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75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom

There is no shortage of  formative assessment strategies, techniques, and tools  available to teachers who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. Here is an extensive list of 75 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help you and your students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of learning. We didn’t just add any old tool to this list. Here are the criteria we used for those that made the cut:

• Supports formative instructional strategies and ways to activate learners to be resources for themselves and peers
• Is free or awful close to it (under $10 per year, where possible)
• Allows both students and teachers to take the activator role when possible (sometimes teachers need to get things started)

Before you dig into the tools, I encourage you to spend some time thinking about exactly what you want to accomplish with your students.  “How to pick the right digital tool: Start with your learning goal”  by Erin Beard can help you wrap your head around goals and guide you in choosing the best tool for the task.  “27 easy formative assessment strategies for gathering evidence of student learning”  can help you decide what strategies work best for you and your students.

Record audio and video

• Animoto  Gives students the ability to make a 30-second video of what they learned in a lesson.
• AudioNote  A combination of a voice recorder and notepad, it captures both audio and notes for student collaboration.
• Edpuzzle  Helps you use video (your own, or one from Khan Academy, YouTube, and more) to track student understanding.
• Flip  Lets students use 15-second to 5-minute videos to respond to prompts. Teachers and peers can provide feedback.
• QuickVoice Recorder  Allows you to record classes, discussions, or audio for projects. Sync your recordings to your computer easily for use in presentations.
• Vocaroo  Creates audio recordings without the need for software. Embed the recording into slideshows, presentations, or websites.
• WeVideo  Lets you use video creatively to engage students in learning. Teachers and students alike can make videos.

Create quizzes, polls, and surveys

• Crowdsignal  Lets you create online polls, quizzes, and questions. Students can use smartphones, tablets, and computers to provide their answers, and information can be culled for reports.
• Edulastic  Allows you to make standards-aligned assessments and get instant feedback.
• FreeOnlineSurveys  Helps you create surveys, quizzes, forms, and polls.
• Gimkit  Lets you write real-time quizzes. And it was designed by a high school student!
• Google Forms  Part of the Google suite, Google Forms lets you create quizzes, polls, and surveys and see answers in real time.
• Kahoot!  A game-based classroom response system that lets you create quizzes using internet content.
• MicroPoll  Helps you create polls, embed them into websites, and analyze responses.
• Naiku  Lets you write quizzes students can answer using their mobile devices.
• Poll Everywhere  Lets you create a feedback poll or ask questions and see results in real time. Allows students to respond in various ways. With open-ended questions, you can capture data and spin up tag clouds to aggregate responses.
• Poll Maker  Offers unique features, like allowing multiple answers to one question.
• ProProfs  Helps you make quizzes, polls, and surveys.
• Quia  Lets you create games, quizzes, surveys, and more. Access a database of existing quizzes from other educators.
• Quizalize  Helps you create quizzes and homework.
• Quizizz  Guides you through designing quizzes and lets you include students in the quiz-writing process.
• Quizlet  Lets you make flashcards, tests, quizzes, and study games that are mobile friendly.
• Quizmaker  Helps you write quizzes quickly and easily.
• Survey Hero  Designed to build questionnaires and surveys.
• SurveyMonkey  Helpful for online polls and surveys.
• SurveyPlanet  Also helpful for online polls and surveys.
• Zoho Survey  Allows you to make mobile-friendly surveys and see results in real time.

Brainstorm, mind map, and collaborate

• AnswerGarden  A tool for online brainstorming and collaboration.
• Coggle  A mind-mapping tool designed to help you understand student thinking.
• Conceptboard  Software that facilitates team collaboration in a visual format, similar to mind mapping but using visual and text inputs.
• Dotstorming  A whiteboard app that allows digital sticky notes to be posted and voted on. This tool is best for generating class discussion and brainstorming on different topics and questions.
• Educreations Whiteboard  A whiteboard app that lets students share what they know.
• iBrainstorm  Lets students collaborate on projects using a stylus or their finger.
• Miro  Allows whole-class collaboration in real time.
• Padlet  Provides a blank canvas for students to create and design collaborative projects.
• ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard  Another whiteboard tool to check understanding.
• XMind  Mind-mapping software for use on desktop computers and laptops.
• Equity Maps  These discussion maps can help you ensure every student has a chance to share their ideas.

Present, engage, and inspire

• BrainPOP  Lets you use prerecorded videos on countless topics to shape your lesson plan, then use quizzes to see what stuck.
• Buncee  Helps students and teachers visualize, communicate, and engage with classroom concepts.
• Five Card Flickr  Uses the tag feature from photos in Flickr to foster visual thinking.
• PlayPosit  Allows you to add formative assessment features to a video from a library or popular sites, such as YouTube and Vimeo, to survey what students know about a topic.
• RabbleBrowser  Allows a leader to facilitate a collaborative browsing experience.
• Random Name/Word Picker  Facilitates random name picking. You can also add a list of keywords and use the tool to prompt students to guess words by providing definitions.
• Socrative  Uses exercises and games to engage students with a topic.
• Adobe Express  Lets you add graphics and visuals to exit tickets.
• Typeform  Helps you add graphical elements to polls.

Generate word or tag clouds

• EdWordle  Generates word clouds from any entered text to help aggregate responses and facilitate discussion. Word clouds are pictures composed of a cloud of smaller words that form a clue to the topic.
• Tagxedo  Allows you to examine student consensus and facilitate dialogues.
• Wordables  Helps you elicit evidence of learning or determine background knowledge about a topic.
• WordArt  Includes a feature that allows the user to make each word an active link to connect to websites, including YouTube.

Get real-time feedback

• Formative  Lets you assign activities, receive results in real time, and provide immediate feedback.
• GoSoapBox  Works with the bring-your-own-device model and includes an especially intriguing feature: a confusion meter.
• IXL  Breaks down options by grade level and content area.
• Kaizena  Gives students real-time feedback on work they upload. You can use a highlighter or give verbal feedback. You can also attach resources.
• Mentimeter  Allows you to use mobile phones or tablets to vote on any question a teacher asks, increasing student engagement.
• Pear Deck  Lets you plan and build interactive presentations that students can participate in via their smart device. It also offers unique question types.
• Plickers  Allows you to collect real-time formative assessment data without the need for student devices.
• Quick Key  Helps you with accurate marking, instant grading, and immediate feedback.

Foster family communication  

• Remind  Lets you text students and stay in touch with families.
• Seesaw  Helps you improve family communication and makes formative assessment easy, while students can use the platform to document their learning.
• Voxer  Lets you send recordings so families can hear how their students are doing, students can chat about their work, and you can provide feedback.

Strengthen teacher-to-student or student-to-student communication

• AnswerGarden  Gives you access to formative assessment feedback.
• Biblionasium  Lets you view books students have read, create reading challenges, and track progress. Students can also review and recommend books to their peers.
• Classkick  Helps you post assignments for students, and both you and your students’ peers can provide feedback. Students can also monitor their progress and work.
• TeacherEase Rubrics . This paid tool can help you ensure your rubrics are clear and accurate.
• Lino  A virtual cork board of sticky notes, it lets students ask questions or make comments on their learning.
• Online Stopwatch  Provides dozens of themed digital classroom timers to use during small- and whole-group discussions.
• Peergrade  Helps you create assignments and upload rubrics. You can also anonymously assign peer review work. Students can upload and review work using the corresponding rubric.
• Verso  Lets you set up learning using a URL. Space is provided for directions. Students can add their assignment, post comments, and respond to comments. You can group responses and check engagement levels.
• VoiceThread  Allows you to create and share conversations on documents, diagrams, videos, pictures, and more.

Keep the conversation going with live chats

• Yo Teach  A backchannel site great for keeping the conversation going with students.
• Chatzy  Supports live, online chats in a private setting.

Create and store documents or assignments

• Google Drive  Google Drive allows you to create documents students can collaborate on in real time using smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
• Piazza  Lets you upload lectures, assignments, and homework; pose and respond to student questions; and poll students about class content. This tool is better suited for older students as it mimics post-secondary class instructional formats.

There are several resources for learning more about formative assessment and responsive instruction strategies. Consider our  formative practices workshops , where school and district teams can gain a better understanding of the role formative practice plays in instruction and the four foundational practices to use in the classroom. Or for a quick start, download our eBook  “Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice.”

Jump in, try new tools and methods, and have fun!

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Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice

Formative assessment isn’t new. But as our education system changes, our approaches to any instructional strategy must evolve. Learn how to put formative assessment to work in your classroom.

View the eBook

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Best Homework Games for Students

Learning shouldn't stop because school's out. These homework games offer a nice mix of learning and engagement, so students extend classroom activities, refine skills, and reinforce concepts at home. With these great games spanning math, science, ELA, social studies, and more, students can form healthy study habits that help them dive deep into whatever interests them most. Whether students need to brush up on math facts and build fluency, grow their vocabulary, practice typing, stretch their thinking skills, or explore other cultures, this list has a game students can take home today.

Immediate feedback and breadth a huge plus, despite emphasis on drills

Bottom Line : Students can improve targeted skills by using practice modules in moderation.

The Robot Factory by Tinybop

Improve designs, collect favorites in robot creation sandbox

Bottom Line : A well-made and enjoyable STEM app that leverages what's great about play -- experimentation -- to spark engineering interest.

Simple Machines by Tinybop

Excellent elementary NGSS engineering practices embedded in fun games

Bottom Line : Fun gameplay lets kids explore important physics concepts in a solid standards-aligned context.

Motion Math

Playful collection of games reinforces a diversity of skills

Bottom Line : A great add-on to any classroom as a treat for students or as a way to get students to practice taught concepts to mastery.

Creative sandbox opens the door to coding in any subject area

Bottom Line : Scratch draws students of all types into coding and lays a foundation for future learning.

Awesome, adaptive math games with a killer teacher dashboard

Bottom Line : Fantastic tool for flipped or blended classrooms, formative assessment, or extra practice in any setting.

Contraption Maker

Solve problems, puzzles, brain teasers while creating wacky machines

Bottom Line : Hands-on problem-solving leads to great fun and independent learning with the right curricular wraparound to connect what kids are doing with what they need to know.

Sandbox tool enables engaged, conceptual physics inquiry

Bottom Line : A robust, free pedagogical tool that's like a digital workbench where kids build and apply conceptual science knowledge.

Dungeon-crawling adventure where code is king

Bottom Line : While not everyone loves fighting ogres, CodeCombat offers a classroom-ready platform and an authentic learning experience.

Kahoot! Algebra 2 by DragonBox

Super fun, cutting-edge approach to learning and practicing algebra

Bottom Line : Kids build a strong foundation for algebra by learning the underlying concepts for solving equations with this extremely fun and educational math tool.

Tyto Ecology

Well-developed biome sim provides cheap, endless learning

Bottom Line : This affordable ecosystem balancing game teaches life science skills while keeping students engaged.

Universe Sandbox

Superb sandbox for astrophysics experimentation

Bottom Line : An impressive -- and complex -- tool that encourages a playful, systems thinking-oriented exploration of the universe and astrophysics.

One of the best creation tools available for aspiring game developers

Bottom Line : Great choice for a full unit or class on game design; fuels students game-making dreams.

Niche - a genetics survival game

Immersive genetics sim puts evolution in students' hands

Bottom Line : This hands-on genetics game allows students to experiment, explore traits, and come away with a sophisticated understanding of the subject.

Kerbal Space Program

Design and launch a rocket into space in realistic astrophysics sim

Bottom Line : This accurate rocket sim encourages trial-and-error learning and makes for great (and often explosive) physics and engineering experiments.

ELA and Social Studies Games

Hangart: play hangman, draw pictures, tell stories.

Games, creative activities give 360-degree view of common sight words

Bottom Line : Combination of guided games and open-ended activities give kids a great opportunity for digging deep into words.

Never Alone: Ki Edition

Illuminating native Alaskan folktale supports SEL skills

Bottom Line : A beautiful achievement developed in cooperation with indigenous folk that offers players valuable SEL skill building and a respectful window into Inupiat culture, ways of life, traditions, and stories.

Well-designed games, lessons can spice up your civics curriculum

Bottom Line : This game-based curriculum would be an excellent addition to any secondary social studies.

Sid Meier's Civilization V

Legendary strategy game is a hit with history buffs in school and out

Bottom Line : For flexible classrooms, creative teachers, and sharp students, Civilization V is the perfect platform for making rather than memorizing history.

Political Animals

Charming political campaign sim mixes data analysis and civics

Bottom Line : It's a highly entertaining and surprisingly deep way to help students see the strategy -- as well as ethical choices -- involved in elections.

SAT Vocab by MindSnacks

Variety is key in charmingly effective SAT vocab app

Bottom Line : Upgrading to the full version gets you great games and a thorough word list for SAT vocab prep.

Walden, A Game

Thoughtfully designed game illuminates Thoreau's writing, philosophy

Bottom Line : It's rare to be so moved and permanently transformed by a work of art; that this game manages to (re)create these experiences is a triumph.

Miscellaneous Games

One-stop shop for a wealth of fantastic PBS Kids educational content

Bottom Line : Robust collection of learning resources covers an impressive array of topics.

Customizable multiplayer auto races rev up basic typing practice

Bottom Line : Nitro Type is pretty darn engaging, but teachers need to prep students' typing skills first.

Classic logic puzzler gets a beautiful new look

Bottom Line : Promote powerful thinking skills, resilience, and decision-making through purely fun gameplay that will keep students begging for more.

Spiraling sandbox of adventure and creation gets kids to dig deep

Bottom Line : An irresistible and seemingly limitless incubator for 21st century skills that, with a little guidance, can chart new courses for learning.

Epistory - Typing Chronicles

Practice typing by exploring and defending a world made of paper

Bottom Line : Great for practicing touch-typing skills, this adventure game draws players in with a slowly revealed backstory.

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13 Best Classroom Technology Tools for the Modern Teacher

Written by Victoria Hegwood

Find out what math skills students struggle the most with in our Math Performance Report.

• Teaching Strategies
• Teaching Tools

What is educational technology?

Learning game tech tools, assessment tech tools, presentation tech tools, lesson plan and class material tech tools.

Education has changed a lot in the last 20 years. And not just what we’re teaching, but how we’re teaching. 

In the 21st century, and especially since the COVID pandemic, hybrid schedules of virtual and in-person learning are more common than ever. And it’s definitely no easy task to take on. Teachers have had to adapt and learn how to teach effective lessons across multiple platforms. 

This is where classroom technology tools can come in handy. There are some great tools out there that help teachers create interactive learning environments that keep students engaged regardless of how they’re attending the lesson. 

Now, we know that you don’t have time to download, test and weed out all of the tools that are available to you. So we’ve put together a list of 13 of our favorite classroom technology tools. With the help of these tools, you’ll be creating lessons that are the talk of the school. 

Educational technology is a pretty broad term that covers anything digital that is used to facilitate learning. It can be everything from apps to grading systems to teaching platforms. 

If you’re not quite sure where to begin or don’t feel confident enough to use technology in your classroom, you’re not alone! But there is a solution. 

Many individuals have set out to create a rich library of professional development resources online. These resources help teachers become more confident in their use of technology in the classrooms, answering whatever questions you have about how to use a certain tool or type of technology.

13 Must-have tech tools for your classroom

We’ve talked to a lot of teachers to find out what really works in their classroom (and what really doesn’t!) These 13 tools are must-haves for creating interactive, engaging lessons that students are excited to participate in. 

This list is broken down into learning game tech tools, assessment tech tools, presentation tech tools and lesson plan and classroom material tech tools. Feel free to skip ahead if there’s a specific type of tool that you’re looking for.

Prodigy allows students to practice math and English skills in an immersive, game-based environment. As students play Prodigy Math and Prodigy English, they'll answer teacher-made, curriculum-aligned questions tailored to their level. Its adaptive algorithm tweaks the skill practice based on their understanding of the content, so they are able to build on struggle areas while they enjoy.

Prodigy naturally supplements many teaching strategies and techniques. You can use Prodigy to:

• Easily provide differentiated skill practice
• Gain feedback from entry and exit tickets
• Give students homework that engages them
• Prepare and deliver formative and summative assessments
• Connect parents to classroom learning and students' progress

The teacher dashboard offers one convenient place to gauge student progress, monitor who is mastering each concept and evaluate who needs more support. Best of all, it’s all available at no cost to teachers and schools.

See what other teachers think about Prodigy below!

Our world has very quickly shifted to many jobs, services and experiences being offered totally online. Because of this, the skills our students need to learn to be successful have changed. Introducing STEM programs like coding and computer science early will set up students for success in the later stages of education and in the workforce. 

Tynker provides a great first exposure to coding with approachable tutorials. It covers skills from the most basic to more advanced.

Best for: Helping students engage in technical skill practice.

Cost: $29 USD per month for standard account, with upgrades available.

NearPod is a more accessible and affordable virtual reality option for teachers to bring into their classrooms. Virtual reality can be an immersive experience that allows students to explore concepts in 3D and deepen their understanding. 

NearPod offers over 450 VR experiences ranging from the exploration of volcanoes to a trip to the American revolution battlefields. There are lessons for students of any grade level and every subject. 

Best for: Helping students engage in content using technology.

Cost: Free plan available, with paid plans starting at $159 USD per year.

Kahoot is a teacher favorite for in-class questionnaires and quizzes. The best part of this tool is how adaptable it is. It is compatible with many devices, and assessments can be joined remotely or in person. 

Kahoot can turn a dreaded quiz into an experience that feels like a game show. This element of fun has been shown in studies to not only increase student attendance but also their engagement.

Best for: Helping students engage in quiz-based assessments.

Quizlet allows teachers to create study sets, review materials, flashcards and learning games for their whole class for any subject. It’s easy to access templates that you can use to make the process even faster and easier.  There are also premade study sets from other teachers and even students on a variety of topics.

Best for: Helping students review content in subjects like foreign languages, history or sciences.

Cost: Free for basic features, extra features require a teacher account at $35.99 USD per year.

6. Socrative

Socrative provides formative assessment tools to connect teachers with students in real-time as learning is happening. This quiz-based app helps teachers create engaging and fun assessments catered to match different learning styles.

This tool can also be used to gauge each student’s understanding and offers multiple feedback options. With all this extra information, you can create targeted lesson plans to encourage student success.

Best for: Teachers looking to assess students through quizzes.

Cost: Free with limited features. Paid plans start at $89.99 USD per year.

Parlay Ideas is designed for assessments that spur deeper discussions about the learning material. Teachers can see students' responses, provide feedback and give out a grade all in one place. It simplifies how you collect response data so you have more time to review student work and can understand better where each student is at.

Best for: Teachers looking to assess and get student feedback.

Cost: $160 USD per year, with free teacher trial available.

Previously known as Flipgrid, Flip offers a way for teachers to bridge the classroom experience and what a student is working on at home. On the platform, you can prepare discussion topics and record a video of yourself presenting the topic. Students will then respond in a discussion forum with a video of their own. Making this an at-home assignment gives students time to brainstorm their answers and feel more comfortable in front of the camera. 

This edtech tool resembles the popular social media app Snapchat, where one video is replied to with another video. The fun and novelty of this way of learning can increase student engagement and excitement about academic topics. 

Best for: Helping middle and high school students discuss learning material and share feedback.

Prezi is commonly used as a presentation tool by students, but it can also be used by teachers. This virtual presentation software allows presenters to be on the same screen as the graphics, creating a more engaging presentation that doesn’t just have a voiceover. 

While Powerpoint has been an extremely useful tool for many years, Prezi has more capabilities to create visually appealing presentations with personal touches.

Best for: Making presentations more interactive and engaging for students to follow.

Cost: $3 to $5 USD per month for student and educator accounts.

10. Storybird

Storybird is a digital platform that encourages students to become better writers by adding images to their stories. It can pair up an entered word with an image or vice versa when a picture is added first. 

This tool can be especially handy for visual learners or when learning concepts like the different parts of plant cells. Each vocabulary word can be followed by a picture of that part of the plant. 

Additionally, Storybird can be a great collaboration tool where one student picks the words for a story and another selects the pictures.

Best for: Encouraging students to visualize their learning.

11. Venngage

Venngage is a fun and easy-to-use design software that students love to use. It can be used to create infographics to visualize data and clearly present ideas. The graphics are saved online and can easily be shared with current and future students, making them a good replacement for traditional posters.

Best for: Helping students turn learning insights into visually engaging graphics and study aids.

Cost: Free for limited features, plans start at $19 USD per month.

12. Google Classroom

Google Classroom has become a popular learning management system in recent years since it’s free to use for everyone with a google email account. Students enjoy the flexibility of being able to log in from a laptop or mobile device. 

In Google Classroom, students can see all of their assignments, documents and discussion in one place. It can also be used for video conferencing with remote learners or messaging teachers with homework questions.

Best for: Managing multiple subjects or classes in one classroom admin platform.

Cost: Free, with a paid Enterprise for Education also suite available.

P.S. Check out these tips and tricks for using Google Classroom below!

Canvas is another learning management system, though it does have a cost to use it. This platform connects teachers and students for lessons as well as monitor grades and check attendance. It provides a singular place to share course documents and class rubrics. The messaging feature is also useful for communication between teachers and students.

Cost: Limited teacher tools are free, paid plan needed for full features.

Technology tools to engage your classroom

Classroom technology can make your life a lot easier as a teacher. And, just as importantly, it can help your students be more engaged and successful in the classroom. If there’s a part of your classroom that isn’t running smoothly, don't be afraid to try out a technology tool out there that can help you. 

Prodigy is a fantastic classroom resource that both frees up some of your time and can help your students stay engaged, master skills and enjoy learning.

Are you ready to see how your students can excel with Prodigy Math and English? Bring the benefits of game-based learning into your classroom, sign up for your teacher account today!

Homework Assignments: Classroom Games or Teaching Tools ?

Jackson F. Lee Jr ， K. Wayne Pruitt

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The taxonomy and suggestions presented in this article were designed and used to help preservice and inservice teachers clarify their homework policies and practices. Three types of homework assignments are described: practice, preparation, and extension. (KC)

Educational Philosophy Educational Policy Elementary Secondary Education Homework

10.1080/00098655.1979.9957112

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2. wordreference, 3. discovery education, 5. mathplayground, 6. the math learning center, 8. readwritethink, 10. duolingo.

Education is paramount to a child’s future and living standards in the modern world. Innovative and effective teaching tools can effectively make learning accessible. 

A teacher’s job was never easy, and now, with the growing popularity of hybrid learning styles and increased use of technology in teaching, new challenges have come up for them. However, there are a lot of educational resources and online teaching tools that can make your job easier and, in turn, benefit the students.

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The Importance of Teaching Tools in Modern Classrooms

Online teaching tools exist to help teachers in the classroom. These classroom tools for teachers allow students to fully understand what they are reading and help teachers align their lessons with these tools.

The right tools can help level the playing field for all kinds of kids, whether they’re naturally gifted in a particular subject or struggling through it. Teachers can make even the most complex material seem easy by appealing to different senses and using tools like these to give kids the visual aids they need to understand the concepts being taught.

45 Best Teaching Tools and Gadgets for Teachers

We’ve divided our teaching tools into five categories: Digital resources, Organization tools, Presentation tools, Assessment tools, and Classroom management tools. These are some of the best digital tools for teachers to make their lives easier in multiple ways and make teaching more effective. So, let’s go ahead and take a look at some of the best teaching tools out there!

Digital Resources

Digital tools are the tools that parents can use digitally (via the internet) to teach students. Such resources include online libraries, archives, and textbooks. Here are some great digital tools to teach your students effectively:

SplashLearn is an engaging and interactive online platform for Pre-K to Grade 5 students, offering over 8000 curriculum-aligned math and ELA games and worksheets. It is embraced by more than 45 million children globally and is recognized as one of the most user-friendly teaching tools available at no cost for teachers . SplashLearn also includes free customizable lesson plans for teachers and virtual teaching tools to simplify concept grasp for children, making learning fun and effective.

• Simplified Assignment Process: A single click initiates assignments, streamlining the workflow.
• Seamless Teaching Flow: Integrates effortlessly with rostering tools, ensuring a distraction-free teaching experience.
• Enhanced Parental Engagement: Shares updates on student progress and important alerts with parents, promoting a partnership in learning.
• Differentiated Instructions: Provides support for tailored instruction, meeting the unique needs of each student and encouraging a confident learning approach.
• Customized Learning Strategies: Pinpoints educational gaps and customizes practice to meet the specific needs of every student.
• Insightful Progress Monitoring: Offers detailed insights into class performance, enabling educators to refine and personalize teaching strategies.
• Learning Without Limits: Facilitates learning beyond school boundaries by providing students remote access to educational resources.

It is an online dictionary for various languages. You can use it for translation assignments or language classes.

This is an excellent website for teachers. It has many ELA, science, social studies, math, and more resources. You can create interactive activities for your students online or have them watch videos about different topics you are covering in class.

A teacher can create a personal account to access the courseware and other resources on the website. The resources include lesson plans , articles, and even video tutorials for teachers to use in their classrooms.

MathPlayground allows students to learn math in a fun way through games, logic puzzles, and other interactive activities. There are levels available for every type of learner, from preschool to high school. There are also lesson plans and quizzes available that educators can use in the classroom or as homework assignments.

This site provides free access to math games, making this dreaded subject fun for the students. You can even manipulate the existing problems to suit your needs or use the existing ones. 

This tool allows you to access academic material, which you can edit per your needs and share with the students. You can even create your own digital library. They have resources for various subjects and students of all ages. 

If you love to teach literature, ReadWriteThink is a must-check resource. It offers a variety of lessons and activities that integrate reading strategies and comprehension skills into every class. You can also find printable resources such as graphic organizers, bookmarks, and worksheets.

YouTube is an obvious choice for audiovisual design learning teaching tools. Teachers can use the video platform to show their students documentaries, lectures, and music videos corresponding to their lesson plans.

It is a free language teaching tool that works great on mobile devices and the web. The best part is that it has games to keep students interested and engaged while learning vocabulary and grammar skills for the language of their choice.

In the same way that TED Talks are a new form of a speaking forum, TED-Ed is a new learning resource. TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. You will find carefully curated educational videos within TED-Ed’s growing library of TED-Ed animations, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed website.

12. Ted Talks

It is a globally recognized repository of inspiring and educational videos. You can play these as an additional learning resource. 

13. IL Classroom

If you haven’t checked out IL Classroom, earlier known as LearnZillion, you must! They have so many free resources for teachers. From lesson plans to videos that teach different skills. Assessments are built into each lesson plan, making review easy for teachers and students.

Organizational Tools

Organizational tools help you keep track of your classes, assignments, and other important dates and share particular information with students and parents. They also help with making schedules and to-do lists and taking notes. Here are some of such resources: 

1 . eduClipper

It allows you to share resources found on the internet and create a repository for the entire group. It makes it easy for students to collaborate on portfolios and research work.

It is a simple online storage tool that you can use to collect and maintain submissions. 

3. Google Docs  

Google Docs is the most straightforward tool to use for textual assignments. Students and teachers can collaborate in real time and download the contents as PDFs. 

Popplet is a fantastic visual thinking teaching tool that allows your students to organize their thoughts, create collaborative projects, and more. This is an excellent tool for teachers encouraging students to use their creativity when learning new subjects.

5. Word Cloud Creator

This website allows you to type in words, creating a cloud of words. You can change the colors, grid size, and how the terms are placed on the page. We use this after reading stories to see what words stand out most to us from the story. The students always enjoy seeing what words stand out to their classmates.

6. ActiveInspire

ActiveInspire by Promethean is an interactive whiteboard application with thousands of ready-to-use lessons and activities. You can download this software and hundreds of lesson materials for free on their site! You can also create a free account to create your interactive whiteboard content.

OneNote is a handy tool for teachers to use in the classroom. You can create lessons, take notes, and share them with your students. It is also effortless to collaborate with other teachers and share resources. This is an excellent tool for teachers to benefit from online learning or have a virtual classroom online. It is free, so there is no reason not to try it out if you are unsure what classroom environment you will teach.

8. Google Slides

This easy-to-use and freely available tool by Google is a must-have for students. They can collaborate on homework and activities in real time and share their work with the teachers. 

Presentation Tools

Presentation tools, including presentation software, document cameras, and digital whiteboards, help teachers create engaging presentations to capture students’ attention. These interactive teaching tools can add multimedia elements such as images, videos, and audio clips, display physical documents, books, and 3D objects, and teach students in a fun and interactive way.

1. PicMonkey

PicMonkey is one of the most popular free photo editing tools available online. Students can create customized graphics for presentations, social media posts, or emails to other students. The tool has dozens of pre-made templates for pictures, such as Facebook cover photos or Pinterest graphics, but students can also upload their images and make their creations from scratch.

This online picture editing tool can create animations, designs, and picture cards from scratch or use their professional templates. 

This online tool lets you add subtitles to videos. Creating and sharing video content for your lectures can be helpful. 

4. Thinglink

It can help create engaging and interactive digital media using images, videos, models, and texts. It is easy to learn and can help you create engaging digital learning experiences . 

5. Storybird

This novel platform helps kids develop reading, writing, and storytelling. They can participate in monthly challenges, writing prompts , and quizzes. Teachers can also use it to create animated stories and books for the children. 

Buncee is an online canvas where students can create anything they want — stories, presentations, and even games! The most fantastic thing about Buncee is that it has endless possibilities. If students know what they want to create and express, Buncee will efficiently cater to their learning needs.

7. EdPuzzle

EdPuzzle helps teachers take control of any video on the internet by adding audio notes directly into the video at specific times and inserting questions throughout the video for students to answer as they watch the video.

8. Pear Deck

Pear Deck is a digital whiteboard that allows teachers and students to interact differently. It’s as easy as PPT but far more engaging. This tool will enable teachers to share their PowerPoints or Google Slides with students by adding interactive slides. Pear Deck also allows students to answer questions independently and share ideas with the class.

Prezi makes a change from the more traditional PowerPoint presentations. It creates an environment where teachers can create a presentation with a zoomable canvas, which means you can zoom in and out of different sections of your presentation and add motion, effects, and 3D elements (in the paid version). Teachers can also collaborate with students to track their progress, give feedback, and share resources. Further, it allows you to present anywhere through the web, including your mobile devices – perfect for traveling teachers!

10. Microsoft Sway

Microsoft Sway is a presentation tool designed to allow users to create and share interactive reports, presentations, personal stories, or newsletters. You can develop Sways with text, images, and videos. You can also insert YouTube videos and Twitter feeds into your Sways. Sway content is responsive to different screen sizes and automatically adapts itself to optimize the content for the device’s size.

11. Powtoon

Powtoon is one of the best free animation tools out there. It has a simple drag-and-drop interface that allows users to create custom animations in minutes. The result is a professional-looking video that you can use for various classroom purposes, including creating lesson introductions and reviews with animated characters, objects, and text bubbles. Users can even incorporate audio into their presentations, creating an engaging student experience.

12. Animoto

It provides a user-friendly interface for beginners to create quality videos that can be visual aids during the class. You can use its simple drag-and-drop features and free music from their libraries. 

This is another simple-to-use design tool that you can use to create presentations, maps, infographics, report cards, and certificates. 

Assessment Tools

Assessment tools help teachers assess the learning and progress of students, which they can then analyze to form better teaching strategies as per the performance of students in various aspects. These include online games, quizzes, polls, surveys, and rubric makers.

1. ProProfs Assessment Software

ProProfs Assessment software is a powerful tool designed to streamline assessment and evaluation. Featuring an intuitive interface, it allows users to generate, distribute, and evaluate assessments effortlessly. The software offers a wide range of question types, from multiple choice to essay, ensuring versatility in testing methods. It also provides robust analytics and reporting features, enabling educators and trainers to gain valuable insights into individual and group performance. Whether for educational institutions or corporate training programs, ProProfs Assessment software is a comprehensive solution that enhances assessment efficiency and improves learning outcomes.

It is one of the best free sites for students to learn English grammar. Quill provides various activities, lessons, and even performance analytics. 

3. Socrative

Socrative is an innovative student response system that helps teachers engage students and monitor their comprehension throughout the lesson. It works by gathering data from smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Teachers use Socrative to pose questions during lectures and formative assessments (i.e., exit tickets), allowing students to respond via multiple-choice, short answer, or true/false answers. When students submit their responses, teachers receive feedback on their performance, informing them on what concepts need more improvement.

Quizlet has been around for a long time but only recently became popular. It allows you to share your sets with other users through a web interface or email for them to use them. Users can create their own sets or import existing ones from other sources (such as flashcards). It also supports multiple languages and has an iOS app on the App Store.

5. Plickers

Students answer multiple-choice questions by scanning cards with their phones or tablets. The teacher’s phone or tablet then collects all of their answers, which they can use later in class discussions or share via email with parents and other educators interested in seeing how kids are doing on specific subjects like math, science, or reading comprehension levels.

6. Quizalize

This online quiz platform allows teachers to create custom-made quizzes for their learners about any topic. You don’t need to be an expert on coding or other technical aspects to use this site, as it has been simplified so that all you need to do is choose the topic and prepare your questions and answers, then let the platform know how you want the game to progress. Using its global leaderboard feature, you can share your results and engage with other teachers worldwide, which tracks how your students perform against others from different schools.

This tool is similar to Kahoot! with one significant difference: It doesn’t require a projection screen. Students play Quizizz on their own devices, and answers are projected onto each student’s device as they log in via quizizz.com or their mobile app (available in the Apple App Store).

Classroom Management Tools

These classroom teaching tools help teachers keep track of students’ progress systematically and include online grade books, parent communication tools, and information systems, to name a few. Here are some of the tools:

1. FlipGrid

FlipGrid is one of the best online teaching tools and a web-based platform for educators to share videos. It’s intuitive and straightforward, with various options for teachers to create groups and share videos. This tool is great for teachers looking for more ways to bring video into the classroom. We love Flip Grid because it helps teachers encourage students to learn from others, not only from the teacher. Students can use FlipGrid in various subjects and classes: Spanish, history, science, and math!

With Nearpod, there’s no need to be tech-savvy. The platform is intuitive and straightforward so that anyone can use it. You can enhance existing lessons by adding interactivity. Create your assignments from scratch. Assess students through real-time polling, quizzes, open-ended questions, and more. Then, share lesson materials with students and parents to revisit and review the content at home. All in one place!

3. Baamboozle

It is a free site where students can play games designed by teachers. There are over 900,000 games like Rhyming Riddles, Tongue Twisters, etc.

Padlet is one of the most popular digital bulletin boards out there. It’s simple and easy to use. Students can post their projects on the board to share with peers and teachers, or you can use Padlet as a platform for students to collaborate on projects together. It can create visual boards using images, text, wallpapers, Venn diagrams, etc, and can be used for reading and listening.

5. TeachThought

The blog is an excellent resource for teachers as it provides them with innovative ideas for classroom practices. It has over five categories: technology, pedagogy , curriculum, learning spaces, and professional development.

Choosing the Right Teaching Tools for Your Students

What are the best teaching tools for your students? It depends on their age, learning style, and whether you teach in person or remotely.

The first thing to understand is that education is changing. You can use the discussed interactive online teaching tools to stay ahead of the curve to teach your students.

Several factors can influence which teaching tools you choose. Here are some of the most important ones:

Age of the students

Younger kids will benefit from different tools than older students.

Learning style

Some students learn best with hands-on experiences, while others prefer educational videos or interactive learning games.

Remote or In-person classes

The best tools might differ from what works in a traditional classroom setting if you’re teaching remotely.

Wrapping It Up

Now that you know what all these best online educational tools can do for you, you can get creative with these to make your next class more fun and efficient. With these digital teaching tools, you can help students access more dynamic and precise online information. This allows them to research and present projects on topics they relate to or can get enough relevant information about them.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How can teachers introduce a lesson.

Teachers can use digital whiteboards or introductory videos to introduce a new lesson to make learning more engaging and effective. There are many free online tools for teachers to teach creatively and effectively.

How can technology help teachers engage students more effectively?

Technology can help teachers engage students more effectively by providing new and exciting ways for them to learn. Students can learn more effectively and engagingly with so many new tools available.

How can I get started with using technology in my classroom?

If you’re new to using technology in the classroom, familiarizing yourself with some of the most popular tools is an excellent place to start. Google Classroom, SplashLearn, and SurveyMonkey are all great options for teachers looking to use technology in their classrooms.

What are some of the benefits of using technology in the classroom?

Some benefits of using technology in the classroom include increased engagement, improved assessment , and more efficient communication. Technology can also help you save time and money by providing various readily available resources online.

How can I overcome the challenges of using technology in the classroom?

One way to overcome the challenges of using technology in the classroom is to start small and gradually incorporate new tools for teaching as you become more comfortable with them. Additionally, many resources, such as online tutorials, webinars, and professional development courses, are available to help teachers learn more about using technology in the classroom.

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30+ Ready-to-use lesson activities that will spice up your Google Classroom

You can do so many things to spice up your teaching when you’re a Google Classroom teacher. But, most of the time, we all return to the safe lesson where nothing can go wrong.

Today you’ll learn how to create safe lessons in Google Classroom. And nobody said they can’t be fun too! We’re going to spice things up! And the best is yet to come: you can use these lesson ideas for free and share them with students in your Google Classroom! Cue… confetti! 🎉

I’ll split this post into 3 parts:

Spice up your Google Classroom with the BookWidgets add-on

30+ ready-to-use lessons for in your google classroom, the endgame: live monitoring, auto-grading, and feedback in google classroom.

If you want to skip a part, just click the title you want to check out, but remember: I’m explaining everything for a reason. 😉

Every digital lesson idea you’ll find in this post is created in Google Classroom with BookWidgets . There’s more. You can also monitor the activities live when students are working on them, review the work and give comprehensive feedback.

There are two ways to get started:

1. With the BookWidgets add-on

⚠️ Only for schools with a Teaching and Learning upgrade or Google for Education Plus account.

You can attach BookWidgets content to your assignments using this newest addition in Google Classroom. Go to Google Classroom, create a new assignment, choose the BookWidgets add-on, and you can start creating digital exercises and evaluations right there!

Learn everything about the add-on in this free 1-hour webinar . Register now and take your chance to win BookWidgets for your entire school!

Check out this tutorial or this short video on getting started with the BookWidgets add-on in Google Classroom. Then, reach out to [email protected] so we can enable it for your entire school.

2. With the BookWidgets Chrome extension

⚠️ If you’re using the free Google Classroom version, the BookWidgets Google Classroom extension is the right way to go.

Download the Chrome extension , open your Google Classroom and go to Classwork. Now, hit the “ Create ” button and choose BookWidgets.

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial and webinar for beginners to get you started.

I’ve divided these free Google Classroom lessons or activities into 10 categories so you can find what you need in one click. Remember, you can use them for free make a duplicate. I explained how you can do this here .

• Ready-to-use ice breaker activities and classroom energizers

Ready-to-use lessons to explain and introduce classroom rules

Ready-to-use lessons to start a lesson in a creative way, ready-to-use lessons to end a lesson in a creative way, ready-to-use lessons for students to ask for help, ready-to-use lessons for student self-assessments, ready-to-use lessons for creative book reports, ready-to-use lessons about special days in the year, ready-to-use lessons with rich media: tiktok, short films, and podcasts, ready-to-use lessons featuring emojis.

Here we go!

Ready-to-use icebreaker activities and energizers

Use the following free lesson plans in Google Classroom to spice up a dull moment or to get to know each other better. If you can create a good team spirit and classroom where all students know each other on a deeper level, they will be more motivated to learn.

1. The Icebreaker Bingo

When you share this digital back-to-school bingo activity OR fun energizer with your students in Google Classroom, every student will get their own scrambled bingo sheet. Then, you only have to stand in front of the classroom and shout, “I’m looking for students who…have brown hair”.

All students who, for example, have brown hair can stand up and immediately tick off that box on their bingo sheet. Pro tip: ask those students standing up to tell a bit more. That way, everyone gets to know each other better.

Another way to use this digital bingo sheet is to have your students walk around and look for another student that fits the box. When they find that student, they introduce each other and have a small chat. Then, the student returns to his place to tick off the box.

2. Icebreaker questions

If you’re out of creative questions to ask your students, this icebreaker activity for high school students is the solution. It was created and brought to our attention by Guido Merry , a teacher in the Netherlands.

There are two ways to play this question icebreaker game:

Project the question wheels on a large screen in your classroom and ask a student to come forward and spin the wheels. The first question is always for the teacher. The second question is for the student in front of the classroom and the last question is for another student. The student in front of the classroom, can name a fellow student. In turn, that student must answer the question and come forward to spin the wheel. Just continue like this. The game ends when every student has answered 2 questions.

Divide your students into groups of 5. Let them take turns spinning the wheels. Each student has to answer all three questions in their spin-turn.

3. The Facebook profile

The good thing about social media channels is that you have to make a profile and fill it out with information about yourself. It triggers students to think about who they are and how they want to present themselves.

So… it’s a perfect first day of school activity. Below, you’ll find a digital (fake) Facebook profile form your students have to fill out. When they’ve submitted all the forms to you, you pick out a few profiles anonymously and read their likes, intro, or interests out loud. Then, other students have to guess to which student the Facebook profile belongs.

Pro Tip: You can also use this as an ESL lesson and let students practice writing.

4. Two Truths, One lie

A fun classic. This will get your students to know each other on a deeper level. It’s a lesson activity you can use on the first day of school and when a dull moment hits as a classroom energizer.

All your students submit 2 truths and 1 lie to you, and you turn it into a fun game! You can read the truths and lie out loud in front of your class, without telling who it’s from AND without revealing what the lie is. Your students will have to guess the name of the student, and they will have to guess the lie. Then, that student may tell them if they guessed correctly and elaborate on his or her story.

5. The M&M game

When there’s candy involved, students are suddenly all ears.

This free activity will help your students get to know each other in a group, playing a fun game. They have to pick an m&m and complete a challenge or answer a question in order to be allowed to eat the m&m.

Just share the game with your students in Google Classroom. Each group just needs 1 computer or tablet for the game board. Make sure to go over the rules before they get started.

When you want to introduce your classroom rules, or maybe re-introduce them if needed, you can do this in a fun way or in a way where students have a say about your rules too. Go check out a few ready-to-use lesson ideas on explaining classroom rules. There are more free lessons in this blog post about classroom rules .

6. Emoji rules

This pair-matching game about your classroom rules is perfect for younger learners. Using emojis will help mediate meaning. Students have to find the classroom rule and pair it with the right symbol, or in this case, emoji.

7. Collaborate on classroom rules

Ask your students to fill in this form to get a clear view of the rules that students find important. Giving them a choice means that they will be more willing to obey your classroom rules. In Google Classroom, you can always attach the final version of your rules to this assignment afterward. A final version can be something like this digital classroom poster explaining the rules .

8. Classroom rules checklist

Here’s another way to give students a voice when it comes to introducing your classroom rules. List your classroom rules in a checklist and let students check the boxes. You can review their answers and discuss the rules that students indicated they didn’t understand or they didn’t agree with. Go check out the lesson plan below, adapt it with your rules, and share it on Google Classroom. 👇

9. Classroom rules memes

This is the one I’m using every year again, and my students love it! I teach older students, so I need to keep my cool when introducing my classroom rules. As my students are basically adults, they should know what is allowed and what is not, but they also need to know what I find respectful behavior without distancing me from them too much.

Go check out this fun carousel with memes. Click on the dots on the images to get a better explanation.

Use the next lesson plans to start a lesson in a fun way or to introduce a new concept. Ask your students to go to Google Classroom at the start of the lesson, fill it out, and submit the lesson. The activities below vary from digital whiteboard lessons to interactive worksheets.

10. (Fore)knowledge hashtags

When you start a new lesson or teach a new concept, ask your students about the topic before explaining it. This way, they activate possible foreknowledge and you can see what your students already know.

11. Change the world

Ready for a fun writing exercise at the start of your lesson? You can also use the next lesson to start a conversation. Or use it as a good lesson starter to make the jump to your next big topic: SDGs! Pick out a few of your students’ answers that fit the transition to your lesson topic.

Share this digital worksheet with your students in Google Classroom, and they can start writing. When finished, they hit the “submit” button so you can gather their responses.

12. Sunshine & sunbeams

Share this digital whiteboard lesson in your Google Classroom when you’re introducing a new topic. On your blackboard, draw a big sun, with the new subject in the middle of the sun. Ask your students to write down what they already know about the new topic on their digital whiteboard. When finished, ask some students to come to the whiteboard in the front of your classroom and note one word that they have on their whiteboard.

Go check it out. Students can use different tools in the bar below to complete their whiteboard.

Go out with a BANG 💥 … or a fun exit ticket or exit slip. Exit tickets are quick activities at the end of your lesson. Most of the time, you check your students’ understanding of the lesson they just got. It also helps them summarize and remember better. Here’s a post with 60 digital exit tickets . I’ve listed a few of them below.

13. Popcorn exit ticket

Share this digital exit ticket worksheet with your students in Google Classroom at the end of your lesson. Ask your student to write down words that they learned today or that connect to today’s lesson topic. When they submit their work, you have everything together in the reporting dashboard and can check if some students didn’t write down much. Make sure to give extra instructions to those students. Remember: it’s a formative lesson activity - no grades!

14. Exit in 3, 2, 1

Trigger your students to think about the lesson they just got. Let them name 3 things they just learned, 2 things they want to learn more about and 1 question for the teacher about the lesson. It’s a good way to rehearse and see if there are more questions.

15. Three times different

In this exit slip, students have to explain the lesson in three different ways. They have to write a summary, draw the lesson, and give an example. Students can use the whiteboard tools in the bar below. They can use the types tool, drawing tool, and they can even add an image by clicking on the photo icon. This tool is perfect for when your students want to make a drawing on paper and upload it to your digital whiteboard.

Go check out this free lesson plan below 👇

“ Are there any questions? ” If you’re a teacher for a long time already, you know that no student will ever answer this question. 🤦‍♀️ Check out the next ideas that will prompt your students to ask questions or ask for help.

16. 3 stars and 1 wish

This is the perfect example of an exit ticket and a way for students to ask for help combined in one lesson activity. Students indicate what they understand perfectley after your lesson, and they also get the chance to ask for help in their “wish”.

Click the example below to take a look. As it’s a digital worksheet, students can add their answers using their keyboard.

17. Mood meter

This mood meter activity for primary school students is the perfect lesson starter. It’s a subtle way to know what is happening in your student’s minds. As you know, it’s not always easy to have an understanding of what is going on. So use this lesson once in a while. Students can talk about their fun weekend, holiday, and evening. And sometimes, the meter will alert you to open up a conversation with students that are not feeling well. There are also students that will indicate that they don’t understand your lesson and need help.

18. Traffic light

This interactive whiteboard activity offers students a creative way to ask for help. They color the traffic light and explain their choice. Students send their answers to you in Google Classroom, and you can check immediately which students need help. In the next lesson, you gather all students that indicated a red traffic light and give them instructions again.

You don’t always have time to give personalized feedback. One way to go around this is by letting your students assess themselves. You’ll also see that students are often more critical about their work than you are…

19. Self-assessment rubric

One of my favorite question types in the BookWidgets quiz or (split) worksheet widget is the rubric question type. I know you can create rubrics in Google Classroom too, but these rubrics can be part of your students’ assignments, and they can be used as a self-assessment tool.

In the lesson example below, students have to assess themselves on the task or project they just completed. You can see all the results in your reporting dashboard in Google Classroom. Here, you can indicate whether you agree with the students or not, by filling out the rubric too. Return your feedback without grades (or with grades - that’s possible too).

Click here to learn more about creating digital rubrics .

20. Emoji self-assessment

A fun and quick way to check metacognition is by letting them complete a self-assessment form… with emojis! And you can immediately see which students need more help on which learning goals. Ask your students to fill it out after a task, project, or homework about the topic.

Ask your students to go back to the worksheet in Google Classroom just before a test about the topic. Their answers will still be there. It will help them focus on the parts that are a bit challenging.

This is a resource students can use anytime before they submit their homework or a task. It will help them elevate their work to a higher level. And it’s fun!

Go check out how this SELFIE assessment works 👇

22. Tops and Tips

This is a very interesting self-evaluation for students and can also be used as a peer evaluation. After a presentation or task, students need to think about 3 tops - things that went great - and 2 tips - things they could do better next time -. Students can submit their self-assessments to the teacher, or they can download what they’ve filled out. They can also just leave their answer like that and come to Google Classroom again. Their answers will still be there.

The peer assessment goes like this. All your students open the assignmnet in Google Classroom and fill it out for the student that is presenting. Using the share button, students can send their tops and tips to the student (e-mail address). When that’s done, they delete their answers (dustbin button) and fill them out for the next student.

There are so many fun assignments to do when students have read a book. Think out of the box and get creative. Here are 15 digital book report activities . I listed my 3 favorite activities below. 👇

23. Letter to the author

Here, students have to write a friendly letter to the author. When shared in Google Classroom, they can easily submit their work to the teacher and share it by e-mail with the author (if they can find the fanmail address). So much fun!

24. Story timeline

In this creative book report lesson idea, students have to create a timeline of the story. When did what happen, chronologically? They have to add the biggest events in the story to the timeline.

25. Comic story

This fun whiteboard activity has the grid of a comic. Students can create a comic story out of their book and add drawings and text balloons.

There’s a special day in the year for about everything that exists on this planet! Go check out this awareness days folder in BookWidgets with fun, ready-to-use activities. Share them with your students to introduce the fun days in a creative way. It’s a work in progress! We’ll keep sharing new lesson activities about the awareness days every week!

26. April fools’ day around the world

Here’s a fun lesson about culture and traditions around the world. How can one fun day be so different? Let your students go through this frame sequence widget or project this lesson on the big screen and start a conversation.

27. World Honey Bee Day

Don’t worry, 🐝 happy! In this lesson activity about honey bees, your students will become excellent bee experts. They even get a certificate in the end! They will learn everything about the bee from scratch. Share this interactive worksheet with your students in Google Classroom, so they can open it and get started! Now, it’s your turn! 👇

28. Summer Solstice

How much do your students know about summer solstice? This ready-to-use lesson explains the concept very well. Students can go through this lesson that you’ve shared in Google Classroom step-by-step, and they will learn about summer solstice in an interactive way.

Integrating rich media like TikTok , film , and podcasts in your lesson will engage your students even more. Click on the links to find even more lesson plans and inspiration!

Use rich media in your lessons to introduce a new lesson topic, start a discussion or conversation, evaluate language skills, and much more!

29. Learning English with TikTok

I wanted to include this lesson that integrates the very popular TikTok app within a lesson about pronunciation. I hope it inspires you to broaden your mindset and think out of the box. Share this lesson in your Google Classroom, and students can start recording their voices. They can easily submit the answers to you so you can listen to their pronunciation and return feedback. Go check it out! 👇

30. Short film - Coin Operated

This amazing short film lesson - Coin operated - lets your students see “through” a film. They have to discover the meaning of the story and write it down. As it’s a short film without speech, you can still edit this lesson for another language. Just make sure to find the BookWidgets group folder here, duplicate the activity, edit the language and share it in your Google Classroom.

31. Learning science with a podcast

The poop collector episode of the “ Tumble Science Podcast ” is a fun episode you can use as a lesson starter for your science lesson. You can even start your first lesson with it, so students understand the word “ science ” better. Go check out the lesson activity below!

Emojis are basically a new way of communication. Everyone uses them to express feelings, to emphasize written words better, and even as a replacement for written words. As emoticons really tickle your students’ interests, it might be a fun idea to incorporate them into your lessons. Here are some of my favorite lesson plans using emoticons or emojis for all kinds of subject areas. 💪

32. Emoji introduction

This is a fun lesson starter for the first day of school. Ask your students to indicate their interests and other aspects of their life using the given emojis. Students can just drag and drop the emojis and send their answers to the teacher in Google Classroom. Later on, you can ask your students to explain the emojis they have chosen and tell a little bit more about themselves. Access the lesson plan preview below and try it out!

33. Emoji artwork

You’re absolutely going to love this ready-to-use lesson plan! Students have to spin the wheels and use the three emojis that come up to make a creative painting. They spin the wheels a second time as well. Now, they have to write a story! This lesson is all about inspiring students’ creativity and dreams. Bonus: you can immediately check their writing skills too. Go check it out! Which 3 emojis did you spin? 👇

34. Emoji sight words crossword

Just when you thought you’d seen it all, there’s another fun lesson plan. Use this digital crossword puzzle for teaching languages to young learners. When you duplicate this widget from the BookWidgets Blog group here and edit the activity in your account if you want to change the language. Now, it’s an English lesson. Can you complete it? 💡

35. Emoji exit ticket

Always go out with a bang! Last but not least: the exit ticket or exit slip widget. This activity takes you only 3 minutes to create, and it has so much value! At the end of a lesson, your students have to indicate whether they understood your lesson or how they are feeling. They have to do so by indicating an emoji. As a second part, you can ask your students another open-ended question. This can be a content question about the lesson, or you can ask students to write down any questions they still have.

How to share these activities on Google Classroom?

We’ve gathered all the free lesson plans in this BookWidgets Group . Click on the link. If you don’t have a BookWidgets account yet, it’s now time to create one for free. The best way is to sign up using your Google Single Sign-On - The Google Account you’re using in your Google Classroom .

You might get redirected to your BookWidgets account’s homepage once you’ve signed up. If so, just click on this group link again when you are signed into your account.

You will see a list with all the widgets ( a.k.a. activities created in BookWidgets ) in this post.

Now, follow the next steps:

• Click on the cogwheel icon,
• Choose “ Select all widgets ” (or just indicate the widgets or activities you want).
• Click on the cogwheel icon for a second time,
• Choose “ Duplicate selected widgets ”.
• A pop-up window opens. Click on the black arrow ⬅️ next to the title - two times - until you don’t see the arrow anymore. Now click on “My widgets” in the pop-up.
• Finally, choose “ Duplicate here ”.

All these widgets are now yours to adapt and share in Google Classroom with your students. Now is the time to go to your Google Classroom and open BookWidgets from there as I’ve described above - using the add-on or Chrome extension.

Once you’ve opened BookWidgets in Google Classroom, adapting and sharing these exercises or widgets is easy. Go to the “My widgets” folder. You’ve just duplicated everything here. Next to the activity - on the right - you will find a tiny arrow pointing down ⬇️. Click on it and choose “ Edit ”. The widget’s configuration screen opens. When you’re done editing, you can click “share” and choose a Google Classroom course.

When you’ve shared these lessons with your students in your Google Classroom, BookWidgets allows you to follow up on them. Reviewing a lesson activity created with BookWidgets can be done in two ways: via “Live Widgets” or/and within the reporting dashboard . Both possibilities are available from your Google Classroom account.

Live widgets

Monitor students, live, in Google Classroom when they are still working on your activity. You can immediately discover struggling students and give them a helping hand. You can also find students that need bigger challenges. And… when your students forget to submit, you can still push the button and submit for your students.

Even when it’s a fun practice exercise that students don’t have to submit, like flashcards, you can see if they did some practicing at home or in class. You can see Live Widgets activity for up to 30 days.

The reporting dashboard

When your students have submitted their work, you can start reviewing it. Most of the activities and question types within a quiz or (split) worksheet get auto-graded. This will save you so much time!

There are some important teacher features that will make reviewing student work much easier:

• You can grade student by student or question by question,
• You can still change the grade in auto-graded questions,
• You can add comments below questions and in your students’ answers,
• You can use a filter to already hide correct answers and focus on the ones that need your attention,
• You can use a filter that groups all student answers on one question that are precisely the same. Your feedback will go to all those students;
• You can configure the feedback that your group of students (or individual) students will see. With or without grades, with or without the correct answers, and more.

As you can see, there are lots of handy ways to review student work more efficiently in Google Classroom with the BookWidgets reporting dashboard.

That’s it! I can understand that your head is exploding 🤯 with new ideas right now!

Remember, you can duplicate all these Google Classroom lesson plans created with BookWidgets in this group . I explain how you can do this here . Duplicate them to your account so you can start editing and sharing them with your students in your Google Classroom. It’s very important that you do this and don’t use the link to the lesson . That way, your students’ answers can’t find their way to you.

Help us inspire many more teachers by sharing this post with them. Hooked on BookWidgets? Join our Teaching with BookWidgets Facebook community and follow us on Twitter .

And me? My name is Lucie. Let’s connect on Twitter !

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BookWidgets enables teachers to create fun and interactive lessons for tablets, smartphones, and computers.

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32 Amazing Free Sites and Apps To Use With Google Classroom

Share, collaborate, communicate, and so much more.

Google Classroom is a handy and free way to keep your students on track and organize learning and lessons plans. Even better, there are lots of programs and apps designed to work with Google Classroom, making it easier to assign work, track progress, and communicate with students and parents online. Check out our favorite Google Classroom apps and programs. A few offer paid options too, but their free versions have plenty of fantastic included features worth exploring!

1. ASSISTments

ASSISTments is a free site that works with many existing math curriculum programs. Assign practice problems using Google Classroom apps, and students receive on-the-spot feedback. Plus, teachers get analytic reports to help them identify those students who are struggling and which problems are causing the most trouble. It makes homework more meaningful for students and teachers alike.

Try it: ASSISTments

2. BookWidgets

BookWidgets is a content creation tool. It allows teachers to create 40 different types of interactive activities and assessments and assign them to their Google Classes. What sets BookWidgets apart is that you can do all of that without ever having to visit another site. BookWidgets is a Google Chrome Extension that works right in your Google Classroom. Every feature (including an extensive image library) is already included. Plus check out these four ways to use BookWidgets in the classroom .

Try it: BookWidgets

3. Adobe Express for Google Classroom

Adobe Express is now available in Google Classroom, which makes it easier than ever to incorporate more opportunities for creative thinking and communication into your assignments. It’s an easy-to-use tool that allows students of all ages to create posters, infographics, slideshows, webpages, and videos. We love it because it saves teachers prep time with its library of thousands of templates organized by grade level and subject area.

IT admins from schools or districts that have the Teaching and Learning Upgrade and/or Education Plus editions of Google Workspace for Education can now install Adobe Express directly into Google Classroom from the Google Workspace Marketplace . This new feature allows teachers to create, customize, assign, view, and grade Adobe Express projects from their existing Google Classroom workflow.

Try it: Adobe Express for Google Classroom

You won’t believe the incredible amount of free resources available on CK-12. Every subject, every grade—it’s all covered in videos, exercises, lessons, and even complete textbooks. It’s a cinch to assign any of these items in Google Classroom using this app, and completion and grades are recorded in your online Gradebook.

Try it: CK-12

5. Classcraft

Motivate even the most reluctant learners when you gamify your lessons with Classcraft. Turn your Google Classroom assignments into learning quests, and provide rewards for academic and behavioral achievements. The free basic program gives you lots of fun options; upgrade for even more features.

Try it: Classcraft

6. ClassTag

Google Classroom apps make it incredibly easy for students and teachers to collaborate. They don’t really have any built-in tools to make parent communication easier, though. That’s where ClassTag comes in. This completely free app lets you send notes to one parent or a whole class. You can send home documents, schedule meetings, and more, all without giving parents your personal contact info. Oh, and did we mention you can earn real-life rewards like classroom supplies just for doing what you need to do anyway?

Try it: ClassTag

7. DOGOnews

The kid-friendly news articles on DOGOnews make it easy to assign reading for current events discussions. Each article is marked with reading/interest-level guidelines and offers lesson plan ideas for use with Common Core and National Curriculum Standards. It’s free to assign articles for reading; paid plans provide discussion questions and quizzes too .

Try it: DOGOnews

8. Dreamscape

Here’s another fun (and free!) learning game, focused specifically on reading skills for grades 2-8. Assign learning quests through Google Classroom, and kids will clamor to do their homework! In addition to all the learning, students get cool rewards that build their digital profile and world.

Try it: Dreamscape

9. Edpuzzle

Turn any video anywhere into an interactive lesson, or even upload your own. Add questions, audio, or notes, so students can watch and learn at their own pace. The tracking features allow you to monitor their progress and comprehension and integrate easily with Google Classroom. The robust free plan includes storage for up to 20 videos at a time.

Try it: Edpuzzle

10. Explain Everything

Explain Everything is a whiteboard app, and you can use it just as you would an  interactive whiteboard in the classroom . Even better, it allows you to record your interactions and share them via Google Classroom for students to view later. The free version has some limitations but provides plenty of cool features. Premium education plans are available .

Try it: Explain Everything

11. Flip (formerly Flipgrid)

With Flip, students record short videos to respond to topics you assign. This is an especially cool app for students who are hesitant to speak up in front of a group—it gives everyone a chance to be heard. It’s easy to share your grids and assignments with Google Classroom.

Try it: Flip

12. GeoGebra

The tools on GeoGebra may not look fancy, but they provide the functionality to bring math concepts alive for students. From basic arithmetic to high-level calculus, this site has hundreds of resources math teachers will love, including an online graphing calculator. It’s a snap to share lessons, exercises, quizzes, and more with students.

Try it: GeoGebra

13. Kahoot!

We’re willing to bet you’re already using Kahoot! Students and teachers everywhere love it, and it’s easy to use alongside Google Classroom. Learn how to get the most from Kahoot! here.

Try it: Kahoot!

14. Khan Academy

Many teachers are already familiar with Khan Academy’s incredibly wide range of free online learning resources. They cover every subject and grade level and give students the extra practice they need to master important concepts. Create and integrate classes using your rosters from Google Classroom, and you’re all set to assign content.

Try it: Khan Academy

15. Listenwise

Listenwise regularly posts new  free current events podcasts  you can share with your students. These short audio lessons are great for morning meetings or starting general current events discussions.  Listenwise Premium  offers a large podcast library with lessons, quizzes, and interactive transcripts, currently free to try for 90 days.

Try it: Listenwise

16. MathGames

Elementary math teachers, this one is for you! Follow up your math lessons with these fun and free practice games. Assign them as an alternative to boring old homework worksheets or for kids who need extra practice.

Try it: MathGames

17. Nearpod

Nearpod is an easy-to-use collaboration tool that has so many applications for education. Teachers start a board and post a question or comment, then students add their own answers or thoughts. You can share pictures too. Nearpod is a cool way to introduce writing prompts, review for a test, collect virtual exit tickets, and a lot more, and it works seamlessly with Google Classroom. The free version has all the basic features and a decent amount of storage. Upgrades are available .

Try it: Nearpod

18. PBS Learning Resources

PBS has a huge variety of video resources on every imaginable subject, all of which are easy to share in your virtual classroom. Each standards-aligned video includes suggested grade levels and support materials to help you make the most of it with your students.

Try it: PBS Learning Resources

19. Quizizz

Quizizz is a nifty tool for helping students review what they’re learning in class. Use one of the thousands of quizzes already available, or create your own. Host live online quiz games in class or assign them as homework using Google Classroom. Customize each assignment to indicate how many times a student may attempt each question and whether they see the correct answers when they’re done—instant feedback that makes learning more meaningful.

Try it: Quizizz

20. Quizlet

This is one of the most popular online flash-card apps for use with Google Classroom, and it’s entirely free. Find the flash cards you need in their extensive library, or create your own to support any kind of lesson. Share the flash cards to Google Classroom to give students instant access to these practice tools in school or at home.

Try it: Quizlet

21. Science Buddies

This site is every science teacher’s best friend. It’s packed with free videos, lesson plans, and experiments, all searchable by grade level and subject. This is also a terrific go-to during science fair season, with scientific method resources galore, science fair planning tools, and an enormous repository of project ideas. When you use Science Buddies with Google Classroom, you get access to extra quizzes and assessments too.

Try it: Science Buddies

22. Wakelet

Think of Wakelet as a collaborative tool for organizing and sharing information. Use it to create and share lessons with your students by collecting media all in one place, with your own notes and explanations. Even better, have students use it to create presentations, book reports, newsletters, and more right in Google Classroom.

Try it: Wakelet

23. Boddle Learning

Boddle is a super-engaging math platform for K-6 (they recently launched ELA content!) that allows students to customize their learning through fun game play that’s fully aligned to state standards. Teachers can create customized assignments and assign them right into their Google Classrooms. Boddle’s resources are free, though a Premium version is also available.

Try it: Boddle

24. Flocabulary

With Flocabulary, your students (and probably your teacher neighbors) will think they’re attending a concert rather than engaging with high-quality educational content. With resources for a plethora of subjects and suited for grades K-12, you can try a free 30-day trial now. Teachers can create and assign whole-group or individual assignments using Google Classroom integration.

Try it: Flocabulary

25. Legends of Learning

K-8 teachers, you’ll feel like superheroes when you assign math and science content through Legends of Learning. Students can practice the skills they’re learning in class through interactive and fun games and simulations. Looking for more engaging ways for your students to master their math facts? Legends of Learning recently launched a fact-mastery practice game called Math Basecamp.

Try it: Legends of Learning

26. BrainPOP

Who doesn’t love Tim and Moby? BrainPOP has video lessons on all sorts of topics for grades K-8, including accompanying vocabulary, quizzes, and games. BrainPOP is a great resource to use to launch a new unit of study or to prepare for an upcoming assessment. Teachers can sign up for a 30-day trial and then explore a paid version from there. Seamless integration into Google Classroom? Check!

Try it: BrainPOP

27. WeVideo

WeVideo is a creative and unique way for your students to demonstrate their understanding of a unit of study. Plus, it introduces them to the multimedia world of video creation and editing. WeVideo is currently available as a Google Classroom add-on, and students can record a video and submit it alongside any assignment. Check out these WeVideo project ideas your students will love .

Try it: WeVideo

Calling all middle school math teachers! Desmos has free and completely customizable question sets that align with your standards and integrate seamlessly into your Google Classroom stream. Your students will be thinking deeply and practicing rigorous math concepts with interactive tools and virtual manipulatives.

Try it: Desmos

29. Duolingo

This 100% free app that helps students learn a new language is ACTFL- and CEFR-aligned and comes with fun and personalized assignments that can be pushed right to your Google Classroom. Students forget that they are actually learning because the gamification aspect is just so fun!

Try it: Duolingo

30. Newsela

With Newsela, teachers can choose from hundreds of thousands of articles to accompany their lessons. Teachers can assign a single text or a text set to their students through Google Classroom. With content ranging from SEL and science to current events and social studies, Newsela is a great classroom accompaniment. Here are some tips for using Newsela in any classroom.

Try it: Newsela

31. Pear Deck

Pear Deck uses proven formative assessment strategies to adapt instruction to meet student needs. Through its expansive catalog of interactive lessons, teachers can instruct whole classes or allow students to move at their own pace, which is perfect for virtual learning. Pear Deck Premium users can seamlessly integrate their Pear Deck lessons through the Google Classroom add-on.

Try it: Pear Deck

Tynker is an interactive coding program that teaches students the basic building blocks of coding and even transitions them to learning about JavaScript and Python. The program offers over 70 courses and thousands of lessons and is fully integrated with Google Classroom.

Try it: Tynker

What are your favorite Google Classroom apps? Come share on the  WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, check out google slides 101: tips and tricks every teacher needs to know ..

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With 36 options, there's something for every teacher! Continue Reading

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25 Teaching Tools For The Digital Classroom

Teachers may find these teaching tools useful when implementing technology into their classrooms and foster effective learning environments.

The Best Teaching Tools To Organize, Innovate, & Manage What You Do

contributed by Mike Acedo

Over the years, many of us have personally experienced the growth of technology in today’s classrooms.

Instead of taking notes, students are now occupied by surfing the Internet, scrolling through Facebook, and messaging their friends on their smart phones, tablets, and laptops. Instead of focusing on the instruction, teachers are constantly required to interrupt class in order to remind those students again and again, that class time is for learning, not texting. However, as today’s students are using more technological devices, it is imperative that teachers have access to the resources to keep pace with the growing tech culture.

See also Teaching Digital Students Non-Digital Things

The use of smart phones, tablets, and other tech items in the classroom do not necessarily have to have a negative impact on student achievement. On the contrary, the increasing accessibility and growth of technology presents teachers with the unique opportunity to take advantage of those once distracting gadgets, and use them to facilitate academic achievement in new and innovative ways. In this capacity, teachers do not need to be constantly fighting for student attention, but can freely accept it, by introducing a new educational environment that will automatically encourage student participation.

Below are some resources that teachers may find useful when attempting to implement technology into their classrooms, separated by 5 common areas that are increasingly important for teachers, and for an effective learning environment—Organization, Project Based Learning, Class Management, Presentations, and Assessment.

Organization

This innovative platform provides teachers with an all-in-one grade book that offers attendance charts, grade books, calendars, seating charts, behavior tracking, and more. It also gives teachers access to 3rd party lesson content, the ability to create custom tests aligned with common core standards, and a way to track individual student progress.

TheTogetherTeacher

On this site, teachers can find multiple resources that will help them stay organized in their classrooms. Once registered to the site, teachers have access to lesson plan templates, to-do lists, sub plans, project ideas, and much more.

MyBigCampus

My Big Campus gives teachers, students, parents, and administrators unprecedented access to an endless amount of useful resources to raise student achievement. Through an interactive platform that can be accessed though mobile devices and tablets, My Big Campus makes it easy to engage with students, develop lessons, track student improvement, as well as connect with parents and other members of the learning community.

MySchoolBinder

My School Binder gives teachers the opportunity to easily add, edit and organize assignments on their class page. Students in turn, can submit completed assignments, ask questions, and receive instant feedback from their teachers. Additionally, students and teachers can view events and assignments on the Schoolbinder Calendar, and be reminded of upcoming due dates with custom notifications. Teachers also have access to teacher forums where they can receive feedback and tips for lessons and projects directly from other educators.

Learn Boost helps teachers record, organize and sort individual student progress. It also allows teachers to develop and organize lesson plans, share student progress with parents and students, and can also be integrated with Google Apps, making it a convenient time saver.

Project-Based Learning

Glogster EDU

Glogster EDU is a global education platform that empowers students and educators to create interactive online posters that include text, photos, videos, graphics, sounds, and much more. Glogster encourages students to take control of their own learning in a fun way by promoting independent thought, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving. Glogster also provides teachers with strategies to implement curriculum into projects, promote skill mastery, facilitate digital literacy, and encourage innovation and collaboration.

Mindmeister

Mindmeister is a great mind-mapping tool that can help students develop and organize project ideas. This free app encourages collaborative brainstorming, where students can wok together to plan and analyze potential projects.

SonicPics is a great app that allows students to combine pictures with recorded narration into a threaded story. There are multiple uses for this app, as students can share personal narratives, review curriculum, or create custom presentations for class.

MyHistro allows students to create interactive timelines by combining blogging, media, and Google maps to tell personal stories. Students can create personalized maps that tell about ones family, ancestors, special memories, or other aspects of their history and future. This can be presented in a slideshow and can be a great way to get students to creatively tell their own life stories or focus on historical events.

Classroom Management

CollaborizeClassroom

This is a great tool for supporting teacher’s in-class instruction or helping their flipped classrooms be successful. This free online platform allows teachers to quickly launch a personalized learning site that addresses student concerns outside of the classroom, leaving students more prepared for in-class activities. Collaborize Classroom encourages students to help each other through problems with the guidance of their instructors, and provides teachers with instant access to lesson plans and project ideas to implement into the classroom. Additionally, this platform gives teachers the ability to better identify and accommodate different learning styles by incorporating visual and audio into their lessons, and grouping students according to learning habits.

This social, Facebook-styled platform, allows teachers to continue classroom discussions outside of the classroom, check for student understanding, and get students excited about coming to class to learn. Teachers can connect students to resources and tools that will help them better understand classroom material, personally measure student progress, and enhance learning though integrating apps that amplify their lesson plans.

Socrative is a great way for teachers to engage their students inside and outside of the classroom, as they can send out quizzes or other educational exercises that can be used to measure student understanding. Teachers can also take advantage of Socrative’s “Exit Tickets” which require students to answer a quick question before they leave the class that focuses on how comfortable they are in understanding the day’s material. This gauges student understanding of subject matter and informs teachers on what is working and what needs to be focused on.

Remind101 is a simple, safe, and secure way for teachers to send mass text messages to students and parents without invading their privacy. Teachers can use this to send reminders and notification to students concerning upcoming tests, homework assignments, due dates, and events which students and parents will receive through text message or email. Teachers can schedule messages to be sent in advanced, which keeps students up to date with schoolwork and helps prevent forgetfulness.

ClassDojo is a tool for teachers to quickly and easily improve classroom behavior. Teachers are able to reward points to students for good behavior, which they receive in real-time on their smart phones or laptops. This engages students in a new way, and incentivizes good student behavior. Additionally, ClassDojo can track student behavior, producing analytical reports, which can be shared with parents and administrators.

Presentations

Brickflow is an app where teachers and students can create presentations using content collected from social media. By searching the web through hashtags, teachers and students have the opportunity create a visual summary of a topic, building stories with content from Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, etc. This can be a fun and innovative way to spruce up classroom presentations and keep students up to date with current events.

Empressr is an easy to use presentation generator that allows users to easily incorporate flash and other media into their presentations. This is a free online application that can be used to help teachers and students create visually rich presentations.

Present.me is a great tool for teachers and students that allow them to record presentations, lectures, or projects, and accompany them with visual content. This is a useful tool for teachers who wish to flip their classroom, and a fun way to encourage students to get involved in their own learning by creating their own visually rich presentations.

Projeqt gives students and teachers the opportunity to express creativity and learning through a simple, intuitive presentation platform. Students and teachers may combine information they find online with content they have created themselves, creating a dynamic presentation that can include live blog feeds, tweets, interactive maps, quizzes and much more. Users can access presentations from anywhere at anytime, and receive instant feedback from peers or teachers. This is a great tool for creating a social, interactive learning environment in the classroom.

Prezi is a fantastic tool for changing the way teachers and students present, moving away from the standard slide-by-slide model, and using a visually stimulating canvas that moves from point to point. Prezi is simple to use, visually stunning, and includes all the standard components of a normal presentation. The variations of presentations are endless, encouraging students and teachers to creatively customize each presentation to enhance how the audience members receive the information.

Kwiksurveys

This is a great tool for creating custom polls, surveys, and quizzes that can be instantly shared through social media, or posted to teacher websites or blogs.

Through ClassMaker, teachers can create secure online quizzes and exams that feature multiple question types, such as multiple choice, short answer, and essay. Tests are automatically graded and are perfect for classrooms, online courses, E-learning, and study groups.

This free test generator offers multiple question types, automatic grading, detailed reports, and a simple design. Additionally, tests are pass code protected, but it does not require students to register to take the tests.

Mentimeter enables teachers to send out questions to students and allow them to instantly vote on them or send feedback though mobile phones or tablets. This is a great way to democratize the classroom by voting on topics or activities, and a very effective tool for issuing pop quizzes.

Teachers can create and share tests with not only students, but with other teachers as well. This gives teachers multiple test resources and also promotes student understanding, as it randomizes test questions and answers, allowing students to take tests multiple times without making the material stagnant.

25 Teaching Tools To Organize, Innovate, & Manage Your Classroom 

TeachThought is an organization dedicated to innovation in education through the growth of outstanding teachers.

Free tools to make your students better writers and readers .

Quill.org, a non-profit, provides free literacy activities that build reading comprehension, writing, and language skills for elementary, middle, and high school students.

Writing Across the Curriculum: Quill's nonprofit mission is to now build both reading and writing skills through free, OER content across the curriculum. Over the coming years, we will be building a library of free ELA, social studies, and science activities that engage students in deeper thinking through writing prompts that provide immediate feedback.

9 million students have written 2 billion sentences on Quill.

Quill Reading for Evidence

Provide your students with nonfiction texts paired with AI-powered writing prompts, instead of multiple-choice questions, to enable deeper thinking.

Students read a nonfiction text and build their comprehension through writing prompts, supporting a series of claims with evidence sourced from the text. Quill challenges students to write responses that are precise, logical, and based on textual evidence, with Quill coaching the student through custom, targeted feedback on each revision so that students strengthen their reading comprehension and hone their writing skills.

Video not supported

Culture & Society Topics

"Should Schools Have Grade Requirements for Student Athletes?"

Science Topics

"How Does Eating Meat Impact Global Warming?"

Social Studies Topics

U.S. History

World History

Under Development, Coming 2023

Quill Connect

Help your students advance from fragmented and run-on sentences to complex and well structured ones.

Using the evidence-based strategy of sentence combining, students combine multiple ideas into a single sentence. They then receive instant feedback designed to help them improve their clarity and precision.

Quill Lessons

The Quill Lessons tool enables teachers to lead whole-class and small-group writing instruction.

Teachers control interactive slides that contain writing prompts, and the entire class responds to each prompt. Each Quill Lessons activity provides a lesson plan, writing prompts, discussion topics, and a follow up independent practice activity.

Quill Diagnostic

Quickly determine which skills your students need to work on with our diagnostics.

The diagnostics cover vital sentence construction skills and generate personalized learning plans based on the student’s performance.

Quill Proofreader

Proofreader teaches your students editing skills by having them proofread passages.

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8 Ways to Gamify Your Classroom Instruction

It’s an easy assumption to make that in order to incorporate game elements into your teaching, you need to find a fully functional, ready-made game that fits your topic or objective. But thankfully, this level of investment into game-based learning isn’t necessary. You can elevate your lessons and discover the benefits of gamification without spending money, scouring the web for games or pulling out any devices.

All gamification in the classroom should have a purpose and support the learning objectives so that students are personally connected to learning and retain the information. Here are 8 ways to boost your classroom instruction with gamification techniques.

1. Set an Objective

Every game ever designed has an objective, and since every lesson does too, this is probably the easiest thing to implement in daily teaching and learning.

The key to setting gamified objectives is to identify the most passive section of your lesson, and give the children a personal objective to complete, turning the learning from passive to active. This shouldn’t take away from your main lesson objective but scaffold it and give students more opportunities to see their own progress. This means that throughout the activities in your lesson, students are enjoying small successes, spurring them onward through the session.

Need children to sit and listen to an extract, or watch a video? Promote active listening by giving them a bingo sheet of key vocabulary to listen out for, or three questions to listen out for the answers to. Come back to your objective once the video has ended, to draw out the learning you want to see.

This list’s following points rely on your lesson having clear, achievable objectives, so it’s worth spending some time to make sure children know the goal and the rules.

2. Establish Point Systems

Point systems can be applied to almost any setting with a bit of imagination. You can provide students with points every time they: write ten sentences using adverbs, underline a heading, identify a double negative, complete a math equation… the list is endless!

It’s up to you how you record these points, and who keeps score. If it’s distracting or time-consuming, then it’s not right for the situation. Perhaps the most fluid method is a tally on the display board, so that you decide when the class gets a point. Or, put a leaderboard on the wall with levels for children to move their own names up through, with your permission. There are also some interactive apps that allow you to allocate points to students and allows them to do it themselves, too.

The key is not to overuse this technique, or it loses its meaning. Pick something that students might do once or twice a day, but no more. Why not change the focus & rules every week so that all children get an opportunity to shine, and the challenge stays fresh?

3. Reward Successes

Try to make the points important for some reason – what do points lead to? Perhaps when the class gets to 20 points, they get five minutes of reward time at the end of the day?

Here are some ideas for how to reward your class or individual students:

• Extra recess
• Learning outside
• Show and tell session
• Classroom jobs
• Positive notes home
• Stickers/merchandise
• No homework

You could also allow students to choose their own reward from a limited number of options, creating an even more personal incentive.

4. Encourage Healthy Competition

Many educators have a love-hate relationship with competition in the classroom. It can bring out the best in some children and is certainly motivating. Studies show that high-achieving students are highly motivated by competition – but it can also send the message that winning is the most important objective, and alienate less able students. Alex Murray explains the positives and negatives of competition in his article ‘ Competition as a Teaching Strategy’ (2019) . So, how do educators get around the concerns related to competition and allow everyone to benefit?

Don’t forget that students can compete against themselves, too!  Consider allowing students to track their own score, and celebrate personal bests. Here is an example of a multiplication exercise where the student must fill in the empty squares to complete the chart – and all they have to do is complete it in a faster time than the previous week.

What’s great about this technique is that you can differentiate the exercise for every student. It doesn’t matter if two children have a different level of challenge, because they are not competing against each other. 

5. Set a Time Limit

Time limits help to keep students focused on the task at hand. If you want the students to clean up, challenge them to be back in their seats with a tidy desk by the time the timer goes off.

Give students visibility on the time remaining for longer tasks, so they can see how long they have left and can learn to divide up their time and prioritize. There are lots of free countdown timers online. As mentioned in the last point, encouraging them to beat a previous time brings an additional level of gamification.

Also, as a bonus – setting time limits helps to keep you organized and your day on track!

6. Tell a Story

Gamification requires us to employ some of the ideas that game designers use to engage players. We’ve talked about the importance of having an objective to strive for – and an objective is something that all good stories have.

You might assume that storytelling is meant for ELA, or Social Studies – but that’s not necessarily true. In fact, for students whose preconception is that Math is dull or difficult, adding a story element can completely change the game.

And it doesn’t have to be complicated. If you want them to solve 30 division problems, start with something like this: “Today, we’re on a mission. This government building contains a map to a wonderful treasure – but it’s been torn into 30 pieces, each one hidden behind a locked door. Each door requires us to solve a problem to open it.”

Combined with rewards for opening each door such as a torn piece of map (a piece of A4 paper torn into 30 pieces) and some sort of final discovery (see our list of rewards ideas above), students will work together to complete the mission because it simply doesn’t feel like work any more. Why not play ‘spy mission’ music while you introduce the idea?!

7. Use Classic Game Elements

This technique requires a little more preparation but likely involves objects that are already available in school. A simple way to shake up activities is to employ common features that many games share. You may already use some of these in your teaching, as many have already made the transition from classic games into common classroom practice:

• Dice Rolling
• Shuffled Cards
• Progress Tracks
• Connect Four

Use a pair of dice to randomly select a child, an activity, a number or, well, anything!

Put activities, writing prompts, questions and more on the backs of cards for a bit of mystery.

Move children along a track much like you might find in a board game, to help them visibly see their progress and reach a goal.

Allow students to unlock new levels of difficulty or customization when they complete an objective.

Set up a game like Connect Four at the front of the room and allow students to put in a disc as a reward – the whole class versus you! Other games like Jenga, Hangman, Checkers, Snakes and Ladders work well too.

8. Provide Feedback

Feedback doesn’t have to mean a graded assignment, or a conversation. All students need is to visibly see their own progress, in order to foster some intrinsic motivation. Here are some ways that you can provide instant feedback while students are working on their objectives:

• Display a leaderboard visible to everyone
• Allow students to move themselves along a track or through levels
• Give out points 
• Present repetitive tasks such as math questions on cards that can be turned over or otherwise marked as complete
• Use interactive tools which provide instant feedback on students’ decisions

Gamifying your lessons doesn’t have to mean you throw your existing plans out the window, instead, there are many structures you can establish into your classroom to bring gamification across all lessons and learning opportunities!

Learn More About Gamification!

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Homework/assignment activity tools.

Educational technology tools can make homework/assignment management and collection more efficient for both students and instructors.  Some educational tools provide features that streamline collection, grading, and feedback for traditional paper-based class homework while other tools help expand beyond traditional homework by opening up more submission options.  Regardless of what tools you use, mapping your course activities, homework, and assignments to your course learning objectives and providing as much information as possible to your students about grading, expectations, collaboration options, guidelines/rules, etc will help make your students more successful.  When using a new tool for the first time with your class, it is advisable to have a low or no-stakes practice version of the activity ahead of time so that students can practice using the tools before working on real assignments.  

• Turnitin - Turnitin integrates with Canvas Assignments to compare student papers against a wide range of sources, to generate a report highlighting passages in the submitted paper that have phrasing similar to published material.  
• Canvas Discussions - Canvas native tool that allows for threaded asynchronous conversations. Canvas Discussions can be graded or ungraded and can also be limited to specific course sections and/or groups if desired.  
• Canvas Quizzes - Canvas Quizzes is a Canvas native tool where instructors can add multiple questions to a single quiz.  Question types can contain auto-scored question (multiple choice, multiple select, true/false, ranking, etc…) and manually-scored questions (fill in the blanks, essay/short answers, etc…).  Canvas Quizzes does also allow for “ungraded” or “graded” surveys.  
• GradeScope - Gradescope is a tool designed to streamline and standardize paper-based, digital, and code assignments. It supports problem sets and projects as well as worksheets, quizzes, exams, and papers.  
• Hypothesis - Hypothesis is a collaborative, digital annotation tool, which  allows students to add comments, notes, and highlights to the margins of  a shared digital document, whether it is an article on the web or a  PDF.  
• Perusall - Perusall is an annotation tool that helps your students engage collectively with texts. With it’s capability to integrate into Canvas, students can annotate and discuss course readings easily with their peers.  
• Media Library (Panopto) - Media Library is a video streaming service that is fully integrated with Canvas and can be used to store video content and can also be used to record new content.  Media Library provides some basic video quizzing options to turn videos into interactive quizzes.  Media Library can also be used in conjunction with Canvas Assignments to create video submission assignments where students must create/submit a video file as their submission.     
• PlayPosit - An interactive video overlay which allows instructors to add questions and content at specific points within a video stored in YouTube, Vimeo, or Media Library. PlayPosit integrates with Canvas so that PlayPosit bulbs can be embedded as static content or it can be embedded as part of a Canvas assignment for grading purposes.  
• VoiceThread - VoiceThread is an interactive collaboration and sharing tool that enables students to comment, annotated and build content.  VoiceThread integrates with Canvas so that it can be embedded as a graded (Assignment) or ungraded activity.

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• DOI: 10.18260/1-2--7561
• Corpus ID: 63274729

Designing Homework Assignments: From Theory To Design

• L. Feldmann
• Published in Annual Conference Proceedings 20 June 1999
• Education, Engineering
• 1999 Annual Conference Proceedings

4 Citations

Ac 2010-848: individualized homework: an effective learning strategy, increasing student engagement and motivation by replacing homework with assignment-quizzes, using game theory to analyse homework administering in undergraduate teaching, multi-split optimized bagging ensemble model selection for multi-class educational data mining, 7 references, out-of-class assignments as a method of teaching and evaluating law students., homework as a learning experience.

• Highly Influential

Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development

Homework assignments: classroom games or teaching tools , related papers.

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24 Activities, Teaching Strategies, and Resources for Teaching Students with Autism

By andy minshew.

• April 10, 2024

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodivergent condition that affects communication, behavior, and learning. Psychologists use the term spectrum disorder because symptoms and support needs vary depending on the child. Although clinically defined as a disorder, having autism does not mean something is wrong or “needs to be fixed” with a child; it means their brain is wired in a different way from what is considered more common or neurotypical .

A few common signs of autism include:

• Difficulties reading and reciprocating neurotypical social cues
• Intense, repetitive behaviors and interests
• Sensitivity to visual, auditory, and/or other sensory stimuli

Autistic individuals make up about 2% of the population , a figure that has risen in recent years as clinicians have gotten better at recognizing symptoms and have integrated conditions that used to be considered distinct like Asperger’s syndrome and PDD-NOS into one diagnosis spectrum. This means that about 1 in 36 of the children you teach will be diagnosed with autism.

Want to better support students with autism at your school? Read on to find 24 tips and lesson ideas for supporting children with autism.

Social Skills Activities for Elementary Students with Autism

Students with autism often have trouble interpreting and mirroring neurotypical social cues; the same is true of non-autistic students for interpreting and responding to autistic social cues. While both autistic and non-autistic students often feel empathy for each other, they don’t always know how to communicate in a way their peers with a different neurotype understand. This is known by psychologists as the double empathy problem .

The activities below can help autistic and non-autistic students gain social skills that help them empathize with their peers and recognize emotional cues in themselves.

Remember that not all children may be comfortable speaking or sharing in groups. Follow the child’s lead to see where their comfort level is.

1. Emotion Cards

These printable cards (available in Spanish here ) can help your students learn how to recognize different emotions in themselves and others. Cut out each one with scissors and shuffle them in a deck. Then, go through each card and see if your student can recognize the emotion without looking at the word.

If they get stuck, that’s okay—just show them the word and give them context for the emotion shown. If the card is “embarrassed,” for example, you could say, “When a person is embarrassed, they might feel like they have done something silly by accident.”

You can also use these behavior cards (available in English and Spanish ) to help children pair emotions with actions.

2. Sharing Time

Sharing time is a classic elementary school staple, and it can also be a great social activity for kids with autism, who often have passionate interests in specific subjects. Every week, have one student bring in something that they’d like to share with the class.

Remember to lead by example. To get started, show the class something you are interested in.

This activity will not only show students how to discuss their interests with others but also how to practice active listening. And if they’re fascinated by something another student brings in (or vice versa), they may even make a friend.

3. What Would You Do?

For a take-home empathy activity you can share with families, try this What Would You Do? game. Families can go through different scenarios together and decide how they would react with questions like “How would you help?” or “What would you say?”

4. Name Game

This fun group communication activity teaches students an essential skill: how to introduce themselves and learn someone else’s name. To play this game, gather your students in a circle so they can all see each other. Start by pointing at yourself and saying your name (“I am Mr. or Ms. _____.”). Then, ask the child on your right to share their name just like you did and then repeat your name while pointing at you. Have each child take turns saying their name, then pointing at another child in the class and repeating their name.

The Name Game is an especially fun social skills activity for children to do at the beginning of the school year. That way, they’ll be able to learn their classmates’ names and get a head start on making new friends.

5. “How Would It Feel to Be ____?”

Next time you read a book to your class, try asking your students how it would feel to be the main character in the story. If you’re reading a picture book about Cinderella, for example, you could ask how they would feel if they had two stepsisters who were mean to them. Or if you’re reading Peter Pan as a class, you could ask them what happy memories they would think about to fly with magic pixie dust.

This can help students practice empathy and see situations in their life from another perspective—a useful skill for communicating with people of a different neurotype. It can also teach them how to recognize emotional cues by encouraging them to put themselves in the perspective of another person.

Sensory Activities for Children with Autism

Children with autism are often over- or under-sensitive to sights, sounds, and other sensory stimuli. Specific sensitivities and accommodation needs vary depending on the individual. Keep these resources in mind as you get to know the students with autism in your class to help support their sensory needs.

6. Fidget Toys

Fidget toys are a well-known sensory tool for helping children with autism stay emotionally regulated and focused. Depending on your available resources, you can either stock your classroom with a few fidget toys or make some of your own.

We Are Teachers has compiled a list of fidget toys you can make on a budget with your students. From classics like fidget spinners to repurposed pipe cleaners or popsicle sticks, you’re sure to find something useful for your classroom.

7. Sensory Sound Resources

When the phrase “sensory play” comes up, visual or tactile activities usually come to mind first. Autism Adventures , however, suggests including activities and resources that involve sound or aid in noise reduction—with a few examples to help you brainstorm class activities or accommodations:

• Musical chairs
• White noise machine
• Noise-canceling headphones
• Rhythm instruments like shakers, rain sticks, or drums

8. Sensory Bin

Sensory bins can be useful for two reasons. First, they encourage independent play, which can have academic benefits for students. And second, they’re a straightforward and accessible sensory experience for students with autism.

Little Bins for Little Hands has put together a few useful tips for making your own sensory bin. Use them as a guide to set up a sensory bin that will best accommodate your students’ needs.

9. Sorting with Snacks Activity

This tactile activity for children with autism can be a fun way to engage students during math time. Give everyone in your class food that is easy to sort, like chewy snacks or small crackers. Multicolored snacks are ideal, but you can also use food that comes in different shapes, textures, or sizes.

First, ask them to sort the food by color, shape, or another characteristic. Then, use the snacks to teach students basic math skills like counting, addition, or subtraction. Once they’ve grasped the concept you want to teach, reward your students by letting them eat the snack.

10. Scientific Slime Experiments

Slime is not only a popular craft for young children but also a great sensory activity for autism in class. There are plenty of simple slime recipes online. Look up your favorite and have fun making it with your students. You can use this as a tactile art activity if you’d like or as a STEM activity for elementary students .

Calming Activities to Help Students with Autism Regulate Emotions

Many people with autism experience difficulty with self-regulation , especially as children. This can lead to moments of emotional or sensory overwhelm known as meltdowns or moments of withdrawal known as shutdowns .

If your student with autism is experiencing distress, these activities can aid them with self-regulation.

11. Coloring

According to a partner article by The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children published by We Are Teachers, coloring pages can be a great mind-body exercise for calming down and focusing on the here and now.

Keep a few coloring pages on hand, and suggest them as a calm-down activity when your students are overwhelmed. For a few free coloring pages to get you started, check out these printable Waterford resources:

• Nature Walk
• Group Project

12. Calm-Down Cards

If your student with autism struggles with emotional regulation after experiencing strong feelings, calm-down cards can be a helpful resource. A mother of a child with autism created a how-to on creating your own calm-down cards at And Next Comes L .

Each card has a helpful idea for calming down after a stressful moment. Plus, the author notes they can also be useful for children with anxiety.

13. Mindfulness Exercises

Mindfulness is a technique that encourages children to keep their mind in the present and deal with uncomfortable emotions. If your student is struggling to calm down, try mindfulness activities like breathing exercises to help them self-regulate.

14. Grounding Techniques

Grounding techniques are designed to help us focus on the present during stressful situations. Here are a few grounding activities for kids with autism to try if they are overwhelmed:

• Count to ten or recite the alphabet as slowly as you can
• Listen to calming music and pay attention to the different instruments
• List five different things that you can see around the room
• Try stretching or simple yoga exercises and focus on how your body feels
• Hold something tactile like a piece of clay or a stuffed animal

15. Student Retreat Zone

When a student with autism is overwhelmed, giving them a place where they can relax and take a break from sensory stimulation can sometimes go a long way. Designate a corner of your class as the “Student Retreat Zone” and fill it with sensory toys, picture books, comfortable seats, and calming activities that students could do on their own.

Let every student in your class know that if they feel anxious or stressed, they can always take a few minutes to decompress in the Student Retreat Zone. That way, you don’t have to single out your student with autism but you can still let them know that it’s an option. If your student with autism seems like they could use some time away from class, you could also ask them if they’d like to read or work on homework in the library for a while.

16. Calm Down Kit

Tactile toys can help children with autism calm down if they’re overwhelmed. Fill a drawer in your classroom with toys that could help them self-regulate. When your student seems stressed or has trouble focusing, ask them if they would like to pick a toy from the calm down drawer.

Here are a few ideas for sensory toys to put in your calm down kit:

• Fidget toys
• Stress balls
• Weighted blankets
• Aromatherapy pillows

Effective Teaching Strategies for Children with Autism

You may have heard the phrase , “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” Every child is different, and the teaching strategies you use will need to take their support needs into consideration. That being said, these strategies can help you be mindful of common accommodations and resources that can help students with autism feel comfortable in class. Many can also be helpful to engage children without autism in your lessons.

18. Bring Special Interests into Lesson Plans

Many children with autism have an intense passion for certain topics or activities. This is often called a special interest. Take advantage of what they’re passionate about and use it while teaching students with autism to help them focus in class. If a child with autism loves outer space, for example, you could plan a math assignment about counting the planets in our solar system.

19. Use Visual Learning Aids

Many, though not all, kids with autism are visual thinkers . Renowned scientist and autism advocate Dr. Temple Grandin once said, “I used to think adults spoke a different language. I think in pictures. Words are like a second language to me.”

Lessons that include visual aids can help students with autism who have this learning style grasp concepts more naturally. You could, for example, teach children with autism sight words with magnet letters.

20. Create and Share a Daily Classroom Routine

Routines make children with autism feel safe and help them prepare for transitions between activities. Post your daily class schedule in your room for every student to see and, if possible, provide extra transition time to students with autism.

21. Hold a Professional Development Session on Autism for Educators

It’s important to teach faculty about supporting students with autism. If you’re a school administrator, hold a professional development session on teaching students with autism led by a specialist. Teachers, consider requesting a professional development opportunity so administrators know there is interest in your district.

Activities for Autism Acceptance Month in April

April is Autism Acceptance Month! Use these activities to make sure your curriculum includes autistic representation year-round and to get ideas for observing this awareness month in elementary schools.

22. Autism Bulletin Board

The puzzle piece is a popular autism awareness symbol, but many neurodiversity advocates feel that it spreads the idea that autistic people are missing something or incomplete compared to neurotypical people. Instead, the infinity symbol is used to represent the diversity in experiences of neurodivergent people.

Decorate your classroom bulletin board with a colorful infinity symbol to spark conversation on neurodivergence and help students with autism and their families feel welcome and accepted.

23. Teach Students About Famous and Historical Autistic Figures

Educate students on autistic people in history and the present day to give students with autism curriculum that mirrors their experiences and offer neurotypical students a window into experiences that are different from their own. This is important to do not just in April but throughout the year.

Here are a few well-known autistic people or historical figures believed by psychologists to have autism to get you started:

• Greta Thunberg – Climate change activist
• Temple Grandin – Animal behaviorist, author, and autism advocate
• Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins – Nineteenth-century piano prodigy and composer
• Sir Isaac Newton – Mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, and author
• Hans Christian Andersen – Fairy tale author, artist, and storyteller

24. Read a Picture Book About Characters with Autism

Reading picture books about characters with autism is another way to help autistic students feel seen and give neurotypical students a window into different experiences. Keep these picture books about characters with autism in mind for read alouds or to include in your classroom library :

• The Girl Who Thought In Pictures: The Story of Dr. Temple Grandin by Julia Finley Mosca
• My Brother Charlie by Holly Robinson Peete
• Different Like Me: My Book of Autism Heroes by Jennifer Elder
• This Beach is Loud! by Samantha Cotterill
• Trampoline Boy by Nan Forler

[note color=”blue”]

Waterford Reading Academy: A Certified Autism Resource

Waterford’s early reading curriculum is a Certified Autism Resource (CAR), given by The International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards. It meets PreK-2 learners where they are and provides scaffolding to help learners gain proficiency in key literacy skills.

Follow the link here to learn more about Waterford curriculum and how it can support neurodivergent learners with explicit instruction based on the science of reading.

[note color=”green”]

Andy Minshew is an educational content writer for Waterford.org. He has developed articles, ebooks, help instructions, and other Waterford resources for educators and families since 2018. He is also an Audiofile Magazine reviewer and a librarian advisor for EBSCO NoveList. He loves visiting art museums, participating as a member of the Tolkien Society, and hiking with his family.

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