At this time there are many lists appearing that can help you find quality resources to support online learning in your school. We look for institutions that we know produce reliable and authentic information, and have collated some of them here in this post for ease of access. We will continue to update this page as we find new resources to share.
Ebooks, Audio Books and Databases
If you have any subscriptions to online platforms that provide you with ebooks or audiobooks it is worth checking if they are offering extra resources, as part of your subscription, to assist schools during this time.
Twinkl – the educational publisher. In light of school closures and COVID-19 restrictions, Twinkl are well-placed to help educators and parents at this challenging time. All content creators are qualified teachers and create comprehensive materials to cover the whole curriculum.
Useful for learning at home using a free account:
- Remote and Home Learning Support Hub – EYLF to Year 6 Resources
- Twinkl GO! Interactive Educational Resources – free access with content for 0-1 years right up to 18-year-olds
- Free Taster Activity Packs for Parents
- Inclusion School Closure Home Learning Pack
FREE eBooks About Coronavirus / COVID-19
A collection of free eBooks in multiple languages for children about the Coronavirus/COVID-19.
Books Create Australia -Books Create Australia is the joint book industry platform of authors, librarians, booksellers and publishers.
Zakir Hossain (IASL Director International Schools) created this website Open Access: Ebooks & Audiobooks
inkl is one of the world’s top-rated news apps. Working with schools and teachers to deliver paywall-free, trusted and vetted news in one place (The New York Times, Economist, Bloomberg and many more)
We know there is a major lack of clarity and reliability of information surrounding COVID-19 pandemic. inkl wants to address this, by offering teachers free subscriptions at teachers.inkl.com
Center for Research Libraries has reduced access barriers to nearly 10,000 titles previously digitized through on-demand and strategic scanning. These titles were part of the more than 30,000 titles previously digitized through CRL initiatives but which had been restricted to member access.
To support academic libraries and their many patrons, APA Style are providing temporary free access to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th and 7th editions), the Concise Guide to APA Style, and more than 160 other books published by APA Books through VitalSource and RedShelf.
Clickview resources.
The World Digital Library is curated by the Library of Congress in the USA. It includes almost 20,000 items from 193 countries.
The International Children’s Digital Library has over 4600 titles in 59 languages freely available.
Global Storybooks is a free multilingual literacy resource for children and youth worldwide.
Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community.
Audible have made their children’s platform freely available.
Gale are making a huge virtual research collection available to all schools until at least the end of May and provide ongoing training & support. The password for all sites shared is ‘gift’.
Gale in Context – World History
JSTOR and their participating publishers are making additional content freely available to participating institutions where students have been displaced.
EBSCO and their partners are providing free resources and expanded access to content to support you.
Jacaranda have activated a special offer for schools providing remote learning, you can learn more HERE
Infobase have a special offer for schools.
The Wheeler Centre have put together a handful of storytime options from around the web that you and your kids can enjoy from wherever you are … to transport yourselves to wherever you’d like to be.
Story Box Library is working to support educators in continuing to provide a learning program to students in the cases of school closures and home isolation. They also have a tip sheet for using their resources.
Australian author Lili Wilkinson is offering online masterclasses and virtual appearances.
This curated list of resources is to assist you to ethically share children’s and young adult literature online.
Library Safety and eSafety Resources
Learning from home in a school setting
Online safety kit for parents and carers
American Library Association – Pandemic preparedness for schools
Online Learning Support
The Victorian Department of Education has a dedicated online resource page. Teachers and school leaders throughout the state have developed resources designed to support students and families transition to remote learning.
aitsl have published Spotlight – What works in online/distance teaching and learning
Google has developed a comprehensive website providing resources and tools to assist teachers, parents and carers with teaching from home.
A FUSE learning from home page has been established to support school and early childhood leaders, teachers, students, children and parents access digital resources that can be used to support learning at home. Resources include sets of self-directed learning activities that can be provided to students in the form of a Word document or as a printed workbook, and activities parents can do with younger children.
Everyone’s an Author is a digital creative writing program. The program/course is intended to run for ten weeks. It features ten 1-3 minute, author videos with each video focusing on an aspect of creative writing. Participating students download a learning journal to work with as they view the Author videos and respond to the provocations.
Kathleen Morris – Resources For Teaching Online Due To School Closures.
Joyce Valenza is a highly respected commentator in the field of school librarianship. Last week she created a great blog post about learning from home.
Cult of Pedagogy have shared this curated list of resources by Jennifer Gonzalez.
Online resource to aid pupils’ home learning.
Dr. Kay Oddone has written a comprehensive and useful guide titled Digital content curation: How to do it right.
The Routledge Faculty Resources hub offers everything you need to know to help you with your career in academia. With loads of free content to download and short articles addressing key topics, their aim is to help you navigate your journey as a professional working in higher education.
ACARA resource for parents and caregivers.
Eddie Woo has shared lots of great math teaching tools and tips.
Eduwebinar has generously shared the below resources. There are 20 free webinar recordings.
‘Elements of a Digital Classroom’
‘Designing an Online Program for Students’
Extra resources – Rapid Response Series
New digital forums were launched last week through isLearn. The aim is to collect and curate the large volume of resources coming into your inbox into easily accessible levels and learning areas with the capacity for you to include feedback on what is working for you or to upload resources of your own to share with educators across the sector. These digital forums will continue to be curated on a daily basis.
Tech Tools for Screencasting
Monica Williams has put together a handy break down of choices available for screen casting.
Camtasia (WINDOWS & MAC) This allows you to records your screen, your webcam and edit the videos. This is a paid product that I personally use and pay for. It’s worth it in the long run saves so much time and effort.
It’s companion app is SnagIT This is a great annotation tool that allows to create documentation and tutorials.
TechSmith the company that own Snagit and Camtasia is offering SnagIT for free until the end of June.
Screencastify CHROME– (WINDOWS & MAC) This works directly in Chrome. It’s free for small clips. Bonus access until April 30th.
The solid performer screencast-o-matic CHROME- (WINDOWS & MAC) This works with all Learning Management Systems and the paid version will only set you back $1.65/month (billed yearly) USD. It’s very affordable for the deluxe edition but there is a free version if you want to record your screen and narrate etc.
iMovie and Quicktime
These apps are built in apps for the Mac and are easy to use and produce high quality videos.
The Freebie – Getsharex an open source project that allows to screencast and screenshot your desktop.
The Xbox Recorder on Windows and Video editor and Camera by default Windows has a few built in apps that you can use. The Xbox recorder is designed for you to capture game play but it simply records your screen, the new movie maker allows you to edit the videos and the built in camera app allows you to record from your web cam.
Microsoft Powerpoint
You can record a presentation from within PowerPoint and save it as a video
Adobe CC is also free at the moment.
This Tech Radar Blog post about different options is quite helpful.
Video Library Software
Plex – I use Plex personally and I love it.
Other Educational Tools and Software
Local, National and International Libraries
Encourage your students to use the public library resources available online that they can access with their local/regional library membership. Senior students will find membership of the State Library of Victoria (SLV) provides access to a range of databases and online resources. Libraries around the world are also making a range of resources available online.
The State Library of Victoria has created a wonderful page of resources they have available and recommend.
From our friends in New Zealand – Teaching and Learning Resources
Free Online Author Resources Renaissance International School are keeping a handy list of the many publishers, authors and illustrators who have stepped up to share some amazing resources for free during the COVID-19 crisis. Some are sharing writing resources whilst others are authors reading their own stories or illustrators sharing live streamed art sessions.
Professional Associations
The SLA is a UK focused charity which supports everyone involved in school libraries.
HTAV is supporting you to bring History education to your students.
Publisher Permissions
Penguin Random House is permitting teachers, librarians and booksellers to create and share story time and read-aloud videos and live events.
Allen & Unwin has a large range of Teachers’ Notes and Teachers’ Tips that are free to download and should provide you with invaluable ideas for teaching and facilitating engaging discussions of individual titles. Teaching resources can be accessed by clicking HERE.
On the Resources page, you will find tabs for Teachers’ Notes (Teachers’ Tips are available in this tab, too), Activities, Catalogues and other useful material. Materials are added according to the date of release of the book, hence more recent titles will be higher up than older. Simply scroll down to find what you are looking for. Alternatively, if you want to see if a particular title has resources available, just type the name of that title in the search bar on the Homepage or click HERE, go to the title’s product page and scroll to the bottom of the page.
Allen and Unwin Guidelines on Virtual Read-Alouds
Teachers or librarians wishing to create virtual read-alouds are permitted to do so at no charge within a closed platform for your use only, for non-commercial use only, and as long as the video is removed after a limited time (30 days) and you acknowledge the author and publisher, Allen & Unwin. Unfortunately, we cannot grant permission for these videos to be posted publicly to YouTube at this time. Please confirm this is agreeable by sending an email HERE with your email address, role, the book you will be reading, and what platform you plan to do the reading on.
Online Access to Museums and Art Galleries
Our wonderful Melbourne Museums have all created online access portals:
Google Arts & Culture features content from over 1200 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world’s most famous museums and libraries into your home.
The National Trust has some wonderful history tours and activities online.
Atlas Obscura – Wander from Home.
Media and Television Resources
The Australian Children’s Television Foundation have collated some fantastic resources HERE
CommonSense media also have a brilliant list HERE
ABC Education have some great resources for media literacy studies HERE
The Conversation has pulled together a survival guide for staying at home Just because we’re in the midst of a global pandemic doesn’t mean we don’t deserve time for ourselves. Not only is the COVID-19 crisis unprecedented, it’s pushed us to spend more time apart, alone and inside.
Child Friendly Activities and Ideas
Hilary Hughes shared this wonderful idea for creating a ‘space- away”
K ZONE have published an online Free Mega Indoor Activity book.
ARTS:LIVE offers fun and interesting arts learning activities to engage children at home, whether they are on school holiday or require activities to complement school work.
Please continue to share ideas of great sites via our various social media platforms.