Summary
This article offers insights into the five essential tech tools that can be used by K12 educators to enhance online education sessions.
Education empowers learners with strategic insights they can leverage in the right context with confidence and intellectual prowess.
In today’s technological world, imparting impactful education is contingent on how well educators harness the potential of cutting-edge digital tech tools. State-of-the-art tools add spark to online education programs for K12 by expanding the horizons of knowledge assimilation.
Table of Contents:
5 Must-Have Tech Tools For Online Education Programs for K12
Tech tools make K12 learning more interactive, immersive, engaging, and student-driven. However, the sheer diversity of tools available at K12 educators’ disposal can make picking the appropriate ones somewhat tricky.
The section below addresses this challenge by offering insights into the five essential tech tools that can take K12 online education to the next level.
1. Learning Management System (LMS) Tool
LMS tools facilitate seamless management and delivery of online education content for K12. They facilitate
- Uploading immersive videos, slideshows, quizzes, PowerPoint presentations, rich multimedia content, and assignments in a centralized manner
- Creation of engaging online learning content
- Assessment of the performance of students and assignments submitted by them
- Tracking of learners’ academic progress through tangible yardsticks
- Providing qualitative feedback to students
- Accessing relevant learning content around the clock from any geographical location
- Defining a customized learning journey for each student based on their weak and strong points as highlighted in the intellectual evaluation
- Modification of teaching strategies of educators through real-time analytical insights into the performance of students
- Collaborative interactions among educators, learners, parents, and administrators.
Some good LMS tools are Google Classroom, Canvas LMS, D2L Brightspace, Moodle, Cypher Learning, etc. With them, creating assessments that test the depth of learners’ conceptual understanding, communicating with online learners, and providing personalized feedback becomes easier.
Cloud-based LMS tools offer innovative K12 solutions that cater to learning in different styles and stages for various online class sizes. Thoroughly personalized experiences can be delivered at scale to unlock the full potential of learners in a meaningful and measurable way. The tools facilitate integration with other platforms to customize training programs.
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2. Content Creation Tool
Content creation tools allow easy creation of aesthetically organized and engaging videos, infographics, presentations, and other rich multimedia-embedded learning materials.
Some useful tools in this category are Adobe Create Suite, Canva, Lumen 5, Adobe Captivate, etc. They empower educators to also create course plans, lesson outlines, assessments, evaluative activities, and other interactive matters.
The agile workflow and user-friendly interface of the tools streamline content crafting in alignment with the teaching objectives and subject matter requirements. The best part is that educators can create visually appealing and attention-drawing lessons without requiring extensive training in designing.
The educational content created with such tools resonates well with K12 students of all stages. This facilitates ease in understanding complex concepts, which enhances student outcomes considerably.
These tools offer flexibility and streamline the creation of lessons in a tailored manner to reflect your ideas, visualizations, and imaginations in an engrossing and out-of-the-box manner. One can begin from scratch or use available templates to create good learning content.
3. Video Conferencing Tool
Video conferencing tools remarkably enhance the online learning experience of K12 students by opening up the doors for seamless two-way communication between educators and learners. Synchronous conferencing helps host virtual classrooms and organize discussions online.
Some popular tools are Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Skype, Webex, Google Hangouts, and Zoho Meeting. Teacher-student interaction happens in real-time, just like in a brick-and-mortar classroom. The sharing of screens by educators and the use of whiteboards allow students to visualize things as if they were looking at a real blackboard.
The video conferencing tool offers a host of benefits, like
- Organizing online classes with many participants in screen-sharing mode
- Recording live class videos and uploading them to the cloud or local disk for future refereeing
- Co-annotating topics that need students’ attention
- Sending reminders for online sessions through triggers set in email clients
- Archiving of classes, sharing of learning materials, and chatting in groups
- Using virtual backgrounds and whiteboards to drive home important points
- Ease of access to classes from laptops, mobiles, handheld devices, etc.
You can take personalized engagement with students to the next level, ensuring each learner receives due attention and care. The interactive quotient makes studying more efficient and enjoyable by fostering a sense of community.
4. Collaborative Tool
Collaborative tools make learning more productive, inclusive, and focused by allowing K12 students to brainstorm collectively over topics and learn by sharing.
Some of the salient features of any good collaborative tool from the perspective of the K-12 curriculum are:
- Customization of notifications
- Distraction-free virtual workspace to promote concentration and focus on allocated tasks
- Caters to the learning requirements of all students, irrespective of their progression levels and innate talent
- Ease of integration with other essential tech tools and platforms for K12 virtual learning
- Quick search option to easily locate specific documents, etc.
- Facility of storing, accessing, and sharing files through the cloud
Some tools that facilitate a collaborative learning environment are ClickUp, MS Teams, Slack, Kahoot, Google Classroom, Classcraft, Pear Deck, Seesaw, Miro, and Nearpod.
Educators and students can avail of features like
- Management of projects, assignments, homework, etc. from a single place
- Creation and setting of goals for study plans,
- Distribution of the project’s varying responsibilities among peers
- Brainstorming collectively on topics, generating notes for study, and summarizing chapters
- Collaboration of assignments through spreadsheets, documents, and relevant media
- Following up on insights offered by analytical tools on students’ progress.
- Sharing content, creating engaging games, or using templates
- Creating originality reports of submitted assignments to check plagiarism and promote integrity
- Conferring rewards for motivating students and incentivizing stellar performance
- Leveraging communication channels to keep parents updated about their children’s progress
5. Creative Communication Tool
K12 educators need to creatively engage students to sustain their interest in virtual learning and propel their academic enrichment. In this context, communication tools like Socrative, Padlet, Seesaw, etc. can prove valuable.
These tools facilitate teachers to creatively inspire learners to understand concepts through enjoyable exercises, interactive assessments, quizzes, etc.
The gateway to instant two-way communication is opened as monitoring students’ progress and providing quick, meaningful feedback becomes easier. The real-time inputs help educators adapt their teaching methods, study plans, and assessments to measure learners’ intellectual capabilities and needs.
The virtual bulletin board tool, for example, allows educators to announce activities that students must participate in. It makes it easier to share important information and knowledge resources with textual or multimedia content.
Final Thoughts
Hurix Digital has been charting a new course in online education programs for K12 by offering qualified support for leveraging new-age tech tools that make learning more rewarding.
Sharing and accessing learning materials among teachers and students has been streamlined with expert tech interventions. The experienced team at Hurix Digital ensures that the tech tools for K12 education facilitate ease of usage for optimum engagement of learners and thorough assessment of their acquired knowledge.
Contact our experts to embark on an intellectually fulfilling journey that widens the ambit of K12 learning in a fun and interactive way.
