The rate of adoption of new technologies in our day-to-day lives seems to have exponentially increased in the past decade. With the increasing necessity to adapt to remote work and learning, this trend became even more prevalent. This has led to an urgent need to look for new tools that capitalize on the benefits of the latest technology and minimize the downsides of not having real 1-to-1 interaction.
The number of different tools and apps available out there, however, can be intimidating. That’s why we’ve decided to work on a no-frills go-to list of the tools and apps that matter. While this is not a be-all and end-all list of relevant tools, it mentions a few of the most reliable and efficient ones. Some of them have seen widespread use for years, others gained popularity in the last few months and a few are still relatively obscure. What they all have in common with one another is their potential to make the life of remote learners easier. The majority of them offer both free and premium services for different degrees of usage.
Table of Contents
Video Conferencing
Adobe Connect
Purpose: More than a simple videoconferencing platform, it includes a number of recording and editing tools for the more demanding user.
Price: Paid
Google Meet
Purpose: A straightforward yet very convenient tool, particularly for learners who use Google Calendar and need to quickly schedule new calls.
Price: Paid
Timezone.io
Purpose: A life-saver for learners with peers from different timezones and who need long-distance video conferences.
Price: Free
YouTube Live
Purpose: A great tool to run a Livestream with an interactive chatbox.
Price: Free
Zoom
Purpose: The industry standard for video conferencing.
Price: Free; Paid
Messaging
Google Chats
Purpose: A basic yet efficient messaging app. It’s particularly useful for learners already used to G Suite.
Price: Paid
Microsoft Teams
Purpose: A messaging platform useful to those who attribute great importance to file storage and application integration.
Price: Free; Paid
Twist
Purpose: A communication app separating channels into searchable conversational threads.
Price: Free; Paid
Online Whiteboards
Explain Everything
Purpose: Developed to make things easy to present, sketchnote, create videos, and work together in a single platform.
Price: Free; Paid
IPEVO Annotator
Purpose: A handy tool utilize the potential of interactive whiteboards with a series of annotation utensils.
Price: Free
Miro
Purpose: Arguably the best online collaborative platform for more professional-looking whiteboards.
Price: Free; Paid
MURAL
Purpose: An increasingly popular digital workspace for visual collaboration.
Price: Paid
Stormboard
Purpose: The collaborative brainstorming platform per excellence.
Price: Free; Paid
Cloud Storage
The three following cloud storage services are very similar to one another with the great differentiator being the price point at the different levels of storage capacity needed by users.
Dropbox
Price: Free; Paid
Google Drive
Price: Free; Paid
Microsoft OneDrive
Price: Free; Paid
Project Management
Asana
Purpose: One of the most renowned platforms to track the workflow of daily recurring tasks and collaborative projects.
Price: Free; Paid
Monday
Purpose: One of the most sophisticated and flexible work operating systems to plan, run, and track remote work.
Price: Paid
Todoist
Purpose: To-do lists to help task management.
Price: Free; Paid
Trello
Purpose: A Kanban board-style that greatly contributes to visualizing learners’ workflow.
Price: Free; Paid
Other
Kapwing
Purpose: A fantastic tool to collaboratively edit images and videos online. It’s particularly useful when working on group projects.
Price: Paid
MarkUp
Purpose: A visual commenting platform designed to easily obtain digital feedback on your work.
Price: Free
Loom
Purpose: A screen recording software to be used in the browser.
Price: Free; Paid
Screencast-O-Matic
Purpose: Easy-to-use tool to create and share screencasts.
Price: Free; Paid
Purpose: The go-to all-in-one app for remote work – useful for time tracking and productivity monitoring within classes.
Price: Free; Paid
