Teaching software and aids helpful to teachers

First of all a teacher should have a smart phone or laptop with internet facility from the best connectivity providers.
Secondly, the teacher should have the knowledge of basics that is MS-Office like word, excel, powerpoint. The digital text books will be in portable document form (.pdf ). You also need the regular teaching aids like charts, flash cards, alphabet cards, piece of chalk for black board or a marker for white board for online teaching. White boards (small size) are available in markets between the range of Rs. 500/- to Rs.600/-
Thirdly, the zoom app is used by many educational institutions along with whats app group of children. You can download both in playstore and create your group. Create your mail id to get the link from zoom app for activation.
You may also need kannada typing skills through your mobile or laptop, if you are teaching kannada. It is same with other local languages if it is a subject.
Finally face with confidence as you have the experience in regular classrooms.

How to operate a computer and how to use a smartphone should be known to the candidate. The candidate can join a training institute and know the minimum knowledge about the computer. Don't go for very high standards. Do the course which tells you about basics. MS Office, PowerPoint etc. Also, learn data entry also. There are many important tools useful as teaching aids. You can learn them also at the institute. A small whiteboard and markers are available. Keep them with you. Make the lessons ready and upload them on to your computer and get ready. Practice many times using the laptop.
There are two important ways to have a video call. Zoom or Skype. Download these two on your laptop and see that your laptop will have a good internet connection. Now you are ready to teach digitally. Once you start teaching as required you can update your skills and you can become a good digital teacher.

With the introduction of many teacher-student friendly softwares in the market the teachers now can equip themselves with these programs and choose one from a plethora of them as per their choice. These softwares have many capabilities like keeping the students in a group as per their level and subject, communicate with them in a group or one to one mode, providing them homework and other assignment, getting feedback and queries from them etc. Using a video conferencing software like Zoom or Skype one can call the students at a specified time for a verbal lecture or illustration of a kind. There are immense opportunities available in teaching profession by using these applications. Some of the popular applications/ sites for this purpose are as follows -

1. Animoto - This application is very useful in creating high quality educational videos from the mobile devices itself. So, the teacher can present his material in an audio-visual form which can be well understood and appreciated by the students.

2. Socrative - This is a digital platform which teachers can use for creating lessons and exercises for the students and the students can then receive it in their mobile, tablet or laptop and solve them in the stipulated time. Teacher can directly access the work of the students and advise them accordingly. Teachers can also modify their lessons and exercises to meet the need of a particular group of the students and customisation and personalisation is also possible online.

3. TED-Ed - This site has a mechanism of collaborating between the teacher and students and educational lessons can be created in a collaborative mode. So, the learning process is participative and information is accessible to the teacher as well as the student.

4. Edmodo - This is a big platform and gives opportunity to the teachers to communicate with their students and provide them the lessons and exercises across this platform. The social network is also amalgamated in this tool. This has a facility using which the teacher can create many online students groups and guide them accordingly as per the group requirement.

5. Projeqt - This is an interesting tool with which teacher can create multimedia presentations and insert links like maps, pictures etc. This is very useful for those courses where a lot of multimedia presentations are required to be done during the educational episodes.

6. Thinglink - This gives the teachers to create images including text, music or sound etc and it can be seen by the students in Twitter or Facebook. Students can get all the educational material through interactive links and increase their learnings.

Apart from above there are some applications/ sites which help to teacher and supplement the educational processes and are of some interest. These are -

a) ClassDojo - This is an interesting application in which there is a scoring given to the student based on his behaviour in the online class. This works online instantaneously and later the score can be shared with the parents also.

b) Storybird - This is the place for inculcating creatine writing in the students and teacher can monitor their progress and create projects for them and help them in learning.

c) Kahoot! - This is a tool where teacher can create questions and games for the students which supplement the academic work. This is basically a game based learning method.

As you have mentioned about the digital learning its the best way to start teaching especially this lock down period. To start online teaching we don't require any IT training for it. Now a days everybody is having cellphones with latest technology , where Google is our library, and Wikipedia is our encyclopedia. Below mentioned are the different ways you can opt for online teaching .
1) Video recording: If you find that there is a frequent disconnection of net in your area, then you can record your teaching through video and upload it in the whats-app group which ever subject you handle.
2)Google classroom: This is the best way to organize all the students together and start teaching as it is being done classroom teaching, your gmail account itself is eligible to start teaching.
3)Zoom app: Download the app in your phones, Login then fix a time for your class and start teaching.
4) Smart class: This method is opted in schools in place of blackboard. teaching method is same but instead of writing we are displaying it in the smart board.
The above methods are useful when your a teacher for a particular school and want to teach for your students. Suppose if your a online tutor then you can opt for online tutoring apps like vedanthu , unacademy, toppr etc.

Presently the smartphones are the boons for both the teachers and the students. Keeping smartphone in the pocket is no more regarded as a punishable offence if the learning procedure is carried on via this rout in the class rooms. The mobile app can help us in expanding our learning procedure, preparing lectures on different subjects, enhancing the learning capacity of the individual students.
With the inclusion of host of teaching software, teachers can demonstrate their skills in relation to attendance keeping, recording of behaviour of the individual and the progress of the students in the ongoing sessions.
Here we can employ a few apps to enhance the interactive learning among the aspirants-
1) Remind - This app is very popular among the teachers allowing them to have smooth communication with the parents and the students outside the class room. This can be used for the group chats, some urgent announcement and also to establish contacts with the students if the situation demands.
2) Pocket- This app is used by the teachers so as to make contact with both parents and the students outside the class room.
This app would allow group chats, modification of the earlier announcements, fresh announcements, establishing contacts with the students in case of emergency.
3) Class Dojo - This app enables the teacher to provide positive feed back of his students by giving suitable comments such as participating or working hard. With the use of this app, parents would be able to monitor the progress of their children. In turn, this app saves the expenditure relating to school newsletter which was to be circulated otherwise.
4) Slack - This platform provides the opportunity to students to learn the lessons even outside the class - rooms. This messaging tool would provide opportunities to both teachers and the students to remain in touch with each other even after the class hours. This is a very effective tool to remind the students of the previous notifications if served earlier.
5) Evernote- Evernote is note taking platform enabling the teachers to eliminate the printed lessons to be used outside the classroom. Parents can locate the completed assignments of their wards on this website. This platform has established transparency among the circles of students, teachers and parents highlighting its special charecterstiics.
6) Seesaw - This is basically an app designed for a student where parents can view the progress and achievements of their wards. The students would store their best performances in this app so that the parents could check the progress of their children.
This can also be utilised by the teachers to show the weakness and strength of a particular student before the the parent in the annual teachers- parents meeting.