The Best 25 Tools And Apps Used By Remote Learners

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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.

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

 

Hubstaff

Purpose: The go-to all-in-one app for remote work – useful for time tracking and productivity monitoring within classes.
Price: Free; Paid

 

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