NOTE: I wrote this way back in 2010 and naturally a good number of these freebie sites have since disappeared. Feel free to browse, but my apologies for any broken links. For more up to date free resources, try the Free Tools and Resource Category. Thanks! – KW
This listing is divided into two key groups – tools intended specifically for educators, and general applications intended for everyone.
We've made an effort to provide a worthy set of resources in each of these categories (and to avoid resources that seem of lesser quality or functionality). All of these applications are free (some have both free and paid versions). Some sites may require registration. If you know of any similar quality tools that you think deserve consideration, please drop a comment below.
This listing benefits greatly from reader input, so don't hesitate to share! Thanks.
RESOURCES DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR EDUCATORS
Activity & Materials Creators
- Awards Certificates: www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#awardCertificates
- Bookmarks and Book Plates: www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#book
- Calendars & Classroom Organizers: www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#book
- Flash Cards – Create Your Own at StudyStack (have to register): www.studystack.com/CreateStack.jsp
- Flash Card Exchange (register for adv. functions): www.flashcardexchange.com
- Form filler (have to register): www.fillanypdf.com
- Holiday & Seasonal Worksheets: www.abcteach.com/directory/seasonal/
- Puzzle Maker (lots of types – word search, math squares, mazes, much more!): puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com
- Word Search Puzzles (lots of them): www.thepotters.com/puzzles.html
- Worksheets (lots of preformatted worksheets): www.superteacherworksheets.com
Communications Tools (Print & Electronic)
- EducationWorld Newsletters & Parent Communications: www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#newsletters
- TeacherFiles: www.teacherfiles.com/resources_newsletters.htm
Course Management Systems & LMS alternatives
(You have to register to use these tools, so you can save your own personalized content. Note that these tools are generally more involved than many of the other resources on this page. Some of them offer both paid and free functionality)
- Blackboard's “CourseSites”: coursesites.blackboard.com (this is a secure site and you may get notification of this as you attempt to access it)
- EctoLearning: www.ectolearning.com
- MyiCourse: www.myicourse.com
- rCampus: www.rcampus.com/help/about/course_and_learning_management_system.cfm
- Schoology: www.schoology.com
- SchoolRack: www.schoolrack.com
Clipart
- DiscoveryEducation: school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart
- School-Clipart: www.school-clipart.com
- TeacherFiles: www.teacherfiles.com/clip_art.htm
Educational Videos
- Seven Online Classrooms Teachers Can Use to Augment Their Own
- A Dozen Free Online Video Lecture Sites: www.emergingedtech.com/2010/02/a-dozen-great-free-online-video-lecture-sites
- Seven Online Classrooms Teachers Can Use to Augment Their Own: www.emergingedtech.com/2012/01/seven-online-classrooms-teachers-can-use-to-augment-their-own (some overlap here with some of the listings in above article)
- Watchknow: www.watchknow.org
Interactives (for White Boards, or Powerpoint)
- 4 Free Digital Whiteboard Apps for the iPad
- ABCTeach: www.abcteach.com/directory/interactive
- Promethean Plant (have to register): www.prometheanplanet.com
- SMART Exchange: exchange.smarttech.com
- TopMarks: www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx
iPhone, iPad, and Android Apps
- 15 Favorite iPad Apps As Selected By Teachers
- 100 free iPhone Apps for Educators
- Free iPad Apps for Educators (and Parents)
- Attendance (for Android)
- Grade Book (for Android)
- Grade Rubric (for Android)
- Grade Ticker (for Android)
Lesson Plans
- AtoZ Teacher Stuff: atozteacherstuff.com/Lesson_Plans/index.shtml
- Discovery Education: school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans
- LessonPlansPage: www.lessonplanspage.com
- Scholastic: www2.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplans.jsp
- Teacher.net: teachers.net/lessons
Open Educational Resources
- Curriki's Resources and Curricula page: http://welcome.curriki.org/resources-curricula/
- OER Consortium: oerconsortium.org
- OER Commons: www.oercommons.org
Presentation Tools
- Teacher's recommendations for academic uses of 5 fun free presentation tools: www.emergingedtech.com/2012/01/teachers-recommendations-for-academic-uses-of-5-fun-free-presentation-tools/
Quizzes & Tests
(These types of sites require sign up)
- Easy Test Maker: www.easytestmaker.com
- Quizstar: quizstar.4teachers.org/indexi.jsp
- Huge free sets of practice SATs, ACTs, AP exams, and more: http://www.varsitytutors.com/practice-tests
Rubrics
- 4Teachers: rubistar.4teachers.org
- Rubrics4Teachers: www.rubrics4teachers.com
- iRubrics: www.rcampus.com/indexrubric.cfm
Social Learning & Collaboration
- Edmodo: www.edmodo.com
- Edutopia: www.edutopia.org
- Room21: room21online.com
- TakingITGlobal: www.tigweb.org
OTHER/Miscellaneous
- Do You Know About The Many Free Resources For Education Available from Apple?
- FlippedTextBook.com (create your own ‘flipped' text book – in beta)
- FreeTech4Teachers (Richard Byrne's excellent blog, with lots of free resources that featured daily).
- Google Apps for Education
- Microsoft Live@EDU
GENERAL RESOURCES (not intended just for educators)
Animation
Blogging
Document Management
File Management
Group Projects
iPad Apps
Literature Summary/Analysis
Mind Mapping
Note Taking
Online Interactive White Boards
- 4 Free Digital Whiteboard Apps for the iPad
- Dabbleboard (link wasn't working as of 1/27/12 – not sure if this is temporary or permanent)
- Scribblar
Picture, Photo, & Image Editing & Organizing
- Aviary (https://www.anysoftwaretools.com/what-happened-to-aviary/)
- FotoFlexer
- Photofunia
- Picasa
- Pixenate
PowerPoint
- Watch this video to learn about creating your own Custom Animations, and learn about many other free resources.
- This tutorial from Online Tech Tips explains how to create slide transition automations using easy pre-configured tools in PowerPoint.
- Click here to access a preconfigured search of Microsoft's Office Site, set up to return dozens of articles with hundreds of free templates for PowerPoint.
- PresentationMagazine.com provides tons of tips, articles, PowerPoint templates, and more
Screencasting & Presentations
- Fotobabble
- Glogster
- Jing
- OneTrueMedia
- Prezi
- Screenpresso
- Screenr
- Screencast-O-matic
- Slideshare
- ZohoShow
- Voki
- 4 Great Twitter Applications for Teachers Using Twitter In The Classroom (these each have some free functionality, and some higher end paid functionality): www.emergingedtech.com/2011/10/4-great-twitter-applications-for-teachers-using-twitter-in-the-classroom/
Other/Miscellaneous
- Google Image Search
- Random.org (a true random number generator that some teachers have said they find useful).
- Read it Later
If you have a resource you would like to see added to this list, please comment and tell us about it.
[…] This listing is divided into two key groups – tools intended specifically for educators, and general applications intended for everyone. We've made an […]
[…] This listing is divided into two key groups – tools intended specifically for educators, and general applications intended for everyone. We've made an […]
[…] This listing is divided into two key groups – tools intended specifically for educators, and general applications intended for everyone. We've made an […]
[…] This listing is divided into two key groups – tools intended specifically for educators, and general applications intended for everyone. We've made an […]
[…] Free Productivity Resources […]
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com/free-productivity-resources-for-teachers/ […]
Online education has benefited greatly from presentation software and document sharing programs. Many teachers are now updating websites with important information.
Software programs like Google Docs and presentation programs like Slideshare make new information easier for students to get their hands on. I would suggest adding a product like ours to the list as it incorporates all of the aspects of each of the products into one.
http://www.apio.com/
Great List. No doubt i can understand how much effort one need in research to keep all this in one place. Thumps Up Guys.
I would also suggest you add edtechreview.in which is for students, teachers, and all educators who want to know about education. Its a dream site for any educator who want to learn better in a competitive world like India.Have a look. Everything on this site is free
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I would like to add a presentation application to this list, where teachers can create narrated power-point presentations without Audio/video tools for free(for academic purpose only) !! Sounds interesting ? Yeah !! it uses powerful text-voice engine to create narrated presentations looking as good as video. See a Demo here at http://www.slidespeech.com/
It supports all the mobile devices – Apple , Android and Windows phone.
I would like to suggest Knowble Articles. It’s an online language learning program that helps students improve their English. The program uses news articles that fit with the language proficiency and personal interests of every individual student. It also monitors progress, and helps improve vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. It has a free and premium version.
Great list! A family recently graduated from college and is perusing education – and she was surprised how little up and coming teachers are aware of the technology that is available to them.
I would like to suggest a couple of our research pages that deal in the benefits and dangers of multitasking and productivity. It’s important for students and educators to understand that multitasking is not always an option. Thanks again for sharing this list.
http://all.pro/resources/multitasking.html
http://all.pro/resources/productivity.html
[…] https://www.emergingedtech.com – Today, 3:59 AM […]
Very wonderful information can be found on this web site.
Might I suggest 4sync. Its basically drop box, but with a hearty 15GB of FREE storage!!!
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Hey! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay. I’m definitely enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts.
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hi all,
We are looking for a teachers who are willing to test our gradebook app for iphone or ipod touch. For those who are interested email us at uipluscode@gmail.com so we can give you a promo code to download the app for free. Thank you.
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Nice List! Internet4Classrooms has a list of free resources for teachers to help with productivity in the classroom. It is in a section called Teacher Tools.
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/teachertools.htm
Have a look. Everything on this site is free.
How about adding Prezi – free presentation software. http://prezi.com. Has some engaging examples of lessons teachers have created using Prezi.
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Thanks for compiling this list! I would also suggest you add Enterthegroup.com which is a free site for students to manage their group projects online. It also enables teachers to create online classrooms. Check it out.
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