Succeeding in education requires pushing yourself to get ahead, and with these seven free study tools for students and teachers, that push comes at no cost to you.
There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work to ensure children at your school receive the best education possible. As technology continues to seep into the world of education, keeping track of students and operations on paper just doesn't cut it anymore.
You need a tool that can do it all. That is where student information system software comes in.
If you want to remain organized and efficiently run your school, a student information system (SIS) is absolutely the way to go. A SIS tracks all student information and allows teachers, parents, and students to all communicate with each other.
One of the most important features of implementing SIS in schools is the ability to share an open line of communication with parents. These platforms can erase any parent/teacher communication issues your school may be facing.
Anyone in the education field knows that students, especially younger ones, need structure and routine to excel in the classroom. Student information systems are designed to help teachers — particularly when it comes to organizing vital information and tracking student behavior. An organized teacher is one that can create a structured classroom for their students.
As teachers and administrators already work around the clock, the least we can do is provide a list of student information systems that are available free of cost.
Some of the products below are either completely free or offer free plans with limited features. Others offer 30-day free trials.
Let’s start things off with the free school management tools.
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Integrations: QuickBooks, Flickr, Google Classroom
Select it for: Efficient communication
This free school management tool allows users to communicate easily with multiple students and/or teachers right within the platform. You can send bulk emails with School Time and notify concerned recipients with auto-triggered email alerts on things like invoice payments, assignments, circulars, and more.
Multiple G2 Crowd users praised the ease of communication that comes with this free SIS tool.
One School Time review said, “It’s a smart communication tool for schools, parents, and students with a real time update of activities/happenings/reports from within the class and school campus.”
Another School Time review said, “It has been easy to set exam times and to communicate with students.”
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Integrations: Moodle LMS and Moodlerooms
Select it for: Customizability
The Community edition of openSIS is completely free to users. It was developed by volunteers. This free school management solution contains core functions that are enough to run a school. This is an open source tool that is continuously evolving.
You can easily download and implement this free school management platform on your own. The download comes with source code, so you can customize it on your own. openSIS allows you to submit any feature you develop with the community, allowing other instructors to benefit.
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Integrations: Moodle LMS
Select it for: Plentiful features for no cost
SchoolTool is an-open source and completely free school management tool designed for a single school. Many SIS solutions offer both paid and free plans, with the free plans providing limited functions. SchoolTool offers all its features for free.
Features are grouped into categories, such as personal data, skill and outcome-based assessments, school-wide assessment data, and multiple technical features.
One G2 Crowd user praised some of these features in their SchoolTool review. They wrote about the features they like best saying, “I am able to easily contact parents by finding all contact info in one place, and I am able to see student progress by looking at other teachers' grades.”
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Integrations: Moodle LMS
Select it for: Intuitive user interface
This free school management tool comes with WPadmin theme icon sets. This means you can adjust the user face to whatever works best for you.
Additional plug-ins are also available to add various functionalities that will make this free SIS as user-friendly as possible. The design is compatible with iPhones and tablets.
One RosarioSIS review said their favorite part of this tool is, “responsive design for teacher use in implementing and teaching.”
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Integrations: Contact Student Data System with integration inquiries
Select it for: Vast customizable features
This free school management platform is referred to as a “no setting” system. That means that the school administrator can create and manage their school using this platform with only a web-browser and internet connection.
Once you have created an account for your school using this free school management solution, you can customize a number of features to fit your school’s specific needs. Such features include achievement grading, report cards, assessment weight, and language.
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Integrations: Contact feKara with integration inquiries
Select it for: Accessibility
feKara is hosted on cloud servers, which means it’s easy to access. To set up this free school management tool, you just need a computer (or handheld device) with an internet connection; no complicated implementations. Once your tool is fully set up, you can still easily access it remotely.
feKara is completely reliable and secure, even if you need to login off school premises.
G2 Crowd Star Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Integrations: Schoology
Select it for: Usability
The folks at QuickSchools want to make sure their product is easy to use. That’s why all teachers, administrators, and parents have unlimited access to training materials. Guided walkthroughs are integrated right into the system to ensure users completely understand the platform.
One QuickSchools review said, “I find QuickSchools easy to use. Since I had no instruction in using this product prior to completing grading for my library classes, I was very happy to find this product user friendly.”
QuickSchools offers three different paid plans and each of those plans has a 30-day free trial available.
Utilizing a SIS is a great way to keep your school running efficiently and teachers happy. It’s important to choose a high-quality tool that will allow you to take advantage of the beneficial features included in a SIS.
Before you settle on a solution, spend some time reading the product reviews. They are written by real, verified users in the education field just like you.
Reading these G2 Crowd user reviews will help you to make a more informed decision.
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