Tools for seamless teaching in online and hybrid contexts

Face-to-face teaching methodologies are often very different from the pedagogies needed to deliver successful online teaching. Instructor presence, specific feedback, effective course design, engaging content, and peer interaction have all been shown to be effective predictors of success in online and hybrid learning contexts. This best-practices paper will introduce and discuss how publicly available online technology tools can be seamlessly integrated into online and hybrid course environments to facilitate effective learning. Specifically, this paper aligns with the online interactions framework which purports that students in online courses interact with content, with the course instructor, and with each other to obtain learning mastery. Online tools such as Nearpod, EdPuzzle, Voicethread, Screencastify, FlipGrid, and Google Suite can assist instructors in creating these interactions by facilitating engaging learning activities, providing a method to collect formative assessment data for learning feedback, and by promoting collaboration between students through meaningful discussion opportunities.