Nearpod is an exciting way to create interactive lessons. While you are teaching students about a particular skill or standard, you can give students quizzes, surveys, drawing activities, and more. As the teacher, you can view all of your students’ progress and even see reports. To sign up, go to http://www.nearpod.com/signup/ and choose the free educator plan. This tool might become your go-to method for teaching anything and making sure the students are truly involved in their learning.

Typeform allows you to create beautiful surveys, review the reports on Typeform’s web page, and export and analyze the data. You can do most common question formats and it is all free. To sign up, go to https://www.zaption.com/signup and choose the free account.

Kahoot! – Like an interactive game show with music and timers, Kahoot! allows teachers to check for understanding using dynamic item formats. Results can be saved and viewed as reports. Students can even earn points for how well they do and how quickly they respond. Students can participate using many types of mobile devices as well as regular desktop computers.

Socrative is similar to Kahoot! in that it is a web-based student response system. The primary difference is that Socrative allows a teacher to go into more depth for the assessments. Also, there are less multimedia aspects and time pressure, making Socrative more like a traditional kind of assessment and less like a game. Teachers can create quizzes, surveys, and exit slips to check for learning. To sign up for your free account, go to http://b.socrative.com/login/teacher/ and click on “Create an Account.”

Jing for Screencasting – There are a number of tools that allow teachers to create screenshots (single image of what is on a screen) or screencasts (video of what is happening on computer screens with audio recording). However, Jing is the easiest to use, allows teachers to save to a free web-based account, and works across platforms. Best of all, it is free! Jing does need to be downloaded to the machine, but in most cases, you do not need to be an administrator to install. To get started, go to http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html and click on the “Free Download” button.

ED Puzzle The easiest way to engage your students with videos. Pick a video, add your magical touch and track your students' understanding.

Adobe Spark is a free online and mobile graphic design app. Easily create beautiful images, videos, and web pages that help tell your own story.

Canva: Amazingly Simple Graphic Design Software - makes design simple for everyone. Create designs for Web or print: blog graphics, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers, posters, invitations and so much more.

SurveyAnyplace is a unique and multimodal way of creating interactive quizzes and surveys for your students, faculty or PD participants. Quick, easy and engaging, it's a must stop when you are packing your edu tool belt!

If it's good enough for American Idol, it's good enough for teachers! Poll Everywhere allows you to post online polls with the click of a button, check it out!

Discover an endless library of free books, picture books, & poetry or use simple tools to create books in minutes. Check out Storybird!

Flip your class with style. If you are thinking of assigning videos for homework then you MUST check out Educanon. Embed questions into any video and track the progress of your students!

A mecca of video curation, Knowmia organizes thousands of curricular videos making your search for the perfect class resource seamless. Tons of other teacher tools to spice up your video game too!

Transforming media into collaborative spaces with video, voice, and text commenting. Go play with VoiceThread now!

Prezi – Microsoft PowerPoint has been standard in the classroom for quite some time. Prezi allows you to bring movement and energy easily to your slide shares. With Prezi, students do not have to have licenses to software to create slide presentations, just a free account. The free graphics really allow presentations to have additional meaning through visual clues. To get started using Prezi for free, go to https://prezi.com/signup/public/.

Booktrack Classroom – Have you ever thought about the soundtrack of the text you are reading? Do you have students who struggle with reading and need ways to make text more compelling? Booktrack allows you and your students to create soundtracks to text, public domain texts, or your students’ own stories. There are free sound clips including public domain songs, ambient sounds, and sound effects. Completely web-based and very easy to use, this has to be heard to be believed. I wish I had this tool when I was teaching English. To get started, teachers can create an account and add their students or have each student create an account. Click here to begin – http://booktrackclassroom.com/.

Zaption allows you to take videos from passive tools to interactive ones where you can add links, questions, surveys, and so much more. There are even reports to see progress. To sign up for a free account on Zaption, go to https://www.zaption.com/signup and choose the basic free account. That account will have more than enough to get you and your students started with the tool.

Piktochart is a free, web-based tool that allows students to create infographics. Students can use their own images, visuals from the web, or icons from the tool. By tying together images, text, charts, and other visuals, students can make information come to life. To create a free account, go to https://magic.piktochart.com/users/sign_up.

Thinglink – When does a picture go beyond a thousand words? When there are interactive aspects to it such as images, videos, links, and more. Students can easily add interactive aspects to images they have created, as well as to maps, photographs, and other types of visual images. With the free account, students can choose icons to represent the interactive aspect. To register free as an educator, go to https://www.thinglink.com/register?student=0&teacher=1 or to register as a student, go to https://www.thinglink.com/register?teacher=0&student=1.

Vialogues - Build discussion boards around videos! Comments are time stamped and the easy to use menus give you multiple options to facilitate dynamic online conversations.

I've tried for years to try and think where comic creation wouldn't work with a grade level or curriculum and have come up empty. Pixton is super easy and super free so whether kids are explaining algebraic expression or the causes of the Civil War you're going to see engagement and learning!

GoAnimate for Schools is a safe environment for students to fully express their creativity through video and a great place for educators to share.

Ready to bring the world to your classroom? Google Hangouts allows you to stream a live video discussion with up to 10 participants. Open up your room to experts, politicians, professionals, other classes.

Voki - Boiled down, students can make their own avatars complete with speech (their own or text). The curricular possibilities are truly endless, a science bit by Carl Sagan, a confessional by Holden Caulfield, a speech never given during Reconstruction by Lincoln...... put on your kid hat, make something and then turn it around and engage your kids in both traditional and new literacies!

As a video editor for the past 15 years, WeVideo blows me away being that is free and online. I used to say all you need is on computer and one camera to make a movie. Now, I say all you need is a phone and some Wi-Fi.