Best Digital Educational Tools for Effective Classroom Management

Remember when classroom management meant chalkboards and paper gradebooks? Those days are long gone. Today’s educators are using digital tools to revolutionize how they teach and how students learn.

These digital education tools help teachers work smarter, not harder. They get students more involved in their own learning, and they make it easier to track progress and give personalized feedback.

If you’re an educator, you might be wondering which tools are worth your time. How can they make your job easier and help your students learn better?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we’ll walk you through some of the best digital education tools out there and show you how they can transform your classroom management style.

Let’s dive in and discover how these tools can make your life easier and your teaching more effective.

Best digital education tools

1. Sensei LMS

Picture this: You’re an educator who wants to create online courses, but the thought of wrestling with complex software gives you a headache. Enter Sensei LMS, your new best friend in the digital classroom.

Here’s the scoop on why educators love Sensei LMS:

It’s a breeze to use: No more pulling your hair out over complicated interfaces. Sensei LMS is so user-friendly, you’ll wonder why all software isn’t this easy.
It bends to your will: Every classroom is unique, right? Sensei LMS gets it. You can tweak and tune your courses to fit your style and your students’ needs.
It plays nice with WordPress: Familiar with WordPress? Sensei LMS slides right in like it’s always been there.
It takes the pain out of grading: Sensei LMS has your back with auto-grading features for many types of assessments.
It keeps students hooked: With interactive lessons and progress tracking, Sensei LMS turns learning into an adventure that students actually want to go on.

But don’t just take our word for it. Let’s hear from someone who’s been in the trenches.

Meet Gonzalo de la Campa, the brains behind Escuela Emprende. He’s got over 10,000 students enrolled in his courses for budding entrepreneurs. His secret weapon? You guessed it – Sensei LMS. Gonzalo says:

“Sensei LMS has been a game-changer for us. We can create courses that our students love, without needing a tech guru on speed dial. And the best part? It’s helped us turn our passion into a steady stream of income.”

2. Google Workspace for Education

Google Workspace for Education is a comprehensive suite of tools designed to enhance teaching, learning, and collaboration in educational institutions. This platform offers a range of features that cater to the diverse needs of educators, students, and administrators.

The platform’s key features include:

Collaboration tools: Google Workspace for Education provides essential tools like Google Classroom, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Gmail, Drive, Meet, Sites, Chat, and Calendar. These applications work together smoothly, enabling efficient communication and collaboration between educators and students.
Security and administration: Advanced security features are available in the Education Standard and Education Plus editions. These include the Security Center feature to detect threats and investigate suspicious activities. Administrators have centralized control and visibility to prevent, detect, and remediate security threats.
Video conferencing with Google Meet: Google Meet provides high-quality video conferencing for remote learning, virtual classroom sessions, and online meetings. Premium features in the Teaching and Learning Upgrade include breakout rooms, polls, Q&As, and support for up to 250 participants. Education Plus offers attendance tracking.
Originality reports: Students can use originality reports to spot uncited content and avoid accidental plagiarism before submitting their work. The reports compare their Google Docs, Slides, and Word files with online webpages and books.
Accessibility features: The platform supports screen readers and is compatible with assistive technologies, fostering an inclusive learning environment. It helps create accessible content for students with diverse needs and learning styles.
Analytics and data visualization: Education Standard provides deeper analytics and powerful data visualizations, offering insights into Google Classroom and Gmail usage.

While the platform offers numerous benefits, it’s important for institutions to carefully evaluate their specific needs, budget constraints, and privacy requirements when considering Google Workspace for Education. As with any tool, its effectiveness will depend on proper implementation, training, and alignment with the institution’s educational goals.

3. Microsoft 365 Education

With Microsoft 365 Education, traditional classrooms transform into dynamic digital learning hubs. It brings together chats, assignments, and apps in one sleek package. Whether you’re running a live lesson or setting up group projects, Teams has got your back. And that’s just the start.

Its other features include:

Microsoft Teams for Education: At the heart of Microsoft 365 Education is Teams, which brings conversations, content, assignments, and apps together in one place. It facilitates virtual classrooms, enables real-time collaboration, and supports both synchronous and asynchronous learning.
OneNote Class Notebook: This notebook tool allows teachers to create and organize lesson materials, provide creative workspaces for students, and offer personalized feedback. It’s particularly useful for distributing content, collecting homework, and supporting collaborative projects.
Microsoft Forms: Educators can create surveys, quizzes, and polls to engage students and gather feedback. Forms automatically grade multiple-choice quizzes, saving teachers time and providing students with instant feedback.
OneDrive: With 1TB of cloud storage per user, OneDrive ensures that students and teachers can access their files from anywhere, on any device. It also facilitates easy file sharing and collaboration.
Immersive reader: This learning tool improves reading fluency and comprehension for learners of all abilities. It offers features like text-to-speech, syllable breakdown, and vocabulary support.
Microsoft Whiteboard: A digital canvas for freeform ideation, content creation, and visual collaboration. It’s particularly useful for brainstorming sessions and visual explanations.

One of the strengths of Microsoft 365 Education is its familiarity. Many students and educators are already acquainted with Microsoft tools, potentially reducing the learning curve. Additionally, the platform’s integration with other Microsoft products like Minecraft: Education Edition can create engaging, gamified learning experiences.

4. Canvas LMS

Canvas LMS is a versatile and user-friendly platform that’s winning over educators and students alike. Let’s dive into what makes Canvas a top contender in the online education arena.

Intuitive course design tools: Creating a course is as easy as drag-and-drop, allowing educators to focus on content rather than wrestling with technology. Whether you’re tech-savvy or a tech novice, Canvas makes course creation a breeze.
Mobile-friendly interface: The platform’s clean, mobile-friendly interface ensures that learning materials are accessible anytime, anywhere. Students can check assignments, participate in discussions, and submit work from their smartphones or tablets – perfect for today’s on-the-go learners.
Grading and assessment: When it comes to assessment, Canvas shines with its variety of grading options. From traditional quizzes to peer reviews and group projects, Canvas provides tools to evaluate learning in multiple ways. The SpeedGrader feature is a particular favorite among educators, streamlining the grading process and allowing for quick, meaningful feedback.
Learner analytics: For data-driven educators, Canvas offers powerful learning analytics. These insights help identify struggling students early, track class progress, and refine teaching strategies based on real data.

Canvas LMS’s extensive feature set and scalability make it a solid choice for institutions of all sizes, from K-12 schools to large universities. It’s a platform that grows with you, adapting to the changing needs of education. For institutions looking to create engaging, interactive, and effective eLearning experiences, Canvas LMS is certainly worth a closer look.

5. Moodle

Moodle, short for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, is an open-source learning management system that has been a cornerstone of digital education for over two decades. Its flexibility and extensive feature set have made it a popular choice for educational institutions worldwide.

At its heart, Moodle is all about customization. It’s like a Lego set for learning environments – you can build it up exactly how you want. This adaptability is a big draw for institutions with specific needs or those who want full control over their eLearning space.

Moodle’s key features include:

Flexible course management system: Moodle offers various course formats to suit different teaching styles and subjects. Whether you prefer a weekly structure, a topic-based approach, or a more social learning environment, it can accommodate your needs.
Easy file management: The platform makes it easy to upload and manage files, track student progress, and monitor course completion, giving educators a comprehensive view of their students’ learning journey.
Diverse assessment options: Educators can create quizzes with multiple question types, from simple multiple-choice to more complex matching and short answer formats. The platform also supports peer and self-assessment, encouraging students to engage more deeply with the material. Moodle’s gradebook is equally versatile, allowing for custom grading scales to fit any assessment style.
Integration and scalability: Moodle’s plugin system and integration capabilities are particularly noteworthy. With thousands of plugins available, and support for external tools via LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability), Moodle can be customized to meet almost any educational need.

Auxiliary tools for enhancing digital education

Auxiliary tools can help with specific classroom needs, from getting students more involved to making tough subjects easier to understand. Let’s look at some useful tools that work well with your main online teaching platform and can make learning better for both teachers and students.

Assessment and feedback tools

Teachers need quick and easy ways to check student understanding and give helpful feedback. That’s where assessment and feedback tools come in handy. These tools let teachers create quizzes, tests, and assignments that students can complete online. They also help teachers grade work faster and give students quick feedback on how they’re doing.

When choosing an assessment tool, look for features like:

Automatic grading.
Different types of questions (like multiple choice or short answer).
Instant feedback for students.
Ways to track student progress over time.
Easy integration with other teaching tools.
Security features to prevent cheating.

Here are some popular assessment and feedback tools:

Google Forms: Easy-to-use tool for creating quizzes and surveys. Provides instant feedback and integrates with Google Classroom.
Quizizz: Allows teachers to create quizzes and assignments with immediate feedback. Includes gamification and detailed reporting.
Socrative: Real-time assessment tool that offers quizzes, polls, and exit tickets. Provides instant feedback and detailed reports.
Markr: An intuitive tool for efficient and accurate marking of assignments and exams.
Turnitin: A comprehensive tool for plagiarism detection and ensuring academic integrity in student submissions.

Collaboration, communication, and documentation tools

Working together and sharing ideas is more important today than ever before. Tools that help students and course authors collaborate, communicate, and create documents together are changing how we learn and teach. These tools make it possible for students to work on projects together, even when they’re not in the same place. They also help prepare students for jobs where teamwork and online communication are key skills.

When looking for collaboration, communication, and documentation tools, consider these important features:

Real-time collaboration, which lets multiple people work on the same document or project simultaneously.
Different communication methods, including chat, video calls, and discussion boards.
The ability to easily share and edit documents together.

List of collaboration, communication, and documentation tools:

Padlet: A digital bulletin board that allows students to collaborate by contributing documents, links, videos, and images that can be used in class activities or lesson plans.
Diigo: A social bookmarking tool that helps students capture and share relevant research articles on a given topic. Available as browser extensions and mobile apps.
Zotero: Helps collect and share research sources and papers from the web. Useful for creating bibliographies for projects with multiple contributors.
Skype: Enables video chats, text chats, and live collaboration between students and teachers.
Zoom: A video conferencing tool that facilitates virtual classrooms, live lectures and face-to-face interactions, even for remote learning.

Engagement and interactive learning tools

Keeping students interested and involved is key to successful learning. Engagement and interactive learning tools help teachers create lessons that are fun, and interesting, and get students to participate more. These tools can make learning feel more like a game, use videos and other media, and give students chances to interact with the lesson material in new ways.

When looking for engagement and interactive learning tools, consider these important features:

Interactivity options that let students actively participate, not just watch or listen.
The ability to use different types of media like videos, images, and audio.
Gamification features that make learning feel like a game, with points, rewards, or challenges.

List of engagement and interactive learning tools:

Kahoot!: A game-based learning platform that brings fun and engagement. Teachers can create quiz-style games on any topic for students to answer in real time.
Storybird: Inspires students to write and read stories in a visually appealing way. Uses artwork to motivate writing. Great for picture books, chapter books, and poetry.
Animoto: A video creation tool that allows teachers and students to quickly create and share professional-quality videos.
VoiceThread: Allows students to create and share presentations with voice narration. Great for practicing oral language skills.
Camtasia: A powerful screen recording and video editing software for creating professional-quality educational videos.

Take your classroom management to the next level with Sensei LMS

After exploring various digital education tools, it’s clear that Sensei LMS stands out as a top choice for teachers looking to improve their online classrooms. Sensei LMS combines many of the best features we’ve discussed into one easy-to-use platform.

What makes Sensei LMS special?

It’s simple to use, even if you’re not tech-savvy.
You can create engaging courses with quizzes, videos, and interactive content.
It helps you track student progress and give timely feedback.
It’s affordable, especially compared to other tools that charge high fees.

Many teachers praise Sensei LMS for its flexibility and wide range of features. They say it helps them teach better and manage their classes more easily.

If you’re worried about learning how to use Sensei LMS, don’t be. There are plenty of helpful training videos and tutorials available. In addition, Sensei has a very supportive customer service team, and there are online forums where you can ask questions and share ideas with other teachers.

Ready to see how Sensei LMS can improve your teaching? Check out Sensei’s pricing plans today!