After years of teaching online (starting with VIPKID then moving on with my own students) and experimenting with various platforms and tools, I’ve come to rely on seven essential tools that have become the backbone of my online teaching practice.
Each of these tools serves a different function in the online classroom, but when you put them all together, they create a powerful tech stack that makes teaching online easy and fun while providing a professional experience for your students.
Let’s get to it.
1. Zoom – Your Virtual Classroom
First things first: you need a place to teach. For this, I rely on Zoom as my go-to video conferencing platform.
What makes Zoom stand out for online teaching:
- Simple scheduling: Setting up meetings and sending them to students is incredibly straightforward
- Reliable stability: We used it during the pandemic with over 400 students with very few problems – pretty impressive
- Screen annotation: You can take anything you’re looking at and start annotating over it
- Chat function: Works really well, especially when students have connection issues
- Fun video filters: These can add an enjoyable element to your classroom
Zoom has proven itself as the most reliable video conferencing tool for online education, and its teaching-specific features make it my top recommendation.
Zoom also offers some nice video filters that can add something fun to the classroom too. While this might seem like a minor feature, these little touches can make a significant difference in creating a positive, enjoyable learning environment that students actually want to be part of.
2. Zoom Whiteboard – Interactive Teaching Made Easy
Once you have your virtual classroom, you’ll need a whiteboard. Since I use Zoom, I recommend sticking with Zoom’s whiteboard as it’s actually one of the best out there.
Zoom’s whiteboard has all the features you’d expect from a whiteboard. You can write, draw, create shapes, add text, import images, and organize information in a visual way that helps students understand complex concepts.
But what makes it particularly valuable for online teaching is that it maintains the collaborative aspect that’s so important in education.
Key features that make it perfect for online teaching:
- All the standard whiteboard features you’d expect
- Student collaboration through annotation capabilities
- Ability to create up to three whiteboards before class starts
- Seamless integration with your Zoom classroom
The collaborative aspect is particularly valuable ; getting students to interact with the whiteboard keeps them engaged and participating actively in the lesson. This level of preparation and organization can significantly improve the quality and effectiveness of your online lessons.
3. Padlet – Fighting Online Isolation Through Collaboration
Online learning can make students feel isolated and disconnected. That’s where Padlet becomes invaluable for creating collaborative experiences.
Padlet has a really cool variety of collaborative boards that can help get your students collaborating instantly and also help them to be creative.
What makes Padlet special is not just that it enables collaboration, but that it makes collaboration immediate and intuitive. Students don’t need to learn complex software or navigate complicated interfaces. They can jump in and start collaborating right away.
Why Padlet works so well for my online classes:
- Variety of collaborative boards that get students working together instantly
- Helps students be creative while learning
- Perfect for activities designed specifically for online classrooms
- Immediate collaboration capabilities
Any activity that gets students collaborating with each other is crucial in the online environment, and Padlet excels at making this happen naturally.
The visual nature of Padlet also makes it engaging for students. Instead of just typing text into a chat box, students can add images, videos, links, and other multimedia content to their contributions. This makes the collaboration more dynamic and interesting, which helps maintain student engagement throughout the activity.
4. Bamboozle – Making Review and Testing Fun
I use Bamboozle in almost every class, and it’s become one of my most valuable tools for reviewing and testing student knowledge.
It’s the perfect way to review and even test your students’ knowledge of content you’ve been studying in class. Testing and review are crucial components of any educational program, but they can be particularly challenging in online environments.
Students may feel less motivated to participate in review activities when they’re not in a physical classroom, and traditional testing methods can feel dry and disengaging when delivered through a computer screen.
This is why using Bamboozle as a “warmer” and a s a review tool for testing is essential to my work flow:
- Perfect for reviewing content you’ve been studying in class
- Variety of games means no two sessions are ever the same
- Students always respond positively to practicing language this way
- Works with any age group – kids, teens, and adults (adults actually love it the most!)
- Great for end-of-class fun activities
I use Bamboozle not just for reviewing studied content, but also for general fun games. Remember, it doesn’t always have to relate to what you’ve been studying – mix it up with content that’s just entertaining.
5. WayGround – (Formerly Quizzes) Testing Without the Stress
Testing is a big part of any classroom, and for online assessment, I use WayGround for this as assessments are crucial for understanding student progress, identifying areas that need more work, and providing feedback on learning.
When you go to assign a quiz, there are a lot of different options that make the quiz a little less serious. This is the key insight about why Quizzes works so well. By making tests feel less serious, you can reduce student anxiety and actually improve their performance.
When students are less stressed about the test, they’re more likely to demonstrate their true knowledge and abilities.
Specific benefits I love:
- Time limits for activities
- Option to show answers after each question or after completion
- Redemption questions and extra lives
- Power-ups and timers
- Leaderboards for friendly competition
- Fun music and memes after each question
You don’t have to use all these options, but incorporating some of them makes tests feel less intimidating and often leads to better student performance.
6. Staying Connected Outside Class
Maintaining connection with students between classes is crucial for online learning success. I have two recommendations based on your student demographic:
For Children: Class Dojo
Class Dojo is perfect when working primarily with kids because:
- Parents can get involved in the learning process
- Students earn points for good behavior in class
- Focuses on positive reinforcement
- Students can build portfolios
- Parents can track their child’s progress through points earned
- Document sharing capabilities
We use Class Dojo in our school, and students absolutely love it. The positive reinforcement system works incredibly well with younger learners.
For Teens and Adults: Google Classroom
For a more professional approach with older students, Google Classroom is ideal:
- Completely free to use
- Simple and straightforward interface
- Easy student access through invitations or classroom codes
- Only requires a Gmail account
- Share everything you need: videos, websites, documents, assignments
- Perfect for teachers who like giving homework
Both platforms are free and serve their respective age groups perfectly.
7. Winston AI – Monitoring AI Usage in Student Work
Lastly, as online educators, we need to address the reality of AI in education. While AI can be a useful tool for learning, it’s important to ensure students aren’t relying on it to the point where they don’t understand what they’re learning.
For this, I use Winston AI to check if my students used AI to complete assignments. My approach to AI in education is balanced:
Using AI is fine as a learning tool. Using AI to complete your assignments without understanding the material is not acceptable. Students should be able to explain and understand their submitted work
With tis, Winston AI helps me identify when students may be over-relying on AI assistance:
- Quick detection of AI-generated content in student assignments
- Helps maintain academic integrity while allowing appropriate AI use
- Enables conversations with students about proper AI usage
- Ensures students are actually learning, not just submitting AI-generated work
The goal isn’t to punish students for using AI, but to make sure they’re using it as a tool to enhance their learning rather than replace their own thinking and understanding.
Bringing It All Together
These seven tools work together to create a comprehensive online teaching environment. Zoom provides your classroom space, the whiteboard enables interactive teaching, Padlet fosters collaboration, Bamboozle makes review fun, Quizzes handles assessment, and your chosen communication platform keeps everyone connected.
The key is understanding that each tool serves a specific purpose in addressing the unique challenges of online education: maintaining engagement, fostering collaboration, making learning fun, and keeping students connected to both the content and each other.
