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Shotcut supports a wide range of video formats and boasts a great collection of tutorial videos.
Great for tool for beginners, K-12, university students and teachers.

Review from TomsGuide

It allows real-time previews when creating transitions between clips.

Openshot includes:

Openshot allows teachers to create quality video content for classroom instruction, or for students to access as part of an online class or for self-study.

Public reviews from Capterra

VideoPad’s features include:

Great for K-12 education projects involving video editing for kids.

Public reviews from Capterra

Freemake can:

Great for teachers to prepare files for any gadget or device (e.g. projector, student tablets, mobiles, etc.), burn DVDs and Blu-rays, create slideshows and audio visualizations, edit video quickly, upload to YouTube, etc.

Public reviews from Capterra

 

A common problem in schools is communication with parents. The office may use emails, and text messages to get notifications to parents, while teachers may use social media platforms. Sometimes learners are given physical notes with return slips, which inevitably end up getting lost inside their bags.

 

There is a lot of cases where the information being sent out is also just “one-way”, making it difficult for communication to flow smoothly.

 

ParentSquare is an app that consolidates all of the communication streams into one place so that parents can find information with ease. You can also have them fill out forms and pay various activities.

In my teaching experience, I’ve encountered parents who like to be very involved with their child’s learning process. These parents like to see regular feedback on activities that the students have done in the class, and to see the pride their child takes in his/her own work.

 

Seesaw is a great platform where students can creatively express what they have learnt in class, and then share it to their own portfolio. The teacher can then share the work with the parents directly, either in the moment, or at the end of the school day so that parents can see what their youngsters are up to. Parents can then comment on the work, or even have a direct chat with the teacher, if they wish to do so.

 

I have personally not made use of this tool, but I think it would be a great, and easy tool to integrate into lessons with my students in future!

 

 

Google Classroom is a web-based platform, which connects, and integrates with, all Google apps and services. It is linked to your Gmail account, or schools can link it to their own Google-based domains.

 

It is a great tool to communicate assignments, deadlines, and events to students using an array of services, including: Calendar, Gmail, Drive, and much more! It also has a built-in video chat platform (Hangouts), which can act as an alternative to Zoom for virtual classes. 

 

It also allows for easy collaboration on assignments, and easy feedback through their “office” applications like Google Docs, Slides, Cells, and more! Teachers can add comments to sections, suggest edits, etc. in real time, even while students are working on a document at the same time.

 

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A similar platform to Parent Square, but it appears to be on a smaller scale (Also, it’s free to use!). The interface looks very user-friendly, and it integrates with Google Docs, and YouTube. You can reach parents based on their preferences (Email, SMS, Mobile App, etc.) in one convenient place. They claim to boost parent involvement in classroom activities, and interactions. It also consolidates information in one place for the class.

 

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This is as simple as it sounds. You can send a mass text message to parents from any web-enabled device. A good tool for getting urgent messages out to parents or students in the moment without having to create messaging lists on your phone.

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This is a tool where teachers can post their weekly plans for students, and share it. Students need to download the mobile app and select their class to get access to the teacher’s notes. It functions mainly as a calendar, or agenda where teachers can make announcements, and share the materials for the upcoming lessons.

 

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This is a great class management tool, as stated in the Classroom/Time Management  Category in this Padlet. It is also a great way to inform parents on classroom behaviour, and areas of difficulty in an easy manner.

 

When I was working at my school in South Africa parents were always asking “How is my child’s behaviour?” with this tool, they can easily log into their child’s profile with a link, or key provided, and track how their child is acting in the classroom.

 

Recently, they have upgraded their platform to be more useful in a remote learning situation, allowing teachers to send direct messages to families and share activities with students.

 

For review, click here. 

 

WhatsApp is an app that is used by most people around the world. In South Africa, my school would use it to communicate with parents quickly, and easily for reminders of upcoming school events, or as a reporting system for school trips (ETA, safe arrival, etc.).

 

It is a simple app to use, and you can now invite people to group chats using a link, which you can share through your introductory email, or on a class website.

 

WhatsApp is also a good tool to message parents directly if there are any minor concerns.

 

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This is a platform that a lot of schools, clubs and academies use in Korea. It works very similar to the “Groups” function on Facebook in the sense that members need to sign up to join a “Band”. We use this in our school to post announcements, and homework. The students send their reading homework privately through the chat function, where the record themselves reading the homework pages for the week.

 

We also post weekly news on there for each class where we show photos, and write a short article about what we did in class for that week.

 

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