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Online courses have grown tremendously since the pandemic started. Since 2020, 98% of universities moved classes online. Moreover, 80% of companies and 50% of institutional students have used an e-learning platform.
Why?
It is because eLearning can help students to keep between 25% and 60% more information. And taking online courses is cheaper because you can study from anywhere.
However, conducting online courses is not as simple as you might think.
As an educator, you must have understood that one of the biggest problems when conducting an online course is to keep your students stay focused during the meeting.
The reasons may vary:
- the class is too long (more than 45 minutes)
- it is not interactive
- no interesting displays
- the video or audio quality is poor
- and many more
You can also add your own reason to the list above.
Usually, an online course takes about 30 to 45 minutes per session.
Meanwhile, on average, students can only stay focused in front of their screen for 15-20 minutes.
And when they have exceeded their focus-time limit, your students will not pay attention to your explanation anymore. This is quite a problem because you might still have a couple of important topics to deliver.
So, how to keep your students focused on online classes?
Since you are conducting online courses, you need to know that sitting in front of a screen for a very long time is tiring. Unless you provide high-quality, interesting, yet attractive content for your students.
Thus, use these 5 amazing apps to make your students pay attention to your online classes.
5 Useful Apps You Should Use for Your Online Courses
1. Canva
The first key is visual.
It is no secret that people love to see beautiful images.
A study found that 68% of people believe that interactive presentations are more memorable.
So, showing wonderful and interactive content is a good way to make your students sit still in front of their screen listening to your online course.
However, for some people, creating great presentations (or videos) takes a lot of time and effort, not to mention if you have a little knowledge about design. It would be a total mess.
Thus, use Canva to show, not just tell.
Canva is one of the best platforms where you can create attractive and stunning content for your class. It provides thousands of professional templates, high-quality images, videos, graphics, and designs to support your ideas.
What’s interesting about Canva is that the templates are updated regularly. It even has templates for certain celebrations and occasions. They come in various yet beautiful designs. You only need to select the best presentation template, adjust to your style, and insert the information that you want to deliver to your students.
If you are a K12 educator, Canva has a great offer for you. It has a program called Canva for Education. In this program, you can access all premium features and dedicated classroom space for 100% free. It is a commitment from Canva to support both educators and students.
Canva saves you time and effort because you don’t need to build it from the scratch, though you can. Hence, you can invest your time in other more important things like studying the materials, creating assessments, etc.
That said, your students will not get bored with your online course. And you will get their full attention.
Sign up Canva Pro for $12.99/mo for up to 5 people more benefits and full access to premium features.
2. Miro
An interactive classroom is another key for successful online courses.
Though it’s done online, it doesn’t mean that your class cannot be as interactive and lively as the offline class.
All you need to have is a whiteboard.
A classroom is not a classroom until it has a whiteboard. It is a space where teachers can break down ideas, explanations, notes, artworks, and many more. Students also use a whiteboard as a place to share their opinions, brainstorm ideas, and do collaborative work.
Since it is an online course that we are talking about, so you will need an online, yet interactive whiteboard.
Miro is an online collaborative whiteboard platform where you can share and brainstorm ideas with your students in real-time. It allows everyone to engage and share their opinions as if everyone is in the same room. It is a perfect tool for educators who want to provide students with an exciting, hands-on, interactive learning experience.
With Miro, you are able to create fun and interactive online classes. You can create awesome slides, insert files, post articles, embed videos and podcasts, and integrate them with other apps like Slack, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, and many more.
Meanwhile, students can participate in the lesson by giving direct feedback with a built-in video conferencing tool, sticky notes, voting, and emojis.
At the end of the class, you can export all information in the Miro whiteboard into a PDF or just share it with students who are not coming. So, no one is feeling left behind and your students can go back to see the notes any time they want.
Miro was developed with the intention to provide students, professionals, and lifelong learners having interactive and fun online classes.
Apply Miro as Educators for free now.
3. Animaker
Animations help your students learn faster and easier.
According to the Social Science Research Network, 65% of people are visual learners, while 30% prefer to learn by listening rather than reading.
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