With the exception of adding animations to my PowerPoint presentations, EdTech was never a priority of mine when I qualified as a teacher in 2009. I won’t be the only one.

As such for those of us who have received no formal training on how to incorporate technology into our planning, the notion of integrating EdTech into our curriculum can seem daunting.

However, the rise of EdTech has become impossible to ignore - not least as the world moved online en masse to deliver remote lessons during lockdown.

Even so, it can still be a daunting arena, with all manner of tools claiming to be a “must-have” to boost your teaching.

So, to help break down these barriers, here are 11 easy-to-use and worthwhile EdTech tools that I now use regularly that can be integrated seamlessly into your lessons for a host of different purposes.

Asking the big questions

If you are looking for a starter that will inspire curiosity and create inquisitive learners, Mentimeter could be the ideal solution.

It allows your class to interact with big questions using real-time voting - whether through ranking ideas, word clouds or gathering opinions on a controversial topic.

Contributions are anonymous, thus encouraging even the quietest participants to join in, and can be displayed on the board to assist with class discussions and debates. 

Supplementing literacy teaching

Wondering how to complement your literacy teaching in the classroom with resources that can be used at home?

There is a range of websites that not only provide activities but also offer personal feedback to allow for students to progress and improve. 

Readtheory is a non-profit organisation that allows students to practise comprehension tasks. As students improve their skills, the reading passages get increasingly more difficult.

Additionally, Readtheory offers teachers both individual and class level reports for you to keep track of progress. 

Noredink is a fun approach to teaching grammar and punctuation that allows students to personalise their learning experience through the inclusion of their favourite characters from television and literature.

Students must consolidate their understanding of a topic before moving on and teachers can even set tasks for classes to complete at home.

Furthermore, Pobble365 can be used to encourage creative writing outside the classroom.

It offers learners a daily visual stimulus for story writing, alongside questions to consider, a story starter and activities based around improving sentence structure. 

Promoting collaboration

Although Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams provide ample opportunity for collaboration, there are other methods that can be used to empower students to share ideas.

Padlet allows users to create a mood board on a topic so that students can contribute their research and resources in order to learn from each other - this can then be referred back to throughout the teaching of the topic. 

For a more creative approach, Flipgrid can be used to pose questions or assignments to students that they respond to by submitting a video.

This can encourage creativity and teamwork (if assigned as a group activity) and students can have fun watching each others’ videos while learning about the topic they were assigned.

Retrieval practice

The evidence suggests that retrieval practice is vital in order to consolidate learning and ensure it is stored in our long-term memory.

Kahoot is an interactive approach to retrieval practice allowing students to use their own device to participate. With the option of choosing from one of the 30 million games available or easily creating your own, it can add an element of fun to revision in a lesson. 

Quizzizz is a similar games-based quizzing platform that can be used at home, as questions are always displayed on the screen, and the order of questions is constantly randomised to provide a different learning experience each time it is played. 

An alternative option to the above is Quizlet, which allows you to create flashcards for students to test their understanding of a recently studied topic, or use to revise for an upcoming assessment. 

Current affairs

With so many momentous world events occurring, keeping up with current affairs is critical for our students to understand the impact of their actions. 

One great resource for this is Newsela, which bills itself as offering articles on topics that students care about, while ensuring its content is accessible for all - each article has the option for five different ability levels of reading.

Articles come with a quiz to test comprehension and a writing prompt should students feel inspired to practice their penmanship on a particular topic. 

Of course, this is just a snapshot of the tools that exist, there are hundreds out there and each may offer something useful to you.

So just as prepare pupils for a world where adaptability and flexibility are key it is imperative we lead by example and continually reinvigorate our approach to teaching.

The challenge will be to ensure that it isn’t simply used as a tick-box strategy, but the focus is on enhancing and improving learning outcomes for students.

Emma Sanderson is head of English at Hartland International School in Dubai and has taught internationally for six years. She tweets @emmanaomi