit:
CommonLit is a nonprofit education technology organization working to support all students with reading, writing, communication, and problem-solving skills. The CommonLit Literacy Midel is built on a foundation of over 2,000 high-quality free reading passages for grades 3-12, complimented by aligned interim assessments, growth oriented goals, and expert led teacher development. Teachers can assign Mini Units (short, self-paced thematic units for grades 5-12) and Text Sets (relevant reading passages from a variety of genres).
Free Services Offered: Free account access for teachers, school/district leaders can pursue free virtual training and digital resource packs to support contingency plans.
How to utilize: Teachers can sign up for free on the website; school/district leaders can email [email protected].
Elementari:
Elementari engages students to write their own story, working at their own pace. The platform provides illustrations to inspire stories, develop analytical thinking, and provide a source of pride for students in their personal writing and coding projects. Elementari is used around the world for writing in students native language and for second language learning. Teachers can review and give feedback on students’ stories remotely.
Free Services Offered: Free Access to the Entire Platform
Epic!:
Epic! is the leading digital library for kids 12 and under, and it is free for educators. With Epic! you instantly get access to 35,000 of the best books, learning videos, quizzes, & more. The books have a feature that will read aloud the story to your students.
Free Services Offered: Always Free for Teachers
How to utilize: Visit the website and sign up!
Mangahigh:
Mangahigh is a math platform that is built on the ethos of collaboration, community, and competition. These elements are ingrained in both the teacher and student experience of the platform. As a teacher, you will get access to a full reporting dashboard and a full account for each student so they can continue their learning at home on any device available to them. You can assign and assess students’ performance online and exchange messages with your students all within the virtual environment.
Free Services Offered: Full Access for Teachers and Students for 60 days (will extend if you are still closed.)
How to utilize: Register by using this link: https://app.mangahigh.com/en-us/register/CV19.
Prodigy:
Prodigy is an engaging, curriculum-aligned math platform for students and teachers from 1st – 8th grade. The platform encourages self-paced math practice for both in and out of school that is leveled based on your students progress. Prodigy meets ESSA Tier 3 in partnership with John Hopkins University. Your students can work through topics based on their levels or you can assign specific skills for them to complete; all while they think they are playing a game! State test prep is also available to assign.
Free Services Offered: Always Free
How to utilize: Sign up for an account today!
Tailor-ED:
Tailor-ED provides holistic learning experiences tailored to the needs of the teacher, the classroom, and each and every student. The Teacher Basic Plan is free and includes K-8 standard aligned math resources, smart differentiated lesson tools, and SEL-based exit tickets. You can create up to 4 units with the free teacher account.
Free Services Offered: Always Free
How to utilize: Sign up for Free on the Website!
Tynker:
Tynker is the #1 coding platform for kids – Tynker fuels creativity in thousands of schools and powers the imagination of 60 million kids worldwide. In the platform you can access 40+ aware winning block & text-based courses and over 3,700 learning modules. Tynker is broken down into three age groups: Ages 5-7 (voice instructions); Ages 7-13 (drag and drop coding); and Ages 13+ (real world coding). For teachers looking to utilize this platform, webinars are available to help you use the features in a remote learning environment.
Free Services Offered: Free Access to the entire Platform until May 2020.
Vidcode:
Vidcode is a computer science curriculum and coding platform. The courses teach computer science, object-oriented programming, web programming, design, & JavaScript. Learners can upload photos, illustrations, videos, and audio – and manipulate them with code right away! This allows tweens and teens to connect computer programming to the media they interact with every day. Webinars are available to help you get started.
Free Services Offered: Full platform and Curriculum for free until May 2020.
Online Museums
Now, you get “go to the museum” and never have to leave your couch.
British Museum, London
This iconic museum located in the heart of London allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies. You can also find hundreds of artifacts on the museum’s virtual tour.
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Google’s Street View feature lets visitors tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase without ever leaving home. From there, you can discover incredible works of art from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary eras.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
This famous American art museum features two online exhibits through Google. The first is an exhibit of American fashion from 1740 to 1895, including many renderings of clothes from the colonial and Revolutionary eras. The second is a collection of works from Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
You can virtually walk through this popular gallery that houses dozens of famous works from French artists who worked and lived between 1848 and 1914. Get a peek at artworks from Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, among others.
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul
One of Korea’s popular museums can be accessed from anywhere around the world. Google’s virtual tour takes you through six floors of Contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.
Pergamon Museum, Berlin
As one of Germany’s largest museums, Pergamon has a lot to offer – even if you can’t physically be there. This historical museum is home to plenty of ancient artifacts including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and, of course, the Pergamon Altar.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Explore the masterworks from the Dutch Golden Age, including works from Vermeer and Rembrandt. Google offers a Street View tour of this iconic museum, so you can feel as if you’re actually wandering its halls.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Anyone who is a fan of this tragic, ingenious painter can see his works up close (or, almost up close) by virtually visiting this museum – the largest collection of artworks by Vincent van Gogh, including over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and over 750 personal letters.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
European artworks from as far back as the 8th Century can be found in this California art museum. Take a Street View tour to discover a huge collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, and photographs.
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
This less well-known gallery houses the art collection of one of Florence, Italy’s most famous families, the de'Medicis. The building was designed by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 specifically for Cosimo I de'Medici, but anyone can wander its halls from anywhere in the world.
MASP, São Paulo
The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is a non-profit and Brazil’s first modern museum. Artworks placed on clear perspex frames make it seem like the artwork is hovering in midair. Take a virtual tour to experience the wondrous display for yourself.
National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
Built in 1964, this museum is dedicated to the archaeology and history of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic heritage. There are 23 exhibit rooms filled with ancient artifacts, including some from the Mayan civilization.
