Free K–12 Resources to Help with Remote and Blended Learning in 2022
As you seek out software and services to augment online and blended instruction this year, start here.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/18/21
As the pandemic continues bringing change to K–12 through the school year, teachers, counselors, support staff and IT professionals are being more selective about the technology they choose for instructing and engaging students. While hundreds of education companies, nonprofits and other organizations made their software and services free during the immediate switch to remote learning, many have become more thoughtful about how they help educators master online and blended instruction. We've winnowed through our previous collection and sprinkled additions throughout, to bring you this updated set of free resources to help with online, hybrid and face-to-face in 2022.
If your organization has a resource that should be added to this list, send a brief message to [email protected] with “free resource” in the subject header and include a link to your offer's website.
3M has developed a roster of science experiments that can be done with "common household items" for students ages 6-12. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/gives-us/education/science-at-home/science-experiments-for-kids/
Abby the Pup provides free educational materials to teachers and parents to help educate kids three and four years old. All preschool printables and worksheets have been placed under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0). The site also offers videos featuring popular kid songs. https://www.abbythepup.com/
The Academy of Active Learning Arts and Sciences and the Flipped Learning Global Initiative have produced the "Rapid Transition to Online Learning" (RTOL), a roadmap for making the rapid shift to online learning during school closures. The resources include a checklist for administrators, another for IT managers, a transition plan and video tutorial for teachers and access to an international team of volunteers who have stepped forward to answer questions. http://aalasinternational.org/rtol/
Achieve3000 is offering "Literacy Printable Packets," a set of text sets with 20 printable articles and questions for grades 1-12 resources for differentiated literacy instruction. https://www.achieve3000.com/remote-support/
Achieve3000 has also commissioned the publication of "The Power of Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction," which offers best practices on three topics: How to build better relationships with your students; why cultivating literacy skills isn’t enough; and how to break down the barriers to equity. https://go.achieve3000.com/rs/026-SJE-918/images/CulturallyResponsiveLiteracyInstruction.pdf
Achillea, founded by college students, is providing peer tutoring specifically to K-12 students in foster care or those who have been discharged or are receiving preventative services. The coaching is delivered by high school students, making for peer experiences. A student intake form is required. https://www.peer-tutoring.org/
Adobe and Khan Academy have teamed up to help teachers learn how to teach creativity using Adobe products, with dozens of free accompanying lesson plans and projects for all grade levels and subjects, covering STEM, humanities, digital media and story-telling. The self-paced course for educators offers 20-plus lessons and a hands-on assignment and comes with a certificate for 20 accredited professional learning hours. https://edex.adobe.com/khan
AI4ALL Open Learning produces a free, adaptable curriculum for high school teachers to infuse coverage of artificial intelligence into their lessons. The organization said its materials can be implemented in any subject and doesn't require a technical background to use. Students will learn what AI and machine learning are, the benefits and risks of AI and how they can be involved in forging its use in the world. Topics cover AI and drawing, AI and the environment and AI and COVID-19. Application to the teacher community is required. https://ai-4-all.org/open-learning/
Amazon Future Engineer is providing free access to an online cyber robotics challenge for students in grades 4 and above with CoderZ. The challenge includes curriculum that can be added to computer science, science or math classes. Registration required. https://www.amazonfutureengineer.com/CyberRobotics
The American Museum of Natural History is sharing a bunch of online content for teachers and families. That includes the "OLogy" science website with lessons on subjects from anthropology to zoology; online science curriculum collections; virtual visits to the museum through its YouTube channel; and massive open, online museum courses delivered through Coursera. https://www.amnh.org/explore
The American Writers Museum delivers numerous virtual exhibits, including programs on Ray Bradbury, Frederick Douglass, Hisaye Yamamoto and "My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today," which shares personal stories about topics such as identity, community, language, storytelling and what it means to be an American from contemporary authors. Educational materials are available on the exhibits as well. https://exhibits.americanwritersmuseum.org/#virtual
Annenberg Learner is offering free access to dozens of K-12 lesson plans and professional development resources for educators and families on Learner.org, the Annenberg Foundation's education division. According to the organizations, many of the projects use items people probably already have (Eggs! Legos!) and include resource guides to help the adults better communicate the learning concepts to the kids. https://www.learner.org/search/
Aperture Education has curated a collection of free resources for parents and educators, to help kids (and them) develop social and emotional skills. https://info.apertureed.com/archived-resources
Arcademics offers free games online, to help students develop their skills in math, language arts, geography and typing. Registration required. https://www.arcademics.com/
Arizona State University has developed numerous free educational resources for K-12. Those include "Ask an Anthropologist" and "Ask a Biologist," where the content includes teacher toolkits with lesson ideas, podcasts with transcripts and videos showing the scientists in action, articles, puzzlers, experiments and the ability for students to ask experts questions. Another is "Virtual Field Trips," which offers numerous virtual trips with photos, explanations, short videos and maps. While the trips can be viewed on a computer, they really come to life through a virtual reality headset that allows for 360-degree viewing. ASU Prep Digital, an online K-12 school, has made online course materials available to any student or school and a library of teacher training videos.
Arizona State University is working with Complexly's Crash Course on a series of entry-level course videos, covering composition, chemistry, data literacy, algebra and other subjects. (Complexly and Crash Course are an initiative of the Green brothers, hosts of a popular vlog and best-selling fiction.) The content in "Study Hall," won't offer credit or replace any degree programs, but rather will serve as a supplement for high school or college learners. https://www.youtube.com/c/arizonastateuniversity
ASSISTments is already free for use by teachers. The program allows them to assign homework or classwork and provide students with immediate feedback as they complete their assignments; teachers get a report showing individual student and class progress. There's a library of content that includes open textbooks, lessons and state test practice and skill-building problem sets. The nonprofit also provides professional development training and offers sessions for helping teachers get ASSISTments set up for remote instruction. https://new.assistments.org/distance-learning
AVID Open Access is providing free lesson plans and teaching resources, including standalone STEM activities for four different grade bands, as well as subject-specific and grade-level appropriate examples, to show teachers how to embed digital tools in lessons to meet their learning objectives. This combination of tools, videos and class activities work with whatever curriculum, devices and platforms schools and families use. The organization emphasized that teachers don't need prior knowledge of AVID strategies. https://avidopenaccess.org/
The B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore is offering "B&O Junior Junction," featuring resources for young learners to help families and educators supplement learning with train-oriented content. http://www.borail.org/JrJunction.aspx
Bakpax, which provides auto-grading, offers free access to teachers and students. The program uses artificial intelligence to do automatic grading of short response questions and math problems. When the answer is "manual," such as a graph, table, open response or diagram, the software shows a clip of the page to the teacher, who can then quickly grade the student response. https://www.bakpax.com/
Belouga and the #SameHere Global Alliance are making recorded versions of events with leading mental health organizations from around the world available for viewing. Basic access is available free to teachers, students, schools and districts. https://belouga.org/mental-health-month
BetterLesson and Adobe have compiled teaching strategies from a group of Adobe "master teachers," to help students develop their creativity and tool skills. Applying them requires the use of Adobe Creative Cloud. https://betterlesson.com/browse/learning-domain/24/adobe-learning-domain?from=instructional_strategies_browse
BirdBrain Technologies, which sells robot kits and components, has developed a free "robotics at home" website with activities for students that allow them to program remote robots and watch them online. https://www.birdbraintechnologies.com/roboticsathome/
Blackboard offers the File Transformer, a free resource enabling students to convert digital course content into alternative formats, to meet their unique learning needs and preferences. An outgrowth of the company's accessibility checker, Blackboard Ally, the new resource lets students personalize their learning experience and choose from several format types (PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX and HTML) to work better with mobile devices, assistive technologies and study tools. https://ally.ac/covid19/
Blackmagic Design makes a free version of DaVinci Resolve software available. The company calls this "Hollywood’s most popular solution" for video editing, visual effects, motion graphics, color correction and audio post production. It runs on Mac, Windows and Linux! The paid version includes more video and audio tools. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/
BLM At School is offering curriculum, including lesson plans and other resources, curated by a team of people from around the United States and intended for multiple age groups. Coverage includes disability justice too. https://www.blacklivesmatteratschool.com/curriculum.html
Blockly offers educational games using visual block language, to help young learners progress to text-based programming. It's always free. https://blockly.games/
BombBomb is offering free accounts for its video messaging tool to teachers, professors, counselors and administrators in the United States and Canada. The program allows educators to communicate with students and families face-to-face (virtually, of course) and provide feedback with the help of a screen recording. Video training on the software is available on video. https://bombbomb.com/education/
Book Creator is offering a free account to teachers, which lets them enable their students to collaborate on creating books — up to 40 for free. https://bookcreator.com/remote-learning/
Boston Children's Hospital has produced free professional development for educators on social-emotional learning and behavioral health in schools. Each course is self-paced and includes tools and strategies to be used in the classroom and within the school environment. https://www.childrenshospital.org/taponline
BrainVentures, an initiative of the University of Michigan Center for Digital Curricula, is making daily learning adventures free. These are crafted by classroom teachers to give students choices of learning activities; they accommodate different learning preferences and engage the learner in constructing animations, videos, photo albums and stories while taking them on field trips and having them play games and run simulations. https://cdc.engin.umich.edu/daily-brain-venture/
Canva for Education is offering teachers forever-free access to the pro edition of its online design platform. The program, which is optimized for Chromebook, includes drag-and-drop tools to simplify visual communication. Students can create and co-create presentations, infographics, websites, reports, worksheets, posters, flyers and signage. The program includes access to tens of thousands of templates, images, icons, illustrations and fonts. Once teachers fill out the form, the company will verify the application. https://www.canva.com/education/
Carnegie Mellon offers CMU CS Academy, a free, online, interactive high school CS curriculum. CS1 is the year-long flagship course, with 120 hours of instruction and a "robust introduction" to coding with Python through graphics and animations. This course is available to educators with teacher accounts. CS0 is a "lite" version, which includes about 40 hours of instruction and is intended for middle school, out-of-school programs and summer camp settings. This course is available for both mentor and teacher accounts. Additional courses are also offered. https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/course-info
Carolina Biological Supply Company has curated a series of free science learning resources, grouped by grade bands (K-5, 6-8 and 9-12). In each group are grade-specific instructions, links to multimedia and cross-curricular activities that can provide "backyard" science projects using household materials. https://www.carolina.com/xm/service-updates?intid=hp_hero_serviceupdates
Casio is providing free access to ClassPad.net, a web-based calculator for calculations, graphing, geometry and statistics. The company has also begun posting videos on its YouTube channel to help parents, students and teachers learn how to work through critical mathematical concepts using its calculators. https://www.casioeducation.com/remote-learning
The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) curates a continually changing roster of interactive online events delivered by museums, authors, nonprofits and others about all manner of topics relevant to K-12 classrooms. Registration required. https://www.cilc.org/Interactive-Learning/Find-Programs.aspx
The Charles M. Schulz Museum is offering free resources to enjoy "at home," including lessons and worksheets, treasure hunts and seek-and-finds. https://schulzmuseum.org/museum-at-home/
Chemistry Shorts is a series of brief films about the role that the chemical sciences play in contemporary life. Each film is accompanied by a lesson plan to incorporate it into the classroom instruction. https://chemistryshorts.org/
Chicken Soup for the Soul, in partnership with American Humane, is promoting a line of free digital books for students, titled Humane Heroes, that share stories of animal rescue, rehabilitation and humane conservation undertaken at leading zoological institutions, as well as literacy-based social-emotional learning lessons and lesson plans, appropriate for young readers, middle school readers and young adults. https://www.chickensoup.com/ah
The Children's Psychological Health Center has developed a set of videos and guided activity workbooks, addressing children's mental health, those who are homeless or face other kinds of trauma, such as the impacts of natural disasters. http://www.childrenspsychologicalhealthcenter.org/resources/guided-activity-workbooks/
Cirkled In is being provided free to students and teachers, allowing students to collect their work in digital portfolios for sharing with colleges and as a private network within the school. https://www.cirkledin.com/students/
Classkick offers a free version of its course platform to teachers. The software allows educators to upload content and audio, video and image elements tied to a maximum of 20 assignments. As students work on that material using their devices, the teacher can monitor their activities in real time. Students can request help privately and also use the program to seek help from their peers. Teachers give feedback, which students can respond to; auto-grading is also available. https://classkick.com/
Code with Google provides free lessons for K-12 and college, to help students pick up computer science skills. https://edu.google.com/code-with-google/
Code.org is the place where coding for kids lives. The site provides ample teacher resources too. https://code.org/
CodeGym has made its gamified Java course with more than 1,400 practical tasks free for high school and college students. Company contact required. https://codegym.cc/edu
codeSpark Academy has created a path for students to get free access codes from their K-5 teachers to the program, which teaches coding fundamentals and creativity with computer science. According to the company, kids as young as five can design and code their own video games and interactive stories. https://codespark.com/educators
Committee for Children's Second Step has free social-emotional learning resources for educators, students ages 5 to 13 and their families. Those include a five-lesson unit that can be used to help rebuild students' connections to school. https://www.secondstep.org/covid19support
Common Sense has created resources to teach digital citizenship in K-12, support student social and emotional learning for a digital world and pick apps, websites and games that are grade-appropriate. Registration advised. https://www.commonsense.org/education/
Common Sense has also launched Wide Open School, a compilation of free learning guidance for K-12, intended to help families and educators identify trustworthy resources for distance learning. Available for multiple languages. https://wideopenschool.org/
Conscious Discipline has compiled a collection of free online tools for educators and parents on managing stress during the pandemic, including videos, games and audio downloads, focused on coping strategies and restoring a sense of normalcy. Registration required. https://consciousdiscipline.com/free-resources/
Cornerstone, a workforce management company, has developed a series of "playlists" to help people — including teachers — adjust to working from home. Topics, including making the transition to online instruction and learning, stress management and working from home, are covered in "bite-sized" videos and downloadable guides. Registration required. https://hr.cornerstoneondemand.com/cornerstonecares
Coursera is offering a number of free Google professional certificates to high schools and community colleges, covering data analytics, IT automation, IT support, project management and user experience design. Registration required. The offer is good through March 1, 2023.
https://www.coursera.org/google-certificates-community-colleges-cte
Coursera is also still making auditable courses available from a number of universities, covering health, social sciences, business, arts and humanities, physical science and engineering, computer science, personal development, data science and math and logic. Registration required. https://www.coursera.org/
Craft in America is sharing its library of free content, including education guides for K-12 teachers, hundreds of short and long videos and virtual exhibitions. https://www.craftinamerica.org/blog/for-educators
C-SPAN Classroom provides free video-based materials, including lesson plans, for social studies teachers. https://www.c-span.org/classroom/
Cybercritics is offering three free civics lessons for download. Those include the "five principles of citizenship," "how to be a good citizen online" and "what kind of citizen will you be?" The company said that the lessons are best suited for students ages 10 to 14. https://www.cybercivics.com/for-families
Dad's Worksheets has 9,000-plus math worksheets available for free download. Site advertising covers the costs. https://www.dadsworksheets.com/
Delphian School, a private school in Oregon, has made its collection of lessons covering a variety of topics — art, science, writing, history and more — available for viewing on YouTube.
Denise Albright Studio has created free digital downloads for families, including fun seasonal activities and practical worksheets. https://denisealbright.com/collections/free-printables
Digital Promise has compiled hundreds of free online learning resources intended for educators that can be filtered by resource type, grade level, subject and cost. For those concerned specifically about companies that have taken student privacy seriously, there's also a filter for whether or not the organization has committed to and signed the "Student Privacy Pledge." Another filter identifies companies with products that don't require a student account. https://digitalpromise.org/online-learning/online-learning-resources/
DiscoverE has collected a series of articles with activities and videos for engaging students in STEAM and engineering. https://discovere.org/
Discovery Education is posting ready-to-use activities into monthly calendars for grades K-2, 3-5 and 6-8 through the 2021-2022 school year. Content selections, including videos, virtual field trips, interactives and reading passages, are based on what teachers are searching for most frequently on the website. Registration required. https://www.discoveryeducation.com/info/daily-activities/
Drama Notebook has compiled an 18-page list of activities and videos for teachers teaching drama. https://www.dramanotebook.com/teach-drama-online/distance-learning-drama-activities/
Dreams for Schools offers a coding-at-home initiative, with free online resources for elementary students and courses for middle school and high school students with slides and video lessons on mobile app development and website development. https://www.dreamsforschools.org/codingathome/
Dropbox offers free "digital care packages," 25 different folders compiled of activities curated by creators, including artists, designers, foodies, musicians, writers and others. You can send them not just to others but to yourself too. https://www.dropbox.com/care-package
The Economist's educational foundation is producing "Topical Talk," classroom resources meant to engage students in critical thinking activities and provide topics for interesting conversations in the classroom. Registration required. https://economistfoundation.org/resources/
eCoreAcademy was designed to help high schoolers understand concepts in STEM, social studies and language and literature. Lessons include videos, notes and a quiz. While videos are openly available, registration is required for other elements. https://www.ecoreacademy.org/
edHelper.com, which produces resources for teachers and homeschooling parents, is offering free printable worksheets for students in math, English language arts and science. https://www.edhelper.com/
Edmodo continues its free teacher, student and parent accounts, to facilitate communication within classes, groups and small groups. For teachers, the program can be used for classroom management, professional development, access to free teaching resources and gradebook tracking. Students can post to a class or group, access folders shared by teachers, organize tasks and set alerts with a planner and communicate directly with teachers. https://new.edmodo.com/
Education Amplifier provides free artwork, lesson plans and teaching tools that help facilitate non-partisan conversations around social justice in K-12 classrooms. Separate sets of resources are suitable for educators and parents. Registration required. https://amplifier.org/education/
Education Elements provides access to recorded webinars, guides, briefs and ebooks on topics that include blended learning, communication, equity, and teacher retention. https://www.edelements.com/learning-center
Education Lifeskills is providing free access to "Positive Thinking Pack," its course on social-emotional learning, which students can work on online. Subjects cover leadership, drug use and vaping prevention, positive thinking skills and media awareness, among others. Registration required. https://www.educationlifeskills.com/athomelearning/
Education Modified has compiled "bundles" of research-based information and resources to help families of special population students do remote learning. One covers how to help children do schoolwork at home; another offers research-based activities for home-based learning; and the third provides "low-tech DIY strategies." Spanish versions available. http://educationmodified-4381533.hs-sites.com/at-home-learning-resources
Educational Insights has compiled a set of free at-home worksheets for young learners, pre-K-4, covering reading, writing and math, as well as "brain benders" (word searches, riddles, connect-the-dots and mazes, among other games). https://www.educationalinsights.com/at-home-activities-for-kids
Eduflow is making its lightweight learning management system free. The program allows educators to set up online courses that facilitate discussions, peer review, feedback and other learning activities. The free version is limited to 15 "active" learners and storage covers up to 3GB. Registration required. https://www.eduflow.com
The Ella Project, with help from Deloitte, has developed downloadable comic books to introduce girls to engineering, including "The Burping Caper!" "Glitchtown" and "GoPro Hedgehog." https://www.theellaproject.com/deloitte-ella-comic-books
Emotional ABCs is free for teachers and counselors. The "emotional skills" program is designed for children ages 4-11 and gives students practical tools for dealing with impulse control, frustration and acting out. Registration required. https://www.emotionalabcs.com/signup/teacher/.
Empatico is a free digital tool that allows educators to connect their classrooms with others around the world. The platform combines live video, file sharing, a partner classroom and activities, to help students learn about different perspectives and practice interpersonal skills that build cross-cultural relationships. https://empatico.org/
English Tools provides utilities that teachers will find handy, such as tools for creating a word search, fill-in-the-gap, word scramble and jumble up sentences. https://www.englishtools.org/en
Nonprofit Envision Lead Grow is offering free virtual "afterschool" programs for girls in grades 4-6 to learn how to start their own businesses and become "girl bosses." The two-week program teaches participants what it takes to start and run a business based on their passions and how to make and manage money. They'll also compete in a pitch competition for $500 seed money to start their venture. The program blends video lessons, live webinars and small group sessions. https://envisionleadgrow.org/elg-2-0-virtual-immersion/.
Epic! is providing teachers with free access to one book a day every day. Registration required. https://www.getepic.com/
EVERFI's always-free K-12 online courses cover financial education; diversity, equity and inclusion; social and emotional learning; and more. https://everfi.com/k-12/course-listing/
Exploratorium, in San Francisco, provides free science activities for virtual education. Resources include "science snacks," which use "cheap, readily available materials" and can be done at home. The organization has also published a collection of free, Spanish-language science activities. https://www.exploratorium.edu/education/teaching-resources
Faber Piano Adventures has an informative and easy-to-read eight-story series for students and teachers on the life and music of the original piano man, Beethoven. https://beethoven.pianoadventures.com/
Fathomr makes its ACT math test preparation software available free, with lessons, flashcards and practice questions. https://fathomr.org/
FIRST, the organization dedicated to K-12 robotics, has compiled a roster of "free and flexible" pre-K-12 STEM activities, divided by grade bands, remote learning resources and career explorations. https://www.firstinspires.org/community/home-learning
Fiveable is promoting access to its free social learning platform for high school students and teachers, covering college, language, art, humanities and social science, math and science and "general." The program offers live streams and Q&A forums where students can connect directly with teachers in 15 different AP subjects in English, STEM, history and social sciences. Registration required. https://fiveable.me/
Flinn Scientific has compiled numerous resources for science education, including video labs with teacher and student guides and dozens at-home activities for middle and high school science students. The company is also offering broadcasts of lab experiments conducted by its own scientific staff, with teacher materials (which, specifically, require registration). https://www.flinnsci.com/athomescience/at-home-lab-series/
Follett has compiled Pinterest collections of book lists, lessons and activities on a bunch of topics for classroom use, including: diversity, equity and inclusion; social and emotional learning; games; elearning; makerspaces; and more. https://www.pinterest.com/follettlearning/
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has opened a virtual classroom with a series of STEAM-focused lessons that combine Wright's principles of organic architecture and solutions-based design with hands-on activities that encourage students in grades 1-6 to think critically and creatively. The series includes lessons and corresponding videos, which are meant to be turnkey; parents can turn on the video and have the student watch, learn and complete the activity on his or her own. https://franklloydwright.org/virtualclassroom/
The Gemological Institute of America has developed resources for use by teachers. The "GemKids for Schools" educator guide includes four lessons of about an hour each, covering the study of gems in history, culture and nature, for grades 3-5. Additional lessons in gem and jewelry careers, how diamonds are produced and what birthstones are available for ages 9 and up. https://www.gia.edu/gemkids-resources-for-teachers
General Assembly, which develops technical and business courses, has produced a free short course on how to teach online. Registration required. https://generalassemb.ly/blog/how-to-teach-online/
General Motors has a YouTube series on electric vehicles for STEM education. The series is intended for students ages 7-13 and was filmed in the homes of GM tech experts. Lessons explore various aspects of electric vehicles – from battery technology to design. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5UWrgmuniqIWKXCnIgtmMUvpLrBkCHHi
George's Dragon, better known as an online clothing and home décor retailer, is making a 300-page "child behavioral" guide available free. Parents will find guidance on dealing with child behavior, setting boundaries, motivating kids, adjusting expectations, improving family dynamics, gaining cooperation and other essentials for getting through the stress of having children at home more than full-time. Registration required. https://georgesdragon.com/products/good-puppy-home-super-sidekick-printable-pdf
The Get It Guide math tutorials are always free. Intended as supplement to teacher instruction, the tutorials help students by asking them guiding questions and walking them step-by-step through math problems similar to the ones they're trying to solve. The program identifies which steps they understand and which ones they need extra help on. https://thegetitguide.com/math-topics/
Girls Who Code provides the resources needed to set up clubs for girls and non-binary students in grades 3-12 who want to learn computer science. https://girlswhocode.com/programs/clubs-program
Glose Education offers individual teachers free access to its social reading and learning platform, where students in middle and high schools can read and learn together. The program has a collection of 4,000 free ebooks. The free plan limits teachers to 40 students and one classroom. https://glose.education/
Good Calculators is providing a variety of free online calculators, to do math and statistics, engineering and conversions. The website also offers specialized calculators for financial, date and time, logistics, sales, sports and health. https://goodcalculators.com/
Google's "Read Along," helps children five years and older develop reading skills by giving verbal and visual feedback as they read stories out loud. The free Android app uses Google's speech recognition technology to help develop literacy skills. It was first launched in India (under the name, "Bolo"). Now it's available in 180 countries and in nine languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese and Hindi. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.seekh
The Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation has made 35 free two- to three-minute educational videos available for teachers to use in their online instruction, covering exotic sea wildlife and "the largest predators." Many of the videos feature Harvey's daughter Jessica. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK-ol6-5sVk_NcRHN1LtmOQ
Hallo is offering free Android and iOS apps to help students practice English. Hallo is a live-streaming community for English learners and teachers. Students can learn from native speakers through live videos 24/7 and practice speaking in seconds with people all around the world. Registration required. https://hallo.tv/athomelearning/
Hand2mind produces daily videos on math and literacy content taught by teachers and activities for K-5, to reinforce lessons and downloadable worksheets. https://www.hand2mindathome.com/
HOMER offers free kid activities, including ways to give thanks make a color mixing sensory bag and play a cupcake tin counting game. https://activitycenter.learnwithhomer.com/all-activities
Hooda Math has a bunch of free online K-12 math games. The company supports itself with advertising that play during the games. http://www.hoodamath.com/
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) has a hub with a collection of K-12 learning resources, covering reading, math, science and social studies and history. https://www.hmhco.com/blog/free-learning-resources
IBM is producing IBM SkillsBuild (formerly P-TECH), to help students and educators pick up computing and workplace basics in multiple subjects, including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, design thinking and cloud computing, as well as soft skills. https://skillsbuild.org/
iKeepSafe has made five digital books freely available to help elementary students learn safe online practices. The books are available as PDF files, narrated ebook videos and, in some cases, animated videos. Subjects cover sharing of embarrassing videos, online privacy, cyberbullying, balancing screen time with real life, dangerous downloads and making healthy media choices. https://ikeepsafe.org/faux-paw-the-techno-cat/
iLovePDF is offering a suite of free tools to work with PDF documents. You can merge PDFs; split them; compress them; convert them to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, JPG and HTML (and vice versa); edit them; and more. https://www.ilovepdf.com/
Impero is offering Backdrop, always-free software designed to simplify the recording and management of student wellbeing and safety. Registration required. https://www.imperosoftware.com/us/impero-backdrop/
Instructure makes its learning management system, Canvas, free for teachers. The account never expires and offers all course creation and importing, "mastery paths" to lead students through personalized learning, native use on mobile devices, a gradebook, quizzing and other features that teachers need to move their students to online learning. https://www.instructure.com/canvas/try-canvas#free-account
IObit is making a utility free to help remote users speed up performance of their Windows devices. "Internet Boost" is a feature included in the company's Advanced SystemCare pro version. According to IObit, the software removes "junk files" to release more space; helps increase internet speed by "taking advantage of your maximum network bandwidth," removes privacy traces left by multiple programs; and dumps start-up processes that are slowing down start-up. https://www.iobit.com/en/advancedsystemcarefree.php
iRobot Education has made virtual and offline coding projects available for elementary students, some of which require no particular technology. Registration required. https://edu.irobot.com/solutions-for/educators
iTop VPN is offering a free screen recorder. iTop Screen Recorder allows you to record any area of your screen, has facecam recording, accommodates unlimited recording time, records HD videos with no lagging, lets you take screenshots while recording, provides for multiple output formats and is available for Windows. https://recorder.itopvpn.com/
Jotform is a free online survey tool for students. Registration required. https://www.jotform.com/surveys/free-survey-for-students/
Joy2Learn provides resources for integrating the arts throughout K-12 curriculum with free, interactive, online video presentations featuring legendary artists representing different art forms, discussing and demonstrating their art. The nonprofit offers lesson plans in the visual arts, social studies, science and math, all based on the video presentations, as well as other free resources for educators. https://www.joy2learn.org/
JumpStart, the site where kids can play games, offers Activity Studio, a free library of educational activities in a range of subjects, which can be customized to fit students and classroom needs. The platform offers built-in lessons and lesson plans, student growth reporting and opportunities for students to play games. https://activity.jumpstart.com/#/
Kahoot! offers a basic version of its game-based learning software for free. Instructors can have up to 50 players per game. https://kahoot.com/schools/distance-learning/
Khan Academy is more than a collection of videos on subjects students need to learn. It provides personalized learning and teacher tools to help kids "learn anything." https://www.khanacademy.org/
Kialo Edu is a free platform that helps educators encourage thoughtful classroom discussion and assist them in the teaching of critical thinking. The online service lets teachers start private discussions within their classes, provide students with feedback and ask them follow-up questions and create teams within the class. Registration required. https://www.kialo-edu.com/
KidCitizen, a social studies learning tool for elementary students funded by the Library of Congress, is supplying a free, growing set of interactive episodes where K-5 students work with primary source photographs to explore Congress and civic engagement. Some videos are available in Spanish. https://www.kidcitizen.net/episodes-blog
Kiddom offers a free teacher version, covering math and English language arts. The materials include assessments and practice problems, multiple-choice auto-grading and resources for differentiated learning, English learners and students with disabilities. https://www.kiddom.co/
Kiron has a set of free, interactive online lessons to help teachers globally learn how to better teach students online during school closings. The startup, funded and supported by MIT Solve, focuses primarily on refugees worldwide and underserved communities in the Middle East to provide access to high-quality education. However, the course applies to educators making the switch to online teaching anywhere, covering topics such as getting active participation online and creating a learning environment. https://teach.kiron.ngo/
LabXchange from Harvard University is an always- free resource that provides digital content compiled from multiple sources in the sciences, including lab simulations, which educators can mix into their own learning narratives and share with students. Among the functionality provided are social networking, class groupings, discussion forums and "mentorship" (to bring learners together with educators and researchers around the world). https://www.labxchange.org/
The Lead4Change Student Leadership Program allows students in grades 6-12 to work virtually to lead, create and implement a project to meet a community need. The organization has also developed a virtual learning toolkit with resources to help teachers and students work through lessons and projects remotely. Registration encouraged. https://www.lead4change.org/how-to-participate/join/
Legends of Learning, which develops standards-aligned game-based activities, offers free teacher accounts that allow for up to four assignments at a time, each with up to 10 activities. https://www.legendsoflearning.com/teachers/
Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance), founded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, teaches social justice, providing lessons, learning plans, student texts and activities, teaching strategies, a learning plan builder, film kits and printable posters. https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources
Learning Resources posts daily activities for young learners on its website. http://blog.learningresources.com/category/learning-at-home/
LEGO is sharing online challenges. Choose the Play Zone. www.lego.com/letsbuildtogether.
The Library of Congress has developed a portal where teachers and students can access content that's free to use and reuse, from the library's digital collections. The collections comprise millions of digital items, including books, newspapers, manuscripts, prints and photos, maps, musical scores, films, sound recordings and more. https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/
Librivox provides access to 16,000 books that have been read aloud by volunteers, including 2,000 in non-English languages. https://librivox.org/
Loom is making its quick-response video software free for educators forevermore. The program captures a person's screen, voice and face and allows for editing, "instant sharing" and controlled viewing. Registration with an EDU email required. https://support.loom.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006579637-Loom-Pro-Free-for-Students-and-Teachers
Lumos Learning has made printable math and English language arts state assessment worksheets available free for download, organized by state assessments, subjects, grades, and topics. https://www.lumoslearning.com/llwp/resources/free-math-english-worksheets.html
Makerbot has updated its Educators Guidebook, which offers a crash-course in 3D printing and tells how to begin integrating it into the classroom. Projects span robotics, engineering, mathematics, science, art, history and music. The 150-page guide also offers techniques and tricks developed by teachers already experienced with 3D printing. Registration required. https://www.makerbot.com/stories/3d-printing-education/free-ebook-makerbot-educators-guidebook-3rd-edition/
Manticore Games has launched "Core Academy," a destination for free online classes for game creation and design. Courses include tutorials, videos and hands-on examples. Registration required. https://learn.coregames.com/
Math-At-Play, launched by a high schooler, provides math worksheets for students in grades 1-5, which teach the concepts using sports. https://mathatplay.wixsite.com/math-at-play
MathNook has games and puzzles, which can be filtered by grade level and include worksheets, mobile apps, tutorials and teaching tools. No registration is required for access to the games, but advertising abounds. https://www.mathnook.com/
Maths Chase, already free, provides online learning games to help students practice their math skills. Games include times tables and problems for addition, subtraction, division, odd and even, sequences, prime numbers and place values. https://www.mathschase.com/
MEL Science publishes free online science lessons with practical and/or seasonable experiments that students can carry out at home, such as creating a DIY hand sanitizer, showing how to cool a drink with salt or creating slime from leftover pumpkin. https://melscience.com/US-en/articles/
MeTEOR Education, an education consultancy, is making its MeTEOR Connect library of professional development videos available free. Training is organized by grade band. https://lms.meteorconnect.com/
Microsoft Office 365 Education provides schools and districts with a free set of productivity applications: Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Sway, Forms, Stream, Power Automate, Power Apps, School Data Sync and Yammer. Registration required. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office
Mission US is an educational media project that uses gaming to teach learners about "transformational moments" in U.S. history. The latest game is "Prisoner in My Homeland," set in 1941, in a Japanese-American internment camp. Students take the role of 16-year-old Henry Tanaka. Each mission includes teacher resources. https://www.mission-us.org/play/
Money Fit offers a self-guided, scenario-based activity, "My Life My Choices," which leads students through their fictional first month of independent living away from home. After the activity, students receive a free, personalized certificate of completion in PDF format via email (their own email or their teacher's). https://moneyfit.org/my-life-my-choices-students
Move This World has developed a collection of free social-emotional learning activities that teachers and families can use, including ideas for keeping kids safe during re-entry to the classroom, practicing mindfulness and doing an "SEL scavenger hunt." Registration required. https://www.movethisworld.com/category/supporting-mental-health-covid-19/
Musescore offers its community-developed music notation software available free. https://musescore.org/en
NASEF, the North America Scholastic Esports Federation, continues making its esports curriculum available, as well as other resources specifically to help educators embed esports into their lessons and esports into their school activities. https://www.nasef.org/
The National Association of School Psychologists has developed a lesson plan for middle and high schoolers on race and privilege. https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/diversity-and-social-justice/social-justice/social-justice-lesson-plans/talking-about-race-and-privilege-lesson-plan-for-middle-and-high-school-students
The National Constitution Center has a collection of digital resources available for classroom work, including the "interactive constitution classroom edition" and online courses. https://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics continues to produce professional development webinars, available for free. The sessions feature a variety of speakers and topics geared to all grade levels and interests. The webinars are recorded and made available shortly thereafter. https://www.nctm.org/online-learning
The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame has made a bunch of resources available to keep young wranglers engaged, including puzzlers, word problems, math activities ("how to measure a horse") and a cowkid-oriented story time on its YouTube channel. http://www.cowgirl.net/education/resources/
National Geographic is continuing to update its classroom collection, which provides lesson plans, maps and reference resources. National Geographic Explorer Classroom is hosting experts online in live events, to allow students and adults to ask questions face-to-face. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/education/classroom-resources/learn-at-home/
National Geographic Learning has published free lesson plans and resources for teachers, including presentations, worksheets and teacher notes, for use in online classes. https://exploreinside.ngl.cengage.com/index.php/interdisciplinary-k12-resources/
The Natural History Museum of Utah offers Research Quest, with online lessons for middle school science curriculum. Registration required. https://nhmu.utah.edu/rq-live
NEO provides a "free plan" edition of its learning management system, which works for schools with up to 400 students. That version includes class templates, content authoring and accessibility features as well as functionality for discussion forums, doing web conferencing, adding gamification and quizzes, taking attendance, tracking grades, building badges, doing bulk import and export of accounts and syncing class content. The program integrates with G Suite, Google Drive and OneDrive and offers mobile apps for iOS, Windows and Android. For the free edition, click the "Free plan" button. Registration required. https://www.neolms.com/
New Literacy Project offers "Shakespeare & The Plague," a timely 20-minute mashup of the playwright's creations with a viewer's guide for discussing the performance in class. https://www.newliteraryproject.org/teaching-tools
The New-York Historical Society produces "Tech Scholars ONLINE," a free online program for high school girls to learn coding. They interact with live instructors and a community of other girls, do pair programming and collaboration, build digital projects and get mentoring from female leaders in tech. Coverage includes learning to program HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Donations are accepted but not required. https://www.nyhistory.org/education/teen-programs/scholars-program
Noah Text offers StrongReader Builder, to give educators (and parents) a free way to convert plain text to the Noah Text format, either by cutting and pasting text passages or uploading documents. Noah Text lets readers see sound parts within words, providing a way for struggling readers to decode and enunciate words that are too difficult to access. Registration required. https://app.noahtext.com/#/home
NOVA streams educational and entertaining content and creates education resources available for their shows, including teaching tips, discussion questions and background essays. Coverage includes planet Earth, evolution, ancient worlds, space and flight, the body and brain, military and espionage, tech and engineering, evolution, nature, and physics and math. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/
Omni Calculator is continuing to make its 2,095 (and growing) calculators available free. Each one is targeted to help students and others handle any type of equation or conversion imaginable. https://www.omnicalculator.com/
OpenDyslexic is an open-sourced font developed to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. The free extension overrides fonts on a web page with its own font and formats to make them more readable. There's an extension for Chrome users. https://opendyslexic.org/
OpenSciEd offers free middle school science curriculum. Registration recommended. https://www.openscied.org/openscied-approach/
OpenStax continues making its open source digital textbooks in core college and Advanced Placement subjects freely available. The collection grows year by year. And now the nonprofit offers digital tutoring for a number of its textbook subjects. https://openstax.org/
The Oregon Trail, the 1990 classic, is now freely available to play through a browser. The game uses DOS animation and simulation elements and requires students to plan ahead, do math and study geography. https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990
ORIGO Education offers free digital resources for educators and "ORIGO at Home," weekly digital content plans for home use with K-6 students. The plans include activities for each day, along with digitally accessible or downloadable resources, designed for delivery by a caregiver or remote teacher. These resources complement the mathematical concepts and skills students are learning at their grade levels. https://www.origoeducation.com/athome/
OurPact has made the basic version of its family screen-time management solution free, to help parents manage their child's technology usage. https://ourpact.com/
The Paleontological Research Institution, along with its Museum of the Earth and Cayuga Nature Center venues in New York, has been compiling a list of online STEM resources for teachers and students. Those resources include content for Earth, life and climate science education, such as the Digital Atlas of Ancient Life, 3D fossil images, "Teacher Friendly Guides to Earth science" (each covering a specific region of the United States and You Tube videos. https://www.priweb.org/learn-and-teach/overview
Panopto makes Panopto Express free for quick, online screen and video recording. Recordings can be automatically uploaded to YouTube or Google Classroom. https://www.panopto.com/record/
Pantone is offering free access to Pantone Connect through the Adobe Exchange. The tool enables designers and artists to build and share color palettes, convert and cross-reference colors and match Pantone colors through Adobe Creative Cloud. https://exchange.adobe.com/creativecloud.details.103029.html
PBLWorks has created a resource site to provide teachers with ideas, examples, and tools to facilitate project-based learning remotely. It addresses teachers' most frequently-cited requests, including projects that can be adapted for remote learning across the grade levels, technology solutions for collaboration and connection and ideas for how families can support their PBL students. https://www.pblworks.org/pbl-remote-learning
PBS produces “PBS American Portrait,” an initiative that invites Americans to share stories from their lives, about their families and communities, their joys, struggles and triumphs. Instructors are teaching students about storytelling and personal narratives while also allowing them to speak to their mental and emotional well-being, by answering prompts posed on the site, such as, “I never expected ...” and “What gets me out of bed in the morning ....” https://www.pbs.org/american-portrait/
PBS Kids offers "Read-Along," with authors and other notable people. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa8HWWMcQEGStVxurBtLn8nkDxGc3j3ow
PBS LearningMedia provides free, standards-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans and more for teachers. Resources can be filtered by grade band, subject, resource type, language and accessibility. https://pbslearningmedia.org/
PBS LearningMedia also offers a “Ken Burns in the Classroom” hub, making this filmmaker's series available in its entirety. Titles include The Civil War, Jazz, The War and The Dust Bowl and others. https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/kenburnsclassroom/home/
PBS LearningMedia has also collaborated with the Smithsonian on developing learning-ready content for pre-K-12. All resources are aligned to Common Core and national and state standards. The content collection includes videos and interactives, documents and lesson plans. Results can be filtered by standard, grade level, subject and special collections. https://knpb.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/smithsonian/
PCS Edventures is offering free STEM and STEAM activities, to help teachers challenge their learners; many of the activities can be done offline. https://edventures.com/blogs/stem-freebies
PearDeck continues its free, basic version, which lets teachers create, distribute, and manage multimedia content and formative assessments on students' devices. https://www.peardeck.com/
Photomath solves math problems for students and teachers, while providing step-by-step guidance to the equations via artificial intelligence-driven photo recognition technology. Serves as a handy support for students who need additional help in and out of the classroom. Free for teachers. https://photomath.com/en/teachers/
Pilot Light, a nonprofit food education center, offers K-12 lesson plans in English and Spanish, related to food, cooking and nutrition. Registration required. https://foodedu.pilotlightchefs.org/family-resources/
Pneuma Solutions, which specializes in developing accessible cloud solutions, offers Scribe for Education free forever to teachers and school districts with students who need accessible student handouts. The program processes 18 file types into accessible documents, including graphic files. Accessible document formats include HTML, tagged PDF, EPUB, DAISY, RTF, Braille, large print and TTS audio MP3. https://pneumasolutions.com/scribe-for-education/
The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization is making primary sources of the Jewish past available, covering "from biblical times to the 21st century." Resources include teaching clips that are free to use in lectures and classes and links to reading selections and images. Registration required for access to some digital content. https://www.posenlibrary.com/teachingclips/
Practicing Musician is offering forever-free lessons to K-12 students, through short video tutorials created by teachers and volunteer educators. Teacher help includes tools for keeping track of lessons and assessment. Registration required. https://www.practicingmusician.com/
Prodigy Math Game, free for teachers and their students, is designed to motivate students in grades 1-8 to practice math through an adaptive game-based learning platform. https://prodigygame.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/200110968-For-Teachers
Project Exchange runs a free eight-week online cultural exchange program to help middle and high school students around the world broaden their worldview and practice English skills. Students are matched with a partner from a different country and practice English and learn about culture together! Currently, the organization works with students and teachers in numerous countries, and it's seeking more students and teachers who want to participate. The program runs on Google Drive, Slack and Zoom and takes two to three hours a week. https://www.myprojectexchange.com/digital-exchange-program
ProjectSTEM, a nonprofit, provides middle and high school computer science curriculum as well as asynchronous professional development. Application required. https://projectstem.org/
Promethean makes its cloud-based lesson planning and delivery software, ClassFlow, freely available to schools, teachers and parents. The program enables users to access K-12 educational resources in a marketplace across subjects and share lesson content with students who are working from remote locations. https://classflow.com/
Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a free resource for writing tips and assignments, research and citation tutorials, and instructor and tutor materials. Contents include general writing exercises, including sentence-level writing, grammar and editing; common writing assignments, including book reports, bibliographies and research papers; the OWL YouTube channel, which includes lessons on grammar, rhetoric, and professional and technical writing; and online tutoring for Purdue students, faculty and staff. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/purdue_owl.html
Qualtrics offers a free account, which allows teachers or schools to run a single active survey at a time, with up to 100 responses. Registration required. https://www.qualtrics.com/here-to-help/
The Quantum Prisoner is a free online game developed by French scientists and researchers for students in middle school, that enables them to learn more about science and technology. No advertising, no registration, no commitments or obligations. https://quantum-prisoner.com/welcome.html
QuantumERA is making "Gettysburg" A Nation Divided" available free to students, teachers and parents for a limited time. The virtual reality app uses 360-degree views and avatars of soldiers who fought in the battle to transport users to 1863. Versions available for iOS and Android. https://quantumera.com/products/battle-of-gettysburg/
Reading is Fundamental, the nonprofit literacy program, is reminding educators of its resources for helping students learn to read, including support materials for specific books and "quick guides" to help families encourage literacy with their kids — some 15,000-plus resources in all. https://www.rif.org/literacy-central/educators
Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT) offers STEAM project kits and learning activities, to teachers and families through hands-on learning activities for grades pre-K-8, taking advantage of common household items. https://raft.net/for-educators/
Ringbeller has a series of videos, each about five minutes long, that interview people who use "their imagination to make a difference," including a musician, a chef and an author. Students view them, then discussion questions pop up on the screen to help them connect what they've just seen with their own creative powers, followed by a collaborative activity using objects found around the house. https://www.youtube.com/c/Ringbeller/videos
Rocketbook, notebook maker, has made downloadable PDFs available free for students and educators. The collection includes graph paper, lined paper, music notation sheets and letter dot-grid sheets, among others. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eqnsm164v0sav3v/AAA-cMxpo8BhBH8sLOFbkUe2a
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s AskRose Homework Help is a free math and science tutoring service for students in grades 6-12. Students can call 877-ASK-ROSE, email, video or chat live with a tutor, to work through and better understand homework assignments. Tutors are students majoring in math, science or engineering. The service is open from Sunday through Thursday, 7-10 p.m. Eastern time. https://askrose.org/
The Rubenstein Center for White House History offers educational resources for learners, including classroom resource packets, reading lists, virtual tours of the White House, short educational videos, historical essays and a digital library of White House and presidential images. Content is grouped for grades K-5 and 6-12. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/rubenstein-center/k-12-education-resources-and-programs
SAG-AFTRA Foundation's ad-free online children's literacy program, Storyline Online, has produced dozens of read-alouds "by top Hollywood talent" and ordinary folks "who engage young viewers with their animated interpretations of historic, adventurous and fantastical tales that promote imagination and inclusion." https://www.storylineonline.net/
SAM Labs is offering free access to several STEAM resources for educators, including lesson plans that can be used without SAM Blocks, and free kids' activities using common household items. Registration required. https://samlabs.com/us/digital-and-distance-learning
Sandy Hook Promise has adapted an action kit to include activities students can participate in virtually for boosting social and emotional skills needed during times of social distancing. https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/promise/pages/3471/attachments/original/1585257898/Youth_and_Educator_Activity_Guide_for_Times_of_Social_Distancing.pdf
Science Buddies, an always free service, is offering STEM activities that can be done in an hour or less and use materials found around the house; STEM videos; and resources about COVID-19, including an interactive tool that helps students learn how the pandemic evolves. https://www.sciencebuddies.org/
Science News for Students, always free, offers age-appropriate science news for learners and educator resources. https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/
Scratch is MIT Media Lab's free programming language for students, which lets them create interactive stories, games and animations and share their creations with others in an online community. https://scratch.mit.edu/
SiLAS has developed free resources for educators, to help students gain social-emotional skills. Freebies include animations, lessons and parent sheets. https://curriculum.silassolutions.com/elearning_resources/
SimTutor offers three free healthcare simulations for infection prevent procedures, covering the use of soap and water, hand sanitizer and personally protective equipment. https://content.simtutor.com/hand-hygiene-and-ppe-procedures
Smekens Education, which in normal times provides professional development, is providing always-free video "mini-lessons" for K-12 students on reading, writing and social-emotional learning. The lessons are divided by grade bands, K-1, 2-3, 4-6 and 7-12. Videos are available on both YouTube and Vimeo. https://www.smekenseducation.com/literacy-lessons.html
The Smithsonian has pulled together a collection of learning resources in its Learning Lab for pre-K-12, including learning standards-based lesson plans and extra support for both teachers and parents. Topics cover English language arts, social studies and science. Various museums are also offering subject-specific learning opportunities. Resources available in English and Spanish. https://learninglab.si.edu/distancelearning
Smithsonian TweenTribune produces regular articles on any number of subjects and allows students to read them at varying levels of Lexile strength. Versions are available for grade bands K-4, 5-6, 7-8 and 9-12 in English and Spanish. A teacher site provides access to a dashboard and help with lesson planning. https://www.tweentribune.com/
SoloLean is a free advertising-driven platform for learning to code. Topics cover Python, C++, SQL, Java, JavaScript and Ruby among others. The app offers access to 2,000 courses, tailored from people with a range of skills, from beginner to professional. The company also curates lesson tracks, such as “Become a Data Scientist,” “Become a Web Developer” and “Become a Full Stack Developer.” The app includes quizzes and an online community for help. A paid version removes the ads. Registration required. https://www.sololearn.com/
The Space Foundation is providing free space-based STEM activities for teachers. These include downloadable lesson plans, grant writing guidance, space expert podcasts and how-to videos, including a professional development series for teachers. https://www.spacefoundation.org/cie-student-teachers/
Space Station Explorers is providing free learning activities tied to the International Space Station. Those include online videos, a way to request access to the ISS camera, research opportunities and hands-on projects to understand the basics of the ISS. https://www.issnationallab.org/stem/educational-programs/
SpanishDict has a free, basic version of its Spanish-English program that teachers can integrate into their virtual classrooms. Features include vocabulary and grammar assignments, customizing of lessons, tracking of student progress and story-telling lessons that can teach tricky grammar concepts. The software syncs with Google Classroom. Registration required. https://www.spanishdict.com/classrooms
Special Olympics Unified Champion Program has created a program that provides a package of resources monthly to classrooms, with discussion guides, social media activities and lessons on inclusion. https://www.generationunified.org/unified-classroom/
Start.me has a basic free-forever version of its program that lets teachers create a hub for their classrooms, to make it easy for students to access all of their educational resources and tools from one place online. Teachers can also post announcements on the start hub and use it as a bulletin board. The free version is ad-supported. https://www.startme.com/education
STEM Education Works has made a set of lessons for K-12 available free. Although the lessons were developed to work with the Sindoh 3D printer, the company said they're universal and can be used with any 3D printer. Some lessons offer exercises that students can start at home and finish when they return to school. Registration required to access lessons. https://stemeducationworks.com/resources/#resources
STEM For Kids is offering free curriculum for grades pre-K through 10. Activities include a glider design lab, budgeting structures (learned through Minecraft), sun printing and dozens of other lessons. Registration required. https://stemforkids.net/register/curriculum
stemCONNECT is offering a free video library of presentations led by Florida-based experts who talk about the applications of STEM in various high-tech careers. https://www.flstemconnect.com/
StoryCorps has a mission of sharing "humanity's stories." Students can listen to stories and also learn how to interview family members and friends about their own experiences and share their recordings on a classroom community page. https://storycorps.org/
Storypal, a free program for teachers and students, lets people connect with each other via a high-tech version of penpal sharing. Registration required. https://www.storypal.co/
TalkingPoints is providing always-free access for teachers to its communications platform. The software enables educators to communicate directly with English and non-English families through text messages and parent mobile application with two-way translation. The program syncs with class rosters and student information systems. Limitations apply. Registration required. https://talkingpts.org/
Teaching American History brings together free primary documents, continuing education and a community for American history teachers. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/
Technovation runs a robust YouTube channel with inspiring videos showing young people using STEM to change the world. https://www.youtube.com/c/TechnovationGlobal/about
TGR EDU and Discovery Education offer a series of free lessons for students in grades 6-12, to develop problem-solving and decision-making skills with real-world applications in college access, STEM learning, language arts and more. https://tgreduexplore.org/curriculum/
Thames & Kosmos has opened a "science at home" site, with free, downloadable instructions for science activities to do at home. That includes videos, experiments and word finds. https://www.thamesandkosmos.com/index.php/educators/scienceathome
TinEye provides reverse-image searching. You can find where images came from or get more information about them, research and track the appearance of an image online, find higher resolution versions of an image, locate webpages that make use of images you've created yourself, discover modified or edited versions of an image, debunk and image and help with image attribution. If you use Chrome, you can download the Chrome extension. https://tineye.com/
Top Hat offers a basic free version of its education platform, promoting more active engagement by students and greater interactivity. Registration required. https://tophat.com/basic-signup/
Twig Science Reporter, developed in partnership with Imperial College London, is a free weekly science news service for K-6 classrooms. Articles are published with the goal of connecting science lessons with real-world STEM news and events through high-quality video and other learning resources to pique student interest. Registration required. https://www.twigsciencereporter.com/
The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) and TED-Ed have launched "Earth School," a freely accessible website for students ages 5-18. The site provides 30 "quests" for students to help them "celebrate, explore and connect with nature." Videos, reading materials and activities focus on science and the environment. https://ed.ted.com/earth-school
UnboundEd, for grades pre-K-12, provides free open educational resources for English and math, lessons that can be filtered by grade level, as well as teaching guides, videos and podcasts. https://www.unbounded.org/
The United States Census Bureau has developed a roster of classroom, home and distance learning activities, for students in grades pre-K-12, from coloring pages to statistics studies. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/sis.html
The United States Department of Agriculture has compiled a list of activities and lessons designed for teaching nutrition and food safety to preschool and elementary students. https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/nutrition-and-food-safety-education
Unity Technologies is providing curriculum and Unity licenses to education for teachers who want to help their students learn 3D and game development. https://unity.com/education/distance-learning
The University of Michigan (UMich) has developed a roster of "deeply digital" curriculum curricula for K-5 for English language arts, science, math and social studies, all standards-aligned. https://cdc.engin.umich.edu/
The University of Washington hosts the Accessible DL website within its comprehensive DO-IT Center (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology). AccessDL includes guidance on how to design remote learning opportunities — including IT (such as videos, documents and web pages) and pedagogy — that are fully inclusive of students with disabilities and other marginalized groups. The best place to start is with the publication "20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course." https://www.washington.edu/doit/programs/accessdl
The University of Waterloo Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) offers CEMC Digital, which includes problems, "at home" activities and other resources for students in grades 3-12, divided by grade band, all developed by Waterloo faculty members and current and retired secondary school teachers. https://cemc.uwaterloo.ca/resources/cemc-at-home.php
UPchieve is providing free tutoring and college counseling to high school students. The nonprofit's service works on any device; students choose the subject they need help with, and UPchieve matches them with a volunteer tutor in a virtual classroom. Students can get as many free sessions as they want. https://upchieve.org/
Upverter Education provides free, interactive curriculum and teacher resources for helping students learn the basics of electronics design. Registration required. https://education.upverter.com/
Van Andel Institute for Education offers a document packed with educational activities that can be done at home. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kYU_GYH6GXF-Xm0NMtrtxHkNicjO0TLFH-06gTH8Rks/edit#
Varsity Tutors is providing students with access to hundreds of free live, online classes. Each class is led by an expert tutor with experience in the course topic, as well as familiarity with virtual instruction. Classes refresh weekly, with age-appropriate options for grades K-12. https://www.varsitytutors.com/classes?f_price_cents=free
VEED.IO, free to educators, allows teachers to create videos, add subtitles and upload them to social sites for sharing with students. https://www.veed.io/education
Vernier is providing teachers with access to a library of hundreds of experiments and sample data for K-12. https://www.vernier.com/remote-learning/
VEX Robotics offers VEXcode Virtual Robot (VR), a free web-based tool for delivering computer science lessons for those who don't have access to a physical VEX Robot at home. There are no software installations required, and the program functions on all major desktops and tablets. https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexcode-vr
Voice of Witness is providing a series of free lesson plans covering displacement, racial inequality, activism, gender inequality, immigration and other themes. The latest curriculum, Mi Maria: Surviving the Storm, collected oral histories from Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane María. These first-person stories explore topics relevant to developing social and emotional learning competencies and include strategies to support English learners. https://voiceofwitness.org/education/
Wonder Workshop, which produces the Dash and Dot robots, offers free virtual robotics, to help students learn the basics of programming. https://www.makewonder.com/dashs-neighborhood/
WorryWoo Monsters, which focuses on social-emotional learning, has compiled a resource page with creative writing and art lessons plans as well as downloadable coloring pages and projects exploring themes on subjects such as worry, frustration, loneliness, confusion, innocence, insecurity and envy. https://www.worrywoos.com/freeresources
Write the World is a global online community of young writers that invites teens ages 13-18 to write, share and publish their work and enter free monthly writing competitions. Designed by educators at Harvard University to improve student writing and build communication and critical thinking skills, Write the World has become a means for fostering global citizenship and engagement. Educators can create an online private classroom writing space with prompts, assignments, and guided peer review tools. They can also start an online writing club using the platform and free resources. https://writetheworld.com/
Writing Blueprints is promoting free access to "Young Writer's Blueprint," a step-by-step guide for writers ages six to 10. Topics cover gathering ideas, creating characters and settings, writing short stories, writing long works and editing. The course features short, downloadable videos and worksheets to enable students to work offline. Registration required. https://writingblueprints.com/p/writing-course-ages-6-10
Zearn has made its K-5 math curriculum available for free to teachers. The content includes hundreds of hours of digital lessons with on-screen teachers and "supportive remediation," as well as paper-based materials that can be used device-free. https://about.zearn.org/
Zinn Education Project wants to "introduce students to a more accurate, complex and engaging understanding of United States history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. Teachers will find lessons, networking opportunities and teaching activities. https://www.zinnedproject.org/
Zoom continues offering free accounts for education for meetings up to 40 minutes, with up to 100 participants. https://explore.zoom.us/docs/en-us/education.html