Every year, the EdTech Top 40 analyzes the digital tools accessed by the most students and educators across the United States. This year’s list was interesting for me as most of my own go-to tools were not included. So I thought I would make my own list of My go-to Digital Tools for 2021 for New Zealand teachers.

Read Theory
Ready Theory is a free, online reading comprehension tool. The best thing about this tool is that the students complete an initial test and then they get tasks suited to their reading level. As students progress, the system changes the tests based on their results. As a teacher I get detailed results back as a class or I can drill down individually.

Kiwi Kids News
Kiwi Kids News is a free, New Zealand based news website for students. They write 4 or 5 news articles each day. Each news article comes with generic comprehension activities. Subscribing schools can get a weekly news quiz (hard copy, kahoot, online), a weekly feature article and a termly homework booklet.

Xtra Maths
Xtra Maths is a cool little website to help students improve their basic facts. Student must master addition and subtraction questions before moving onto multiplication and division. Students can be placed on different speed settings to improve the the speed of their recall. Class and individual monitoring available.

YESIKAN
Another great maths tool. This is based around the New Zealand IKAN Tests. There are 10 different topics you can choose from each day. Within those topics there are 8-10 questions. A great maths starter for your lessons. The questions change each day and answers are provided at the bottom of the page.

TEDEd
TED-Ed is a well known platform that you to create educational lessons, often based around videos. This is a great tool to use with Science or Social Studies topics.

Anchor FM
Anchor FM is the best and easiest way to make podcast with your class. It is super easy for both teachers and students. The system provides background music and guides them through the process of creating graphics etc. Once students get their podcast going it is uploaded automatically to Spotify. Podcasting is a super way to give your student’s writing a real life audience.

Microsoft Reading Progress
I have only just started using this tool but it is awesome – especially good for those teachers that do Probe or Running Records. Students are given a text which they read aloud. Their reading of the text is videoed and then the AI within the tool gives them an accuracy rating and reading speed. The key feature I like is that the video is kept and analysed later by the teacher in their own time. Amazing tool!

Kahoot
Who doesn’t like Kahoot??? The easiest way to create or play quizzes in your class. Super easy to set up and students love the competitive nature of playing against their mates. I am especially a fan of the ‘assign’ function which is great for online classes.

Book Creator
Need to bring together some written work from your students. Look no further than Book Creator. I find it awesome for shared events like trips or school events where student might do a written task. Add some images and your students writing and you have a great record of the event which can be shared with parents.

Lumen5
Lumen 5 transforms your students writing to a new level. When students have finished a piece of writing just paste it into Lumen5. Their AI magic will work away and take their written work and add video to it to make an awesome little video. It works best for non fiction writing and speeches.

Slides GO
Want to make your PowerPoint or Slides look good then SlidesGo is the site for you. Hundreds of different backgrounds and themes that make your presentation pop!

Canva
I am a fan of getting students to present their work with flare. I love guiding them to CANVA as it a one stop shop for all sorts of presentations. It is easy to use for students and the results are fantastic.