With the national teacher shortage showing no signs of easing up any time soon, district administrators are turning to new EdTech solutions to streamline operations, address school challenges, and ensure education quality.
Chances are, you’ve considered online education solutions for your district, too. But how do you find the right one with so many options available today? We’re here to help. Read on for the best online education solutions for K-12.
How To Evaluate Online Education Solutions
If you want to implement an EdTech solution in your district — whether for instruction delivery or digital safety — the key is identifying which solution best meets your district’s biggest priorities.
You need to assess and compare what different solutions offer in order to identify which best meets your needs. Key factors to evaluate include:
- Audience type: Different solutions have varying target audiences. Some target K-12 learners, others teachers, and others district administrators. Make sure you understand who the end-user of the solution is so you can evaluate the experience for that user.
- User interface: A good online education solution should be easy to use — not frustrating and confusing. So, a user-friendly interface is another important factor. The easier it is to access resources, the likelier you are to achieve your desired goals, be it promoting digital safety, ensuring continuous learning, etc.
- Interactivity: This is a vital consideration, as it propels engagement. A highly interactive solution can keep users motivated and engaged and boost achievements.
- Customization options: Every school district has varying needs. So, you’ll want to find a customizable solution you can personalize to meet your unique needs depending on the use base, whether it’s admins, teachers, students, or a blend.
- Technical support features: Unfortunately, you may encounter issues when using your chosen EdTech solution. In such cases, you want to be able to reach your chosen platform’s support team as easily as possible for troubleshooting and guidance. Find a platform that offers help desk support to prevent or minimize platform downtime.
Best K-12 Livestream Instruction
Livestream instruction is vital for K-12 students as it allows direct interaction with teachers and peers in real time, creating a dynamic learning environment. LIVE instruction is the best version of livestream instruction, as it mimics real-life student-teacher interactions. To achieve the best learning outcomes, you need the perfect LIVE learning solution — and we know just which one to choose.
Elevate K-12
Elevate K-12 is a LIVE teaching solution that mimics in-person learning by providing real-time in-classroom teaching. It’s the top choice on this list of solutions because it provides schools with highly experienced certified teachers who are rigorously vetted and receive ongoing coaching and professional development. This ensures students receive quality instruction from the first day of class to the last.
Further, many Elevate teachers have additional credentials for specialties like special education and English as an additional language (EAL). So they can meet a wide range of needs in your school district.
With Elevate K-12, learning occurs through our proprietary LIVE Portal. Through the portal, teachers livestream their lessons, interact in real-time with students, give quizzes and assessments, and much more.
The portal also makes learning more accessible for students. It has a simple user interface for easy navigation, and students can do everything they would do in a traditional classroom, from asking questions to raising their hands.
The LIVE Portal has features designed to replicate face-to-face teaching, allowing for natural and engaging conversations between students, their teachers, and their peers. It also has features that enhance learning accessibility and student engagement beyond what is possible in a traditional in-classroom setting. For example, features like private chat give students who may be hesitant to express themselves in a public setting an alternative avenue for participation.
Elevate K-12 is compatible with various learning needs as it facilitates real-time engagement, allowing educators to tailor their teaching strategies to individual needs. It also offers optional class recordings so students can review course content at their own pace when they’re absent from class or if they need a refresher.
Best Online Education Solutions for Virtual Classrooms
More school districts are embracing virtual learning in the wake of the continuing teacher shortage. As of 2021, 20% of school districts in the country had already adopted or were in the process of incorporating virtual learning platforms into their systems. These platforms are online environments where students and teachers can interact in real time, simulating a traditional classroom setting. If you’re looking for a top-rated virtual classroom platform, look no further than:
Class
Class is an online education solution with a broad target audience, from K-12 students to higher-education learners and even governments. For K-12 students, it’s the best option for virtual classrooms.
Class aims to help close opportunity gaps, improving accessibility for underprivileged populations and those with geographic limitations. But this solution for virtual classrooms doesn’t just create a better environment for students — it also provides educators and school administrators with valuable time-saving analytics, including student participation and automated attendance.
This solution connects seamlessly with learning management systems (LMS) that use LTI 1.3, including Moddle, Open LMS, and Schoology, allowing teachers to easily create and assign tasks.
The solution is compatible with various learning needs as it blends synchronous and asynchronous instruction. Students can learn in real time and access transcripts from their class sessions afterward for review.
Best Online Education Solutions for Evaluating Students’ Progress and Performance
Traditionally, student performance is measured through formal assessments like tests and quizzes. New online solutions allow for performance to be measured in fun, interactive formats for students, making assessments exciting rather than inspiring dread.
The best online solutions to evaluate student progress help teachers adjust pacing to their class’ needs and identify students who may be falling behind while gamifying the comprehension check for students. Our top pick is:
Kahoot!
Kahoot! is a popular tool for assessing student comprehension and content mastery because it’s a game-based learning platform.
Teachers can create their own fun, engaging game based on their lesson plan or access one from the game library. They can even add videos, images, or diagrams to engage students further!
As students complete the games, teachers can use their performance to gain insight into how well they’ve grasped the lessons.
Best Online Education Solutions for Enhancing Digital Safety
The internet has undoubtedly revolutionized education by allowing easy, unlimited access to information. Unfortunately, not all information is suitable for K-12 students. This makes it vital for districts to invest in solutions that promote digital safety. At the top of our list is:
GoGuardian
GoGuardian is a digital learning environment application focused on ensuring digital safety. The tool enhances digital safety by allowing teachers to implement guardrails that allow or restrict access to specific websites and multimedia.
In addition, GoGuardian monitors student activity to identify learners with high-risk behaviors in their digital activities. When it does, it sends notifications to educators, allowing them to take appropriate measures early.
Best Online Education Solutions for Learning Management
Learning management solutions have become common in many schools as they allow educators to create, manage, and distribute e-learning resources seamlessly. A popular, highly effective option is:
Instructure
Instructure is a centralized learning management solution that allows teachers to create and offer courses seamlessly through the solution’s course builder. Since educators design their own courses, you can have full control over your district’s education quality.
It has various offerings, including Canvas LMS for sharing course materials and Canvas Studio, which allows educators to teach online courses through video. The Canvas Catalog feature also lets course creators sell courses.
The solution has options for a wide variety of instruction formats, such as independent study and direct teacher-student instruction.
How To Determine Which Type of Solution To Prioritize
With these many options, selecting one for your school district can be overwhelming. The key to choosing the best solution is identifying your district’s biggest challenges and their impact on student outcomes. This way, you can choose a solution that best meets these challenges to improve student success.
It’s also important to ensure quality teaching for better learning outcomes. While all the tools discussed here have unique contributions to online education, none is as effective as LIVE teaching solutions in promoting student success.
Why Choose a LIVE Teaching Solution?
Student engagement is a critical part of the learning experience. This is one of the reasons LIVE teaching solutions like Elevate K-12 are a great choice for school districts.
As opposed to asynchronous or online-only options, these solutions foster immediate feedback between teachers and students, facilitating teaching customization.
Teachers can handle student concerns in real time and give assessments that provide insights into learners’ course comprehension, allowing them to improve the learning experience.
Here are a few more reasons why school districts prefer LIVE teaching solutions:
- They’re interactive, helping teachers build relationships and rapport with their students.
- They help with social and emotional development by building a sense of community between students and classmates, as well as students and teachers.
- They provide a consistent and structured educational environment, helping learners stay focused.
- They allow students to seek clarifications in real time, limiting the risk of confusion.
- They create a sense of accountability for students by enabling students to form genuine connections with their teachers. Learners are more likely to engage in classroom activities and complete assignments.
LIVE teaching solutions improve students’ learning experiences, classroom engagement, and, ultimately, outcomes.
Try Elevate K-12 as a Model for LIVE Teaching Success
Whether you’re looking to improve student performance or optimize lesson planning, online education solutions can help address numerous challenges for districts. From e-learning to resource sharing, they make learning more accessible and convenient, delivering an effective learning experience. If your district is struggling to ensure quality teaching amid teacher vacancies, LIVE teaching should be one of the highest-priority solutions to consider.
Elevate K-12 is one of the top live teaching solutions, as it gives you access to fully certified teachers guaranteed to make learning not only effective but also fun and engaging. With Elevate, learners get an in-person-like experience, as they can see and talk to their instructor like they would in a typical classroom, boosting engagement.
Sign up for Elevate K-12 today to improve your students’ learning experiences and outcomes.