With the Corona Virus / Covid-19 crisis gaining traction around the world, many schools are closing and moving their learning online. It’s not going to be possible to move seamlessly over to an online model, these things need planning, but there are apps and websites you could use to help incorporate aspects of collaboration.

In terms of running lessons online, I’m not going to cover webinar software in detail here. You might be able to use Google Hangouts, Skype or Zoom to as simple options to communicate with your students.

The ability to collaborate on documents is becoming increasingly commonplace. The big players are the likes of Google Docs and Office 365 which allow very easy collaboration across multiple devices. Students can collaborate and add to/edit documents such as presentations, text files and spreadsheets in real time. Collaboration tools have also been built into other cloud tools such as Dropbox.

Here’s a selection of online tools you could use to allow students to work collaboratively on different projects, or to allow you to set quizzes/tasks to be completed online.

Google Tools

If you’re a Google user, you can make good use of the basic Google docs features : the Word Docs,  Presentations and even the Spreadsheet to collaborate. Share links in a Word Doc or Presentation, have students collaborate in documents.

Microsoft Office 365

Also don’t forget that Office 365 now has plenty of collaboration tools. Also take a look at Microsoft One Note’s Class Notebooks feature. These act as a personal workspace for every student along with a collaboration space for lessons and creative activities. If students are using devices that use pens such as Microsoft Surface or certain Ipad models, then they can even hand write annotations using digital ink for a more natural feel. This allows for sketched plans, diagrams and suchlike. Good for collaborative planning. You can find more information about One Note Class Notebooks here.

Padlet

Padlet gives teachers a virtual cork board where anyone can post short text notes in the same way that you could put post-it notes onto a notice board in your classroom. Unlike a classroom board, the great thing about a Padlet board is that it can be shared between people all over the world! Or your class could use it to collaborate and share ideas outside of the classroom. Use for brainstorming. Could also make a good question board – students can post questions to the board as you go along.

Get three boards for free. Can recycle these three, so no need to pay unless you want more!

How to use Padlet: A guide for teachers

padlet

Socrative

Socrative is a web-based system that lets teachers and students set up quizzes and polling questions on any device that has access to the internet via a web browser. This includes iPads, smartphones, laptops, iPod Touches, etc. This makes it perfect for use in a BYOD classroom. For Android and IOS devices you can also access it via an app. And the best news is that it’s all free (with extras you can pay for) .

How to use Socrative: A Guide for Teachers

Kahoot

Kahoot is a fab quiz and survey creation tool that will work on any device. It allows teachers to set up and run multiple choice quizzes which their students can then answer via any device that has a web browser.

The teacher creates a quiz using the web interface. Questions are multiple-choice style, and it’s pretty straightforward to get these set up, enter the options and select the correct answer. Kahoot now has a homework mode which means students can attempt questions before/after the lecture. Free to use (will upsell extras)

How to use Kahoot

Mentimeter

Mentimeter allows you to create an online presentation with questions built in to the slides. You can share these online via a unique code and automatically collate answers. Allows for short answer, multiple choice, word walls and more.

Wakelet

Wakelet is another planning/collaboration/curation tool which allows a group to create a digital portfolio in a similar way to Padlet, but it’s free. You can collate YouTube, Tweets, PDFs, documents and more. There’s a nice guide to using Wakelet in the Classroom here.

Screencast-o-matic

Screencast-o-matic allows you to record short presentations, and you can get under 15 mins for free. These can then be uploaded to YouTube/Vimeo or added to a Google Drive or Dropbox. You could present alongside a Powerpoint, or record how to guides or tutorials.

Bubble.us

Bubble.us is mindmapping software with collaboration features. It lets you share your mind maps easily with students via a shareable link. Allows them to collaborate in real time and see changes to the mind map immediately. Subscription service, with discounts for schools.

Popplet

Popplet is a really simple to use brainstorming tool. With Popplet children can quickly jot down their ideas and sort them visually. A popplet is a big pinboard that you can put boxes or “popples” onto. A popple is container that holds text, photos, and other interesting things such as Google Map or YouTube video.

Flipgrid

Flipgrid is a video response platform where educators can have online video discussions with students or other educators. Teachers can provide feedback to students AND better yet students can provide feedback to one another. The Ed Tech Team have a great writeup here. Here’s a good guide to Flipgrid from Ed Tech Roundup too.

Seesaw

See Saw is a platform that allows students to share and annotate content which can be seen by teachers and parents. Students use built-in annotation tools to capture what they know in Seesaw’s digital portfolio

Google Jamboard

Google Jamboard provides a free piece of annotation software to use on your interactive whiteboard as an alternative to the expensive offerings of SMART and Promethean. It also has some rather nifty sharing and collaboration features that might make it interesting to some teachers.

Read more about Jamboard here.

There’s probably many more out there. Share your favourites in the comments below.