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Best Student-Collaboration Tools

These tools mix productivity and creativity, getting students to share and collaborate on projects, give and take feedback, annotate, brainstorm, make media, or just hang out. No matter the use, there's tech here that'll show students how collaboration leads to better knowledge building as well as the development of social and emotional skills like teamwork. 

Interested in how you might use some of these tools in the classroom? Read these practical tips for planning group work.

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Drawp Unlimited

Blank canvas will help kids express themselves creatively

Bottom line: This handy tool encourages collaboration and creative expression, and it makes sharing assignments and giving feedback a snap for teachers.

Grades: Pre-K–12 Price: Free to try, Paid 30-day free trial; $9.99 per month per teacher and $99.99 per year per teacher for unlimited classes, subjects, and cloud storage.
  • Download from App Store
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Makers Empire

Stellar 3D design hub promotes innovation, collaboration, and creation

Bottom line: This is a great design and creation tool that teachers and students can use to be innovative and share ideas with a vibrant community of makers.

Grades: K–8 Price: Free, Free to try There's a limited version of the Makers Empire 3D app available for free for students. A School subscription that includes the full app, lesson plans, and unlimited accounts and classes is $1,999 per year (after a free trial). There's also a package available for $2,999 that includes 3D printers, filament, and 20 hours of PD.
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Minecraft: Education Edition

Stellar collaboration tools, controls make Minecraft classroom-ready

Bottom line: An excellent tool to engage students in learning, collaboration, and critical thinking is now more accessible than ever to teachers.

Grades: K–12 Price: Paid $5 per user per year; schools may qualify for volume licensing.
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MURAL

Multifaceted interactive whiteboard promotes collaboration

Bottom line: MURAL facilitates lesson presentation and group project collaboration from anywhere by making idea sharing a simple, visual process.

Grades: K–12 Price: Free, Free to try, Paid MURAL is free for educators and students in educational settings. For everyone else, the subscription costs $12 to $20 per month after a free trial.
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NowComment

Rich collaboration and discussion site engages students and teachers

Bottom line: It's a versatile discussion platform for teaching, peer reviewing, and fostering active reading, and offers much more than traditional word processors.

Grades: K–12 Price: Free
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VoiceThread

Easily collaborate and create with voice, video, or image

Bottom line: A powerful tool for kids to create, collaborate, and share all kinds of multimedia.

Grades: K–12 Price: Paid A single educator account runs $15 per month or $79 per year for one teacher and up to 50 students. A school account starts at $450 per year, depending on the number of users and desired services; district packages are also available.
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Popplet

A compact, simple organizational tool for minimalist presentation

Bottom line: Great web-based presentation tool for beginners.

Grades: 1–12 Price: Free, Paid Subscription pricing ranges from $0.50 per student per year (over 1000 students) to $2.00 per student per year (up to 50 students).
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Skype

Live video communication has potential to open lots of doors

Bottom line: With a bit of work and a measure of patience, Skype can be an excellent classroom tool to expand students' horizons.

Grades: 1–12 Price: Free
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Explain Everything Whiteboard

Powerhouse tool for creating stellar multimedia presentations

Bottom line: Teachers and students can make dynamic presentations that involve different types of media in this innovative, fun app.

Grades: 3–12 Price: Free to try, Paid There's a 30-day free trial. The Education Plan is $4.99 per user, per year (minimum of 5 users). Individual plans are $24.99 per year.
  • Download on Google Play
  • Download from App Store
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GooseChase EDU

Digital scavenger hunts provide dynamic, fresh learning experiences

Bottom line: Students and teachers will enjoy the powerful learning of a modern scavenger hunt.

Grades: 3–12 Price: Free, Paid Free version supports one live game and five teams. Plus version is $49 per year and supports unlimited live games, 10 teams, and 40 participants per game. Premium version is $199 per year and supports 40 teams and 200 participants per game.
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Minecraft

Spiraling sandbox of adventure and creation gets kids to dig deep

Bottom line: An irresistible and seemingly limitless incubator for 21st-century skills that, with a little guidance, can chart new courses for learning.

Grades: 3–12 Price: Paid $26.95 for desktop, $19.99 for consoles (except Switch at $29.99).
  • Buy on Amazon
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PenPal Schools

Give students global perspective with pen pal projects in any subject

Bottom line: A thoughtful, ready-to-go platform that facilitates authentic, cross-cultural collaboration.

Grades: 3–12 Price: Free Free for teachers; however, school- and district-wide plans are available and add integration with learning management systems and student information systems, advanced reporting, and access to premium projects.
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Spiral

Provide instant feedback with collaborative, multimedia assessment tool

Bottom line: Engaging, easy-to-use tool that supports both formative and summative assessment while allowing for student collaboration.

Grades: 3–12 Price: Free, Paid Spiral Teacher is free and covers up to five classrooms. The Pro Teacher subscription is $39 per teacher per year and offers unlimited classrooms, student accounts for home use, and progress reports. The Pro School subscription is estimated at $3 per student and offers Pro Teacher features plus additional ones, including full integration with the school's LMS.
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StoriumEdu

Collaborative writing game inspires purposeful storytelling

Bottom line: With some planning and customization, this unique card game can motivate thoughtful and sustained creative writing in your classroom.

Grades: 3–12 Price: Free to try There's a 30-day free trial, and then it's $10 per month (billed annually) for a teacher plan. School and district plans available; contact for pricing.
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ePals

Kids learn together in well-rounded, collaborative global classroom

Bottom line: A safe communication system and excellent learning materials help create a global youth community.

Grades: 4–7 Price: Free
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Actively Learn

Empowering reader keeps kids actively, independently engaged

Bottom line: Far beyond the average e-reader, this tool helps students connect and stay engaged while teachers easily measure progress.

Grades: 4–12 Price: Free, Paid The free version has 3,000 texts, Google Classroom integration, and simple custom assignments. The paid Prime version adds more data, reporting, and differentiation. There's also an Unlimited plan with addition school and district supports. Contact for a demo and pricing.
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Classcraft

Track behavior and motivate students with clever, cooperative game

Bottom line: Classcraft is a fantastic game for encouraging positive behavior while students build knowledge and develop communication and collaboration skills.

Grades: 4–12 Price: Free, Paid The free version allows for unlimited students and classes with the base game experience and customizable avatars. The Premium version is $120 per year (billed annually) and adds LMS features, personalized quests, and more interactive features. Teachers can get quotes for school and district plans.
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CueThink

Social approach to problem-solving promotes deep math learning

Bottom line: An innovative, community-based platform that helps students plan, strategize, and collaborate.

Grades: 5–12 Price: Free to try, Paid The Single Class license ($100 per year) is for one teacher and up to 30 students. The Multi Class license ($250 per year) allows for up to 150 students. Add-ons (from $75 to $150 each) include additional problems and data analysis tools. A professional learning program is also available.
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Storillo

Cooperative tool provides accountability to group writing projects

Bottom line: Storillo is engaging and provides useful structure for students, but teachers may prefer something more broadly applicable like Google Docs.

Grades: 5–12 Price: Free to try, Paid Starter subscription is free and allows three classes per year and two projects per class. Step-Up subscription ($60 per year per teacher) allows unlimited classes and projects, advanced statistics, and more. School pricing also available upon request.
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Google Drive

Nifty tool for collaboratively editing and syncing files across devices

Bottom line: Google Drive is a smart choice for budget-conscious schools, with its free productivity tools and file syncing.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free, Paid Free (up to 15GB); $1.99 per month for 100GB and $9.99 per month for 1TB (discounts for annual prepayment).
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Google Hangouts

Communication, learning, and fun converge nicely in Google's slick platform

Bottom line: It runs like a dream, works on all devices, and can be used in so many ways to enhance interactive learning.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free
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Microsoft Teams

Collaborative platform helps manage multiple groups and projects

Bottom line: It offers a ton of options for integrating learning; the lack of some typical LMS features may make it a better fit for small groups or nontraditional group configurations.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free, Paid Microsoft Teams is included with Office 365 subscriptions, which range from free to $6 per month per student and $8 per month per teacher.
  • Download on Google Play
  • Download from App Store
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Padlet

Create and collaborate via interactive multimedia bulletin boards

Bottom line: The versatility of Padlet presents kids with opportunities to share content and knowledge in ways most comfortable for them.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free, Free to try, Paid Free accounts support five padlets and 10 MB of storage. After a 30-day free trial, individual accounts are $12 per month or $99 per year and offer unlimited padlets, no ads, and more. School plans are $1,499 per year.
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Peergrade

Feedback tool with great rubrics might work best for older students

Bottom line: With appropriate teacher support, this could be a powerful way to help teach your students about giving and receiving critical feedback.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free, Paid Peergrade is free for students to use, and institutions can purchase a subscription with more custom integrations and personal support.
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YO Teach!

Backchannel tool offers interactive polls, drawing, messages, and more

Bottom line: Quick setup and multimodal features make this a great fit for a variety of carefully monitored classroom discussions.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free
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Diigo

Social bookmarking encourages discovery, collaboration, and sharing

Bottom line: With a Diigo educator account, teachers and students have a safe space to organize, customize, and share Web content while learning about a variety of subjects.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free, Paid Users can mark and highlight 1,000 items a year with a free Diigo subscription; two paid versions, which cost from $20-$40 a year, provide unlimited bookmarking, screen capture, and highlighting capabilities. The educator account, which is also free, lets teachers bookmark and save 20 cached pages a month (users are allowed to save multiple versions of the same page at different times to track changes) and provides unlimited highlighting capabilities
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Scratchwork

Intelligent collaborative whiteboard opens up new ways to create math

Bottom line: This flexible tool is great for student groups to upload, manipulate, and share math projects.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free, Paid Scratchwork can be used for free without an account or by signing up for a free student account. Premium educator accounts are $10 per month and Enterprise accounts for companies and institutions can be quoted a price.
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Story Wars

Read, write, and vote on engaging collaborative storytelling site

Bottom line: A cool, competitive approach to online storytelling with a lot of learning potential -- just be aware of the iffy content and licensing risks.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free, Paid Classroom edition available for $15/month; supports 35 student accounts. The classroom version is private to just the classroom.
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Tricider

Ask questions, brainstorm ideas with responsive voting tool

Bottom line: Used creatively and wisely, Tricider can set the stage for some great classroom conversations.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free, Paid
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Genius

Collaborative tool lets users annotate songs, literature, web content

Bottom line: Students can collaboratively engage in the process of annotation and analysis with various texts -- both within the forum and on the web.

Grades: 8–12 Price: Free
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Common Sense Selection

Parlay

Comprehensive discussion platform develops critical-thinking skills

Bottom line: A great tool in any subject or topic for teachers looking to make discussion a central part of their classroom.

Grades: 5–12 Price: Free to try, Paid Annual licenses start at $3 per student. Request additional pricing information through the Parlay site.
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Siftr

Collect images in the field with simple, collaborative app

Bottom line: An easy way to crowdsource location-based data.

Grades: 9–12 Price: Free
  • Download on Google Play
  • Download from App Store
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Piazza

Advanced Q&A tool compels collaboration, higher-order thinking

Bottom line: Encourage collaborative, student-centered learning with this useful platform, but make sure it's the right fit for your students.

Grades: 10–12 Price: Free
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