8 Digital Tools You’ll Want to Use to Engage Students
August 31, 2022
Bored students? Want to spice up your teaching?
Here are 8 tools we use in the Virtual English Academy to make lessons and homework more engaging.
1. Flip (Free)
Completely free and featuring a library of editable, teacher-created topics, Flip is a safe video discussion app compatible with desktop and mobile.
Suitable for teaching any subject online or in-person, teachers create their own private groups and topics for students to respond to. Students respond by video or text, as set by the teacher, and can respond to each other’s responses as well.
There are lots of educator settings, such as the ability to moderate responses before they go live. You’ll even be able to provide students with private feedback on their work, integrate or embed topics into your Learning Management System, and download and share student responses.
Your students will love making creative and highly customizable videos with Flip’s recording tool. It’s packed with features like backdrops, screen recording, stickers, GIFS, frames, sticky notes, whiteboards, and more. Students can also make and download videos for personal use.
2. Imagine Forest (Free)
Another totally free platform accessible via desktop and mobile, Imagine Forest is a writing tool and book creator. It comes with engaging story-starters, book art, challenges, activities, and other resources students will enjoy. In addition, it includes a library of student-created books.
Imagine Forest is excellent for getting students excited about writing different types of works, such as short stories, chapter books, picture books, and poems. Teachers can create specific assignments, or create general assignments where students collect points towards an XP goal.
3. OBS Studio (Free)
If you teach online, or even if you don’t, OBS Studio is really cool. It’s 100% free, and you can use it to record or stream video from your computer. You can even use it in conjunction with Zoom or Teams to add effects to your camera, like clipart and text. You can also adjust your lighting, color, etc.
OBS Studio allows you to create scenes in advance to flip through during an online class or video you’re recording, so all the virtual props you need are ready to go. Use them for positive reinforcement or demonstration during a live lesson, or use them to add some humor and fun to a live lesson or recording.
4. Canva (Free & Paid)
This powerful design tool, available on desktop and mobile, is fun for teachers and students alike!
Those at certified K-12 schools can get Canva’s premium features free through Canva for Education, while nonprofits can get them through Canva for Nonprofits (though you may have to ask your administrator for access). If you’re not eligible for either, you’ll still be impressed by Canva’s free plan.
Teachers and students can use Canva to design almost anything: beautiful presentations, worksheets, posters, graphic organizers, magazines, videos, and more. There is even a new whiteboard feature. The endless templates, stock photos, and clipart that come with both the premium and free versions make Canva super easy to use, though the premium plans have more content.
You’ll find that Canva presentations hold students’ attention better than PowerPoint or Google Slides, and that making them is faster. You’ll also see eager students that want to use Canva themselves for projects in any subject.
5. Genially (Free & Paid)
Genially is an amazing tool for creating interactive presentations and activities for online and in-person classes. The editor works much better on desktop, but the content you make can be opened on either desktop or mobile.
If you’re looking to gamify your lessons by making escape rooms, fun quizzes, clickable images, presentations with embedded content, or activities your students can write or draw on, Genially is the app for you. It definitely beats PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Canva for these uses, though its graphic and stock photo library is kind of small. Luckily, you can always import additional images.
If you aren’t looking to sell what you make, the free plan is pretty robust, though it comes with limited templates and options. There are also affordable paid plans with unlimited templates and better options for professional needs.
6. Wordwall (Free & Paid)
This cool tool allows you to create fun interactives and pintables, but it’s the interactives that really stand out. There are a whole bunch of templates, such as Gameshow quiz, Whack-a-Mole, and a Maze Chase. They all work on desktop and mobile.
Wordwall makes creating your own resources fast and pain-free. You can switch templates instantly, so when you create one activity, you’re really creating more. That means more variety for students who get bored easily!
There are membership options for different budgets and needs, including a free plan. It has less templates and options, and you can only create a limited amount of activities, but you may still find it worthwhile. What’s really great is that, with or without an account, you can use materials other teachers have created, and there’s lots of pre-made content available.
7. Twinkl (Free & Paid)
Twinkl is an online publishing house with hundreds of thousands of educational materials across subjects and ages. The materials are well-made and engaging, and they’re available on desktop and mobile.
The free plan is extremely limited as it only provides access to a very small percentage of the materials. However, it does include access to Twinkl Create, which you can use to make your own.
On the other hand, a low-cost membership will grant you access to all of Twinkl’s content, saving you a lot of planning time. It includes: digital story books, interactive resources, 3D and augmented reality models, PowerPoints, and more. There is so much to choose from, and most items can be downloaded for offline use.
8. Pixton (Paid)
A student and teacher favorite in the Virtual English Academy, people of all ages love making comics with this fun and easy platform.
Pixton is far superior to its competitors. It has nicer art, more customization, and a variety of theme packs, so you and your students can tap into your creativity. Additionally, it can be accessed by desktop or mobile devices, and the comics are easy to share and download.
Use Pixton to teach any subject. You’ll get more student engagement in online and in-person classes, and students will enjoy using it for homework and projects. Educator accounts offer a library of lesson plans, while student accounts come with a collection of writing prompts. You can’t go wrong with this platform!
Want training, support, and experience teaching online?
Volunteer to teach English in the Virtual English Academy.
Still in middle school or high school? Become a Virtual Summer Teaching Fellow. Applications are now open for 2023!
Use other digital tools to engage your students? Leave a comment below.
Written by Adie Jalfin, Outreach360 Academic Director
Adie is responsible for training our volunteers and staff to be effective teachers. She also designs and oversees our Virtual English Academy. She has experience using a variety of educational technology to teach a range of subjects online and in-person.
