Distance Learning, mLearning, Digital Education, Technology

Brainstormer is a new online brainstorming tool that is easy to use and helps solve the "what do we do now?" problem that often arises at the end of group brainstorming sessions. Brainstormer solves that problem by letting members of the brainstorming session vote for their favorite ideas. 

One way to boost your distance teaching during (and post) this pandemic is through  creating and sharing screencasts and instruction videos with your students. In today's post we are sharing with you some of our favourite Chrome applications that you can use to record your screen and create instructional video materials to share with your students or embed in your virtual class.

The launch of Vimeo Record earlier this week made me think that perhaps it was time to write a comparison of popular screencasting / screen recording tools. For this comparison I selected the five options that pop into my head whenever I'm asked about screencasting (which has been almost daily since March). With the exception of Flipgrid all of the tools in this comparison have free and paid options. This comparison only addresses the features that are available to educators for free. If you'd like to see the comparisons in a chart format, I have embedded a chart at the end of this post (if you're reading this in email or RSS you'll need to click through to the website to see the chart). 

If you are looking for a good and free tool to create educational posts, Anchor is definitely one of the options I would recommend and here is why. First, Anchor is easy to use: simply log in to your account on the web or install the mobile app (supports both Android and iOS) and start recording using your device-integrated mic or an external one. You can also import recorded audio you have on other apps and use it with your own recordings. Most importantly, Anchor allows you to invite friends and colleagues to record with you provided they use the Anchor app.

The Rice University-based publisher OpenStax announced Thursday that it will provide free teaching resources through the end of the spring semester to support faculty transitioning to online course delivery in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Poll Animal is a web tool that enables you to easily create and share surveys and polls. Poll Animal is simple and easy to use and provides a wide variety of interesting features that will definitely enhance your survey creation experience. 

Gwyneth Jones writes: "Sometimes, when you're sharing the benefits of a professional Social Media presence, it can become a bit bewildering and overwhelming."

Open Education Resources
Explore the world of free digital materials available through open licenses, and celebrate the four Rs: reuse, redistribute, revise, remix.

One way to boost your distance teaching during (and post) this pandemic is through  creating and sharing screencasts and instruction videos with your students. In today's post we are sharing with you some of our favourite Chrome applications that you can use to record your screen and create instructional video materials to share with your students or embed in your virtual class.

Breakout Rooms is one of the most popular features of Zoom. A similar feature is now available in Microsoft Teams. Just like in Zoom you can assign your students to a specific breakout room or have them randomly assigned to a room..

Timelines are key elements to use in your instruction. They allow you to visually organize data and draw attention to the most important pieces of information (e.g., dates, events, project milestones etc). We have already shared a collection of web tools that you can use to design your own timelines. However, if you rather avoid the hassle of creating one from scratch, the free timeline templates below are some good options to start with. These are  PowerPoint templates curated from Microsoft Templates Gallery that you can download and adapt to your own teaching needs.

With online teaching and learning becoming the norm for so many teachers and students during the COVID-19 climate, it is important to be aware of what makes an engaging, creative and effective web-based teaching and learning experience.

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here is a collection of some good web tools to help you create digital quizzes. You can use them to design interactive quizzes, questionnaire, forms, polls and many more.  The tools are easy and simple to use and no software installation is required. Check them out and share with us your feedback. Links of the tools are under the visual.

Sometimes it’s just quicker and easier to show someone an idea or concept rather than try to say it to them. Other situations demand that you present an idea in multiple formats.

I know when I was in school (back in ancient, rotary-phone days), it would have been really helpful if my teacher could have sent me home with a recording of exactly how she tackled the example calculus problem. 

Microsoft Forms offers a good way for Office 365 users to create multimedia quizzes. The quizzes that you create in Microsoft Forms can be automatically graded for you. One of the features of Microsoft Forms that I actually prefer to Google Forms is the layout of images used as part of question prompt.