Best Free Tools to Create Educational Content Online

Creating your own educational content — rather than relying entirely on textbooks — lets you tailor material exactly to your students' needs, prior knowledge and interests. These free tools make that creation process fast and professional.

Interactive lessons

Genially

Genially lets you create interactive presentations, infographics, escape rooms, interactive images and learning games. The free plan allows unlimited interactive creations — an exceptionally generous offer. Hotspots, popups, audio and embedded content transform static slides into genuine learning experiences.

Nearpod

Nearpod allows teachers to add polls, open-ended questions, collaborative boards and virtual field trips to presentations and deliver them in real time to students' devices. The free Silver plan supports up to 50 students and includes most core features. Lessons can be teacher-paced (synchronous) or student-paced (asynchronous).

Infographics and visual content

Canva

Canva produces infographics, posters, worksheets, timelines and visual summaries quickly with its template library. The Canva for Education plan is completely free for verified teachers and unlocks everything.

Visme

Visme is Canva's strongest competitor for data-rich educational content. Its chart builder and data visualisation tools are more powerful than Canva's — ideal for statistics, science data and economics lessons. Free for five projects.

Podcasts and audio

Buzzsprout

Buzzsprout is the most teacher-friendly podcast hosting platform. Upload audio files and Buzzsprout hosts your podcast, generates a public page and distributes it to Spotify, Apple Podcasts and others automatically. Free for up to 2 hours of new audio per month (episodes are hosted for 90 days on the free plan).

Soundtrap for Education

Soundtrap (by Spotify) is a browser-based multi-track audio editor designed for schools. Students record, edit and mix audio collaboratively in real time. Teachers use it for podcast projects, music composition and audio storytelling. Free education accounts available through Spotify for Education.

Worksheets and printables

Canva Worksheet Templates

Search "worksheet" in Canva and choose from hundreds of subject-specific templates. Fill in your own content, download as PDF and print — or share digitally as an interactive PDF.

LiveWorksheets

LiveWorksheets converts existing PDF or Word worksheets into interactive online exercises that students complete digitally. Self-correcting versions give instant feedback. Free for teachers to upload and share unlimited worksheets.

Video lessons

Loom

Loom records your screen, webcam or both simultaneously — ideal for creating asynchronous lesson videos, tutorials and feedback on student work. Free for up to 25 videos (up to 5 minutes each). Share via link — students watch in their browser without logging in.

Screencastify

Screencastify is a Chrome extension that records screen, microphone and webcam. The free plan allows recordings up to 30 minutes. A teacher-specific "Submit" feature lets students record their own responses and submit them directly to the teacher.

Choosing what to create

Not every lesson needs custom content. The highest-return content to create yourself is what doesn't exist elsewhere — content tied to your specific students, local context, recent events or curriculum scope and sequence. Start there, use ready-made content for everything else.