Selecting Online Teaching Tools
Choose the educational technology you use with your course and program goals in mind. Think about the learning outcomes for your students and the environments in which they’ll be learning. What do they need to be able to do and how are you guiding them on a path to get there? Any learning tool you choose should help you answer this question.
If you’d like help working through this question, reach out to us for a consultation or join us in a drop-in session. You can also review our resource materials to help you get started with online teaching. The side navigation links provide quick start guides, and accessibility tools, and the resources below will help you to plan, prepare, and teach your courses in an online environment.
Many of the actions you will likely want to take will be implemented through Canvas. This powerful hub provides access to a number of tools useful for communicating, teaching, and assessing in an online setting.
Strategies & Resources
There are many ways to teach successfully online. The following tables list tools to immediately facilitate various online course activities. Each tool is identified as synchronous (tools used in real-time/live) or asynchronous (tools that facilitate learning free of time constraints).
Communicate with students | Deliver course content | Assess learning
Communicate with your students
Clear, consistent communication is an important part of successful online teaching. Your students will need information about what they are expected to do. These tools help you communicate with your students and can help them communicate with each other.
| Activity | Tool | Synchronous/Asynchronous |
|---|---|---|
| Communicate updates, changes, and other relevant information. If you plan to use Canvas Announcements, have students verify their settings to allow announcements to be forwarded directly to their email address. That way, messages will reach students even if they are not signed into Canvas | Canvas Announcements | Asynchronous |
| Communicate information and allow students to respond at any time | Canvas Conversations | Asynchronous |
| Communicate information and allow a live response | Zoom | Synchronous |
| Facilitate written discussions among students and instructors | Canvas Discussions | Asynchronous |
| Facilitate live discussions among students and instructors | Zoom | Synchronous |
| Hold remote office hours to provide an opportunity for live, one-on-one or small-group communication with you | Zoom | Synchronous |
Deliver your course content
There are a range of ways to share course content with your students, depending on whether you want, or need, to meet in real-time or not. As always, ensuring the accessibility of your course content is a key part of successfully delivering that content to students.
| Activity | Tool | Synchronous/Asynchronous |
|---|---|---|
| Deliver live lectures (and record for later use) | Zoom | Synchronous |
| Pre-record lectures as videos including slides | Panopto | Asynchronous |
| Upload videos to stream to students (including Zoom recordings) | Kaltura | Asynchronous |
| Record a slide show with narration | PowerPoint Voiceover | Asynchronous |
| Share files with your students | Canvas Files | Asynchronous |
| Share a whiteboard session with your students | Zoom Whiteboard | Synchronous |
Assess student learning
Online tools can provide additional ways for students to demonstrate their learning. These tools help you collect student work online, create quizzes and exams, and grade digital submissions.
| Activity | Tool | Synchronous/Asynchronous |
|---|---|---|
| Collect student submissions online | Canvas Assignments | Asynchronous |
| Check if students understand the material | Canvas Quizzes | Asynchronous |
| Facilitate student presentations | Zoom | Synchronous |
| Grading assignments, exams, problem sets (etc.) | Canvas SpeedGrader| Gradescope | Asynchronous |
| Paper exam (requires students to print the exam, scan their work, and then submit) | Gradescope | Either |
| Term paper | Box | Canvas Assignments | Asynchronous |
| Recorded individual oral presentation or a transcript/annotated presentation | Canvas Assignments | Asynchronous |
| Portfolios (A series of smaller assignments might be an appropriate substitute for a final exam/project.) | Digication | Asynchronous |
| Group paper | Canvas Assignments (supported by Canvas Discussion Forum) | Either |
| Group presentation | Zoom | Either |