Schools all over the world are closing their doors due to health concerns. So many of them are turning to eLearning, distance learning, remote learning.
Trying to make sense of it? Trying to just keep your head above water?
We've got you covered. In our eLearning, remote learning and distance learning page, we have lots of resources.
Get some ideas, tools and templates here. Then get started. You got this.
Quick Navigation
Remote learning templates and tutorials
75 back to school activities for the remote learning classroom
We have curated and created over 75 back to school activities for the remote learning classroom. Check out this post for tons of ready-to-use lessons along with tutorials, templates, and examples to make back to school planning this year a little easier.
The Remote Learning Checklist: Tools, tips and ideas
Setting up your classroom to succeed remotely can rely on a lot. Having a good foundation in place is key, much like a house built on a shaky foundation will crumble.
Here is a checklist to set up your remote learning classroom. This isn't an exhaustive list but a starting point.
70 eLearning activities, templates and tutorials (UPDATED)
Elearning activities can be fun AND promote quality learning. Here are lots of examples and templates to use!
Free Remote Learning Online Course
- 14 modules
- 2.5+ hours of video
- Downloadable planning guides
- Lifetime access
- Forum for sharing ideas
Tools for Remote Learning
Google Slides
Google Slides is a free presentation tool. You and your students can create, collaborate on and share beautiful presentations.
Google Drawings
Google Drawings is like a digital posterboard. It has a few things you can add: text, images, shapes and lines which makes the Google Drawings learning curve pretty low for students.
Screencastify
Screencastify is a (Chrome extension … a little program installed into the Google Chrome web browser in the top right corner) that allows you to easily record and download screencasts.
Flipgrid
Flipgrid is a social learning platform that allows educators to ask a question, then the students respond in a video.
Edpuzzle
Edpuzzle is an easy-to-use platform allowing you to insert questions into engaging videos for your students. Edpuzzle gathers data so that you can see what your students learned.
Quizlet
Instead of students answering individual questions on their individual devices, Quizlet puts students in groups. All possible answers are divided amongst the devices of all students participating.
Pear Deck
Peardeck is a way to turn your presentation slides into interactive activities for your students.
Iorad
Iorad allows you to instantly make guided, step-by-step directions for any website directly in the browser.
Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is an online and mobile design app with options to create amazing videos, beautiful pages or engaging posts.
Teaching with Google Slides & PowerPoint
Google Slides and PowerPoint are so much more than presentation tools. Google Slides and PowerPoint can be used as part of a lesson or use them to create and assign a complete lesson or unit.
Google Slides Themes and PowerPoint Templates for Remote Learning
Created by Paula Martinez of Slides Mania
Weekly Planner for Online Lessons I
Now that educators, students and families are adapting to distance learning, planning your online lessons using Google Slides is a great option whether you are using Google Classroom or not. Almost everybody has a Gmail account and you can easily share the link to the deck with your students.
You can add all the multimedia files they’ll need within the Google Slides file. Just one file for the whole week!
Weekly Planner for Online Lessons II
A new weekly planner for educators!
Paula Martinez, creator of Slides Mania, has added multiple links for you and your students to navigate it easily. Also added a Contact slide for you to put your information, so students and parents can reach you. And a Video Conference Hours slide, in case you are using Zoom or Meet, to put the hours there.
Choice board template for Google Slides
Besides the slides for 6 activities or choices Paula has added a section where students can write about what they learned, or maybe you want them to write about something else, your choice.
The good thing about these “students” slides is that they can all work on the same file. If you are teaching synchronously, you can see them work as they type, just change the view to grid.
FREE Remote Learning eBooks
Asynchronous, Remote, & Flipped Classroom Resources ebook
By Nate Ridgway & Stacey Roshan
A Quick-Start Guide to Distance Learning
By Stephanie DeMichele
The Google Classroom Quick-Start Guide
By Matt Miller
The Big Book Creator Activity Book
An activity book created by the Book Creator team to help give students and parents something fun and educational to work with at home.
Innovative Blended Learning Ideas
An ebook designed and created by Naomi Harm to provide educators and families with quality free resources to provide a digital learning experience for students.
Lesson planning for Remote Learning
The strategies you use to create quality in class lessons still apply when creating online lessons and activities.
Below are some resources to help you make the shift.
HyperDocs
The HyperDocs Toolbox: 14 engaging example activities
Creating student-centered activities — where we put learning in the hands of students — can be a powerful learning experience.
Novel HyperDocs: 25 ready to use units for your class
Novel HyperDocs take the old curriculum guides we know and turn them into engaging blended learning units of study. Here are 25 ready to use novel HyperDocs for your class.
HyperDocs lesson planning template with links to tools and resources
HyperDocs are purposefully designed digital lessons and can transform your class. They truly are so much more than a doc with links.
Use this lesson planning template (with links to tools and resources embedded in the document) to help you plan some digital lessons. More templates can be found here.
Looking for example lesson plans that have already been created? Check out hyperdocs.co/samples for TONS of them!
Choice Boards/Learning Menus
eLearning Choice Boards: A step-by-step guide to creating resources you can use tomorrow!
Choice boards are an excellent option for teachers during those first days of eLearning when we are getting our bearings or for parents who want extra options at home.
This post walks you through how to create your own choice boards with examples and a template to get started.
Ditch those homework packets with family choice boards
Families and kids are busy! This on-the-go home activity option allows students to engage with meaningful content and reinforce skills. They can do it while riding in the car, while waiting for a doctor appointment, and while watching a sibling’s athletic practice! By offering digital tasks, students also get to build foundations and familiarity with modern learning tools.
Sample remote learning daily schedules and lessons
Khan Academy schedules for school closures
Sample eLearning schedules broken down by grade level (preschool-2nd, 3rd-5th, 6th-9th, 10th-12th) with links to online and offline activities and resources.
Khan Academy is a free online learning platform for students in grades K-12.
Sample eLearning daily schedules with choice boards
Adapted from the Khan Academy resources these sample daily schedules utilize the choice board eLearning options from this post.
Remember to go to "file" then "make a copy" to modify both the schedules and choice boards to fit your class.
20 days of lessons from Scholastic
Scholastic has put together daily lessons that includes four separate cross-curricular learning activities. Each daily lesson is built around a thrilling, meaningful story or video. Separated by grade level these lessons can be done independently or with family members.
Ready to go resources you can use tomorrow
Free online courses and video tutorials for students
A collection of entire courses and tutorials available for free for students of all ages. Courses available include math, reading, computer science, digital design and more.
30+ digital escape rooms
There are loads of gamification resources out there that you can use with your class. Digital escape rooms are great because you can have students work on them any time from home. Use as a free choice activity or assign and give a time limit. We have curated a collection of over 30 to choose from.
Virtual field trips
Virtual field trips are a fantastic way to bring the world to your students. This collection of resources gives you lots of options for taking your class on a trip from their device anywhere.
Remote Learning with Littles
Gamifiying Remote Learning
Distance learning with Kahoot
Click here to get a copy of this infographic in French! by Alexandra Coutlee
Online feedback and assessment
Digital bell ringers
20 digital bell ringer activities to kickstart class
Bell ringer activities don’t have to be a slow start to class that students dread. Use 20 these ideas to spice up your bell-ringers!
We want to make these bell ringer activities even EASIER for you to use and share with your colleagues. So we have created a FREE ebook (you can print it if you want to!) with 10 activities complete with instructions, templates, and extension ideas.
Digital exit tickets
10 ideas for digital exit tickets
How can we make the most of the end of class? How can we tie a bow on a day of class to wrap everything up?
An exit ticket gives us that opportunity — much like bell-ringer activities help us kick class off effectively.
The name “exit ticket” makes it sound like you need a ticket to exit the room, but exit tickets are final quick check-ins with students before class wraps up. Here are 10 ideas for a meaningful ending to class.
Using video calls for eLearning
Classroom video calls. You can do this. Here’s how.
Chances are, you’re already using video calls in your personal life. You FaceTime your far-away family or Skype friends from other countries.
“Use it in the classroom, though? I wouldn’t know where to start,” many educators say.
Or maybe you're one of the countless teachers across the globe who were forced into classroom video calls during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
Want to know where to start? Looking to step up your video call game?
You’ve got this. You can totally do it. Here’s how.
How to use Google Meet for elearning, online learning
Video calls can really make that personal touch. If your school is a G Suite school, there's a lot you can do with Google Meet.
- It gives that personal connection that's missing from face-to-face class time.
- It helps us to communicate more clearly with facial expressions, body language and intonation.
- It's quick and easy. Pushing record and talking can be much faster than other forms of communication.
Tips for successful video calls (shareable infographics)
Slow or no-internet remote learning resources
10 tips to support students with slow internet
Slow internet is a way of life for many families. We can minimize internet limitations by using some of these tips.
In this post, we'll look at 10 ways to support students with slow internet, including:
10 tips to support students with slow internet (shareable infographic)
Click here to get a copy of this infographic in French! by Alexandra Coutlee
10 no-internet remote learning activities
When students do have devices and internet, we don't have to rule that out. If access to devices and internet fluctuates, students can have options with tech and without.
So ... what could those no-tech options look like?
Aside from assigning worksheets and chapter review questions, here are 10 no-internet remote learning activities to help students grow when not at school. These are the types of activities that don't take a lot of explaining. They're not easily graded. But their benefits are huge -- and could be exactly what students need.
10 no-internet remote learning activities (shareable infographic)
Remote Learning Podcast Episodes
Prefer to learn while you listen? These episodes of the Ditch That Textbook Podcast can get you ideas in a hurry! Each episode is about five minutes long, designed to equip you with ideas to use right away.
DTT Podcast Episode 177: No-internet remote learning (part 1)
DTT Podcast Episode 178: No-internet remote learning (part 2)
DTT Podcast Episode 179: No-internet remote learning (part 3)
DTT Podcast Episode 173: What to do on video calls (part 1)
DTT Podcast Episode 174: What to do on video calls (part 2)
DTT Podcast Episode 168: eLearning activities: #1 graphic organizers
DTT Podcast Episode 169: eLearning activities: #2 creative slides ideas
DTT Podcast Episode 170: eLearning activities: #3 video activities
Remote Learning Live Videos
These live videos take the best ideas from hand-picked guests and share them with you. We take the time to dive deep into important topics. Plus, we take YOUR best ideas and questions and insert them into the conversation.
Subscribe to the Ditch That Textbook YouTube channel for notifications on upcoming live videos! (Don't forget to click the bell icon for notifications!)
How to Make Home Learning More Playful
Unique Online Learning Assessment Ideas
PBL During Remote Instruction
Empathy, Compassion and Humanity During School Closures
Show What They Know: Examples of Online Demonstrations of Learning
Creativity During Remote Learning
Ditch Those Worksheets
Using OneNote to Show What They Know
Accessibility Tools to Help Promote Classroom Equity
Top Remote Learning Tips and Tricks
Remote Learning Tips from an Online Teacher
Click here to get a copy of this infographic in French! by Alexandra Coutlee
HyperDocs: Remote Learning GOLD
Device Grants and Digital Equity
One Teacher's Innovations in Remote Learning
Strategies for Powerful Remote Learning
Using Pear Deck for Remote Learning
Creating MEMORABLE remote learning experiences
eLearning Printable PD
Ditch That Textbook Printable PD Special eLearning Edition
