Research Guides: Educational Technology Resources: EdTech Tools

The Constantly Moving Target

Innovations in EdTech is a constantly moving target. This is not an exhaustive list of resources. Some are free; many are not. We love many, but not all. Give 'em a try and let us know which are your favorites.

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Suggestions?

Is there an EdTech Tool you love but it isn't listed here? Feel free to submit it for potential inclusion via email (no sales pitches, please).

Multi-Disciplinary

Age of Learning Suite This comprehensive program covers a wide variety of subjects for students aged 2-8 (Pre-K through second grade). It offers more than 850 self-guided lessons across 10 levels. A companion program focuses on teaching English as a second language for this age group.
BrainPop! A learning resource supporting core and supplemental subjects, reaching millions of learners worldwide.
HoughtonMifflinHarcourt At-Home Support
Khan Academy
PBSKids
Starfall (K-3) Starfall’s emphasis on phonemic awareness, systematic sequential phonics, and common sight words in conjunction with audiovisual interactivity has proven effective in teaching emergent readers. Starfall activities are research-based and align with Individual and Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics.
Wide Open School (CommonSense.org)
Brains on! Podcast The host and her kid co-host talk with food scientists and snake handlers, put on plays, write songs, and so much more. It’s a science lesson for your ears!
Freakonomics Radio Discover the hidden side of everything with Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of the Freakonomics books. Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn’t) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) — from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything.
Youth Radio Youth Radio is a podcast for teens, published by teens. It was created to showcase the power of young people as makers of media, technology, and community. It brings the teen perspective to issues of public concern.

English Lang Arts / Reading

The Allusionist Podcast Explore the English language, with all its oddities! Filled with good humor and levity, this podcast will help you explore the roots of words and phrases that we use every day.
BrainPop: ELAR
HippoCampus
Kate Messner Read Alouds
Khan Academy: ELA

MackinVia This link opens in a new window MackinVIA provides easy access to eBooks, audiobooks, educational databases, and videos for K-12 students and teachers. Use MackinVIA on any desktop, laptop, or mobile device with Internet access; content can be embedded into Blackboard or other LMS.

Social Sciences / Humanities

ABCya!
Adventure Academy (gr 3-8) Age of Learning provides schools closed due to the coronavirus with free home access for all affected families to leading digital education programs ABCmouse, Adventure Academy, and ReadingIQ. Programs serve students in preschool / pre-k, elementary school, and middle school. This MMO game gives kids something other online learning resources may lack: a sense of community. Students up to age 13 play games to learn across a range of topics (math, reading, social studies, science, and more), while also creating their own online persona and interacting with others in the game.
BrainPop: Social Studies
Google Arts & Culture
HippoCampus
Khan Academy: Humanities
Short & Curly Podcast (Ethics)

Fostering a Love of Math

Sciences / Tech / STEM

ABCya! (K-6+) ABCya provides over 400 fun and educational games for grades PreK through 6.
ACS' ChemEd (K-20)
Adventure Academy (gr 3-8) Age of Learning provides schools closed due to the coronavirus with free home access for all affected families to leading digital education programs ABCmouse, Adventure Academy, and ReadingIQ. Programs serve students in preschool / pre-k, elementary school, and middle school. This MMO game gives kids something other online learning resources may lack: a sense of community. Students up to age 13 play games to learn across a range of topics (math, reading, social studies, science, and more), while also creating their own online persona and interacting with others in the game.
Biology Simulations Biology Simulations helps students to learn about biology and practice data analysis skills.
BrainPop: Sciences
BrainPop: STEM
Chemix https://chemix.drift.help/article/new/
Go-Lab Ecosystem
HippoCampus
Khan Academy: Sciences
NatGeo Kids
NWF's Ranger Rick Learning Activities
PhET Interactive Simulations PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery.
Scratch
StarTalk Podcast Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about all things space: stars, planets, humans in space, and so much more. He also interviews a lot of amazing people, from Buzz Aldrin to Alan Rickman.
Tumble Podcast
Wolfram|Alpha: Sciences

EdTech (Generic) Tools

Education Galaxy We enjoy providing engaging solutions to young and developing learners.
Flip (aka FlipGrid) Join educators and learners across 180 countries as they experience the magic of student voice. When learners reflect upon, discuss and showcase what they are learning, making, reading, solving, experiencing, or playing.
Flocabulary Hip-hop videos and creativity tools give teachers new ways to captivate students while engaging them in academically rigorous content.
Freckle Freckle empowers teachers to differentiate instruction across Math, ELA, Social Studies and Science.
Goosechase Get participants moving around and visiting vendors in a fresh, exciting way. Encourage collaboration between colleagues for lasting results & a boost in morale. Organize a massive orientation scavenger hunt or a more intimate ice-breaker!
NearPod An instructional platform that merges formative assessment and dynamic media for collaborative learning experiences.
Padlet Collaborate better. Be more productive. Make beautiful boards, documents, and webpages that are easy to read and fun to contribute to.
Pear Deck Pear Deck Slides are very similar to a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation. But instead of simply static, informational slides, you get to create Interactive Slides that let every student respond to your questions or prompts. When you present your Deck, students get a unique Join Code to enter your presentation right from their own devices.
PebbleGo PebbleGo offers safe, interactive online research resources on topics selected by their teachers for students K-3.
Purple Mash This British company’s site hosts games and creative learning opportunities for elementary level math, spelling, and writing. Teachers can set daily tasks for students, create a blog, and find other ways to communicate.
Scholastic Learn @ Home Day-by-day projects to keep kids reading, thinking, and growing.
SeeSaw Seesaw is a platform for student engagement. Teachers can empower students to create, reflect, share, and collaborate. Students “show what they know” using photos, videos, drawings, text, PDFs, and links. It’s simple to get student work in one place and share with families, and nothing is shared without teacher approval.
Sutori A collaborative instructional and presentation tool for the classroom. Free during COVID-19 school closures.
Wakelet Wakelet is the easiest way to capture, organize and share multi-media resources with students, teachers, and learning communities.

Mind Mapping / Brainstorming

Bubbl.us Think 'thought bubbles' or mind mapping.
Coggle
Mindomo
Popplet
Spider Scribe

Communicate / Meet Online

Adobe Connect Webconference for digital training, webinars, classrooms, and collaboration experiences with features to engage learners and participants online.
Google Hangouts Video meetings for business/school to connect with teams, students, etc. with easy-to-join video calls for face-to-face meetings by phone or web.
G Suite (Google)
MS Teams for Education
Pronto Pronto is a communication hub created for the everyday user. It connects people via chat and video, so they can learn faster, work smarter, and communicate seamlessly.
YouTube Live You can live stream video content (a presentation, lecture, panel, interview, etc.) that will later be saved as a recorded video on your YouTube channel. You can share screens, slide decks, documents or just you AND you can opt to set this up like a webcast or regular course meeting. Others have done this for recorded office hours, giving feedback on projects, editing papers, etc.
Zoom Video conferencing, Web conferencing, screen sharing, chat.

Create / Design

1 Second Everyday
Adobe Spark Create impactful social graphics, web pages, and short videos in minutes with Adobe Spark.
Book Creator Bring creativity to your classroom with Book Creator, the one app you need for any subject or grade level.
Buncee A creation and communication tool for students, educators and administrators to create interactive content, allowing those of all ages to visualize concepts and communicate creatively.
Canva Graphics design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content. It is available on web and mobile, and integrates millions of images, fonts, templates and illustrations.
Deck.Toys Drag-and-Drop Lesson Creation. Creating lessons on Deck.Toys is fun for you too! Build complete lessons within minutes with your existing teaching content such as study sets, PPT or Google Slides.
Flaticon
FreePik Freepik is a search engine that helps users find high-quality photos, vector images, illustrations and PSD files for their creative projects.
Genially
MakeBeliefs Comix
Storyboard That
ThingLink Tag images, videos and 360° media with instant access to additional information, audio, video, embeds and web links.
Time.Graphics (Timeline Creator) imeline maker wich provides you free with some limits and premium version without restrictions. Make a historical analysis in one click!
Toon-Books
Toontastic With Toontastic 3D, you can draw, animate, and narrate swashbuckling adventures, breaking news stories, science reports, and all your other wacky ideas. Here at Google we want to give storytellers of all ages a megaphone to share their creativity with the world.
Unsplash

Podcasting / Audio Editing

Anchor The easiest way to make a podcast. Everything you need, 100% free.
Audacity Free, open source, cross-platform audio software
Descript Record, transcribe, edit, mix, and more audio. Created for podcasts, but it has an automated transcription feature which makes editing audio easy and allows for accessibility by creating instant transcripts for audio and video files.
GarageBand (app)
TwistedWave TwistedWave, an audio editor, is easy to use, fast, and powerful. TwistedWave is available for Mac, iPhone / iPad and online.
VoiceThread (app) Create and share dynamic conversations around documents, snapshots, diagrams and videos -- basically anything there is to talk about. You can talk, type, and draw right on the screen. VoiceThread takes your conversations to the next level, capturing your presence, not just your comments. Anyone can join the discussion -- anytime, anywhere
WeVideo WeVideo empowers every learner to discover their voice and make an impact in their world. Our platform promotes deeper learning while making it fun and easy for students to express their ideas with creativity and authenticity.

Presentations / Slide Decks

AHA Slides
Beautiful ai Build better presentations with Beautiful.ai in minutes, not hours. Just think of an idea, choose a template, and work beautifully...and efficiently.
Buncee A creation and communication tool for students, educators and administrators to create interactive content, allowing those of all ages to visualize concepts and communicate creatively.
Canva Graphics design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content. It is available on web and mobile, and integrates millions of images, fonts, templates and illustrations.
Classroom Screen
Haiku Deck Haiku Deck is the easiest way to create an amazing presentation on the web, iPad, or iPhone.
MySimpleShow A simple online tool that empowers anyone to make professional videos.
Padlet Collaborate better. Be more productive. Make beautiful boards, documents, and webpages that are easy to read and fun to contribute to.
Pear Deck Pear Deck Slides are very similar to a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation. But instead of simply static, informational slides, you get to create Interactive Slides that let every student respond to your questions or prompts. When you present your Deck, students get a unique Join Code to enter your presentation right from their own devices.
Prezi
SlidesGo Free Google Slides and PowerPoint templates to boost your presentations.
Sutori A collaborative instructional and presentation tool for the classroom. Free during COVID-19 school closures.
ThingLink Tag images, videos and 360° media with instant access to additional information, audio, video, embeds and web links.

Screen Capture / Video

Camtasia
Flip (aka FlipGrid) Join educators and learners across 180 countries as they experience the magic of student voice. When learners reflect upon, discuss and showcase what they are learning, making, reading, solving, experiencing, or playing.
Kaltura This is a video platform and video APIs serve as the backbone for our out-of-the-box video products, including our Video Portal, Webcasting, Lecture Capture, Video Player and more. We also offer our Video-Platform-as-a-Service.
Kapwing Kapwing is an online image, video, and GIF editing platform. Our mission is to enable digital storytelling.
Loom Capture your screen, voice, and face and instantly share your video in less time than it would take to type an email.
Panopto Video platform for education to record lectures, manage content, offer video accessibility, take notes, and allow students to record presentations. You can stream live sessions, record demonstrations, capture lectures, allow for annotations/notes on videos, and distribute/share online videos.
ScreenCast-o-Matic Easy-to-use, affordable tools that bring lessons to life through video. Record, edit and share video to connect with students, parents and faculty.
ScreenCastify easily record, edit, and share videos
Snagit Snagit lets you quickly capture a process, add your explanation, and create visual instructions.
ThingLink Create unique experiences with interactive images, videos & 360° media
WeVideo WeVideo empowers every learner to discover their voice and make an impact in their world. Our platform promotes deeper learning while making it fun and easy for students to express their ideas with creativity and authenticity.

EdTech Industry Info

AASL Best Apps for Teaching & Learning
Common Sense Education
DOE Office of Educational Technology
EdSurge
EdSurge Product Index by Subject
EdTech Digest
edutopia.org
International Society for Tech in Ed (ISTE)
Remote Learning Tools & Tutorials Temporary free membership. That’s why we’ve gathered our favorite — and most useful — tools for remote teaching and learning in one place. Check out the daily short-form video mini-sessions for bite-sized professional development, tips, and tricks for teaching online. Scroll through the videos, below, or filter them by your role.
TechNotes Blog

EdTech @ NGLibrary

Education Week This link opens in a new window More than a print journal, Education Week’s online platform is updated weekly with new articles, informational and instructional videos, webinars, and more. Special sections on technology, market trends (K-12), and job searching are also included.
Digital edition of Education Week also available here
Gale OneFile: Information Science This link opens in a new window Gale OneFile: Information Science contains valuable content for library science students, information science students, technology professionals, and others. Information Science is updated daily with articles covering all aspects of managing and maintaining information and technology, including usability, cataloging, circulation, business information, and more.
- This link opens in a new window
IEEE Xplore Digital Library (IEEE/IET Electronic Library) This link opens in a new window If you want to create an account on this database (not required to use the database), visit this link instead.
The IEEE Xplore Digital Library is the premier database for research in electrical engineering, electronics, computer science and related disciplines. IEEE Xplore includes full-text access to over 5 million documents, including IEEE journals, magazines, conferences, and standards, as well as IET journals, magazines, and conferences with a backfile to the late 1800s for select titles.
LearnTechLib This link opens in a new window LearnTechLib is the premiere online resource for aggregated, peer-reviewed research on the latest developments and applications in Learning and Technology by the world's leading publications and authors. Developed and supported for and by researchers, librarians, and educators. This respected resource is more than a typical PDF database of content but is a multi-purpose service and tool. LearnTechLib encompasses 30+ years and 135,000+ peer-reviewed full-text documents and abstracts of published international journal articles, conference papers from 265,000+ leading authors and additional multimedia-rich resources including: Journal articles, Conferences papers, e-Books, Reports, Dissertations, Videos, Keynote Talks, Presentation slides, Webinars, Collections of articles with more added daily.

Journal of Educational Technology & Society

Instructional Support

Assessment

Answer Garden Use it for real time audience participation, online brainstorming and classroom feedback.
EdPuzzle Choose a video, give it your magic touch and track your students' comprehension.
EduCandy
Flippity A series of web apps that can easily turn a google spreadsheet into a set of online Flashcards or Quiz Show
GimKit A game show for the classroom that requires knowledge, collaboration, and strategy to win.
Kahoot Game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share and play learning games or trivia quizzes in minutes. Unleash the fun in classrooms, offices and living rooms!
Mentimeter Interactive questions and slides. Add polls, word clouds, Q&As, slides and more to your presentations and create an interactive experience for your audience.
Nearpod An instructional platform that merges formative assessment and dynamic media for collaborative learning experiences.
Plickers Formative assessment has never been faster. Plickers is the free card activity your students will love. Join millions and play in your next lesson.
Poll Everywhere This web-based audience response system lets you embed interactive activities directly into your presentation. The audience responds on the web or via SMS texting on their phones.
Quizizz Free self-paced quizzes to review, assess, and engage—in class and at home.
Quizlet Search millions of study sets or create your own. Improve your grades by studying with flashcards, games and more
Socrative Your classroom app for fun, effective engagement and on-the-fly assessments.

Field Trips

Info & Digital Literacy

BrainPop: DigCit
Checkology
Common Sense Ed: DigCit All students need digital citizenship skills to participate fully in their communities and make smart choices online and in life.
Common Sense Ed: News & Media Prepare your students for tomorrow's headlines with essential news and media literacy materials.
Copyright & Creativity
Life Literacy Project
newsela Authentic content from the most trusted names. 10 new texts published every day.
News Literacy Project
TypingClub

Storytelling / Literacy

CommonLit A reading program that reaches all students. Drive growth. Measure progress.
Epic! Epic! is the Leading Digital Library for Kids 12 & Under.
KidLit TV Explore the world of children’s literature
Raz-Kids
The Spanish Experiment Well-known children's stories translated into Spanish and spoken by a native Spanish speaker. Great for kids... and adults too! Read along in Spanish or English.
Storyline Online FREE children's literacy resource featuring the world's best storytellers reading books aloud. Each video includes an activity guide with lessons for K-5 students to do at home.
Storynory Storynory has been giving the world free audio stories since 2005.
TeachingBooks.net
Vooks A kid-safe, ad-free streaming library of read-aloud animated storybooks.