Free E-Learning Tools

94% of public school teachers have spent their own money on their classrooms. Teachers want kids to feel excited and motivated when they come to school, and as the classroom evolves new expenses and technologies arise – which can make keeping your classroom stocked with the newest e-learning tools an expensive challenge. 

The good news is that digital classrooms can get access to tons of open source and freemium tools that don’t cost a dime, so you can keep your students engaged with the latest technology without impacting your budget. 

Help your students leap into the digital age with these free resources. We’ve included three of our favourite tools from each category below. 

Free Digital Storytelling and Authoring Tools

If you are an English or language teacher, you will love these free tools that use the power of imagery and words to bring stories to life! 

Storybird: Inspire your students to write about prompts using visual designs from artists all around the world. Take advantage of the free trial period to test out its effectiveness. 

Bubblr: Get creative with your students by letting them design their own comic-strips and photo novels. This tool is completely free and uses Flickr images to bring stories to life. 

PicLits: Turn a background image into a thoughtful message with this tool that allows you to drag text onto free images. Let your students set the backgrounds on your computer classrooms with messages of inspiration. 

Free Educational Videos

The power of video continues to grow in the digital age. Use these free video tools to educate your students. 

BigThink: You can gain access to over 600 podcasts and interviews from thought leaders across the globe with this free tool. Play a video in class and have students reflect on the takeaways for an inspirational lesson that will keep them engaged. 

CosmoLearning: This educational aggregator will get you access to tons of free online documentaries and video lessons. 

Amazon Inspire: Discover and share your favourite educational content on this open-source tool. 

Free Bibliography and Citation Tools

If you ask your students to cite their sources, share some free citation tools with them to streamline this task. 

CitationGenerator: This easy and free tool lets you generate citations in seconds! All you have to do is log onto the homepage and put in the work you want to cite. Voila! 

Citefast: This tool will keep a record of your citations for up to four days and can convert them into APA, MLA 8 and Chicago style. 

Easybib: Get up to 20 free grammar and writing style suggestions in MLA format with this website. 

Free Infographic and Visual Design Tools

Do you teach art or graphic design? You’ll love these free visual design tools. These are also great resources for students to use to create school reports! 

Canva: Create a free account so you can get access to customized diagrams and graphs. This tool is so simple to use that you can drag-and-drop information and data in just seconds. This is also a great tool to tell your students about. 

Easelly: A great place to start graphic designing is with infographics. Sign up for free access to Easelley’s infographic features so you and your students can start practicing today. 

Infogram: Use this feature to assemble information into elevated infographics and charts. Displaying data in an interesting way will help your students remember it better.  

Free PDF Tools

If you ever ask your students to send digital reports or projects, chances are you’ve requested it in PDF format. Let them know about these free PDF tools that can help speed projects up! 

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC: If your school computers are outfitted with Adobe products, take advantage of the free PDF tool. You can view, print, and comment on PDFs using this–making it much easier to grade assignments that have been submitted via PDF. 

Doro PDF Writer: If your classroom uses Windows instead, you should be using Doro to convert Word documents into PDFs. 

PDF Buddy: Upload documents to the PDF Buddy Server so you can convert them quickly into PDFs! This tool is perfect for computers that aren’t already outfitted with free PDF tools. 

For our complete list of 107 free e-learning tools for educators, check out this piece from Wikibuy!

Searching for more apps to bring into the classroom? Check out these 3 great word game apps to improve vocabulary!