- Live chat
- Quiz/ survey
Commercial provider, no registration needed for participants. Since 2024, frontend for the underlying open source ARSnova project.
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- recommended
- sufficiently free
- Live chat
- Quiz/ survey
Collect, evaluate and present questions live. Access with QR-code or 8-digit room number. Students can reply to questions, teacher can also put up quick multiple-choice surveys. Unlimited questions and participants.
Free, GDPR-conform tool supported by Hessen, no registration needed for students (registration needed for teacher for automatic ChatGPT-based answers). Since 2019.
- GDPR
- no registration
- recommended
- sufficiently free
- Maths
Open source, free, requires MacTeX or similar installation. Released 2005, actively maintained.
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- sufficiently free
- Images
- Live chat
It’s for sending memes to students, so Categories = Live Chat (<Communicate with Students) and Images.
It’s TUM and GDPR, no registration — but not sufficiently free. Five star rated.
- GDPR
- no registration
- recommended
- TUM
- Collaborative boards
Collaborative whiteboard software focused on drawing options. Background is colour, a PDF, or an Openstreetview map. Many freehand drawing options, plus boxes and ellipses. First user is admin, who can ban/unban others via chat.
A few unusual options in chat (YouTube player, random dice throw generator), presumably from a specific gaming need of authors. Boards get deleted after 30 days of disuse, or on request. A few bugs (e.g., map not changeable).
Free of charge, GDPR compliant, no registration needed. Released 2017.
- GDPR
- no registration
- sufficiently free
- Collaborative documents
Free, open source tool, GDPR-compliant but requiring login via TUM (SSO) or self-hosted instance. This project is a fork of a fork: HackMD released 2015, from which CodiMD forked 2017, from which HedgeDoc forked 2018.
- GDPR
- open source
- sufficiently free
- TUM
- Collaborative documents
- Maths
Edit LaTeX together online. For bibliographies, you must either pay or export them first to BibTeX format.
Open source tool, hosted for TUM users at https://sharelatex.tum.de — otherwise use self-hosted (then unlimited collaborators and unrestricted compilation speed, no Mendeley/Zotero integration), using their hosted instance. Released 2011.
- GDPR
- open source
- sufficiently free
- TUM
- Collaborative documents
Collaborative usable office suite (e.g. texts, code, spreadsheets, whiteboard, markdown slides, diagrams, or kanban boards).
Open source, privacy by design, usable without registration (but registration needed to upload files). Hosted by TUM at https://cryptpad.rbg.tum.de/. Released 2014.
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- sufficiently free
- TUM
- Communicate with students
- Other
Pause your display, with a countdown and message.
Free of charge, registration free. Released 2022.
- GDPR
- no registration
- sufficiently free
- Communicate with students
- Other
Simple evaluation tool with up to ten questions, valued as agree/disagree with up to ten gradations; displays the results as shots on a target, one colour per question. Simple to write, can password-protect the results screen.
Private provider, free of charge, no registration, GDPR conform. Released 2015.
- GDPR
- no registration
- sufficiently free
- Communicate with students
- Video conferencing
Video conferencing and webinar software: Videoconferencing, chat, breakout rooms, screensharing, whiteboards, screen recording, etc.
Commercial provider, GDPR conform, licensed by DFN for partner organizations (e.g., TUM) via SSO login. Released 2006, rebranded from Macromedia Breeze.
- GDPR
- TUM
- Communicate with students
- Video conferencing
Video conferencing system focusing on online event/group work. Virtual 2D office/meeting space with proximity chat, in a cartoon-y ‘8bit’ style.
Private provider, GDPR compliant, free of charge up to 15 participants (alternatively: AGPL self-hosting without limits), registration required. Released 2020.
- GDPR
- Communicate with students
- Video conferencing
Video conferencing and webinar software. Chat, breakout rooms, whiteboards, … .
TUM provided commercial version, free basic version, GDPR compliant, requires registration.
- GDPR
- sufficiently free
- TUM
- Quiz/ survey
Private provider, GDPR-conform, no login needed for students, pre-paid version available for TUM staff (see instructions here).
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- sufficiently free
- TUM
- Quiz/ survey
Uni development, GDPR conform, free of charge, with client download for teacher, no registration for participants. Since 2011.
- GDPR
- no registration
- sufficiently free
- Maths
- Quiz/ survey
Single-question survey tool intended for integration into presentations. Multiple-choice, free text or numeric answers; time-limited; immediate results. Exchangeable question collections. Supports LaTeX notation for maths.
Private provider, free, registration required. Developed in 2011 at Uni Paderborn, spun off 2017.
- GDPR
- recommended
- sufficiently free
- Create activities
Wheel-of-fortune type spinner, where you put in the options (e.g., all students, to fairly select a student). Lots of options in colours and sound effects.
Private provider, free of charge, usable without registration. Since 2019.
- GDPR
- no registration
- sufficiently free
- Communicate with students
- Create activities
- Other
Commercial provider, free of charge, GPDR-compliant, registration free. Since 2017.
- GDPR
- no registration
- sufficiently free
- Collaboration
- Create activities
- Quiz/ survey
Private provider, free of charge, usable without registration. Since 2010; website quite outdated/neglected since 2020.
- GDPR
- no registration
- sufficiently free
- Collaborative boards
- Communicate with students
- Other
- Presentations
Pinboard, mainly intended for a teacher to present information (images, videos, text, links, …) and tasks. The students then have only reading permission, except where the teacher has inserted a commentary field or a rating field (with stars, or thumbs up/down). But alternatively, a board can be cooperative if you invite others and give them write permissions. Boards can be chosen to be public or private.
Commercial provider, free basic version, registration required. Since 2021.
- GDPR
- sufficiently free
- Create learning material
- Presentations
Educational consortium from Switzerland, open source, free of charge, registration-free. Since 2003 as Uniboard, 2008 as Open-Sankoré, forked 2013 as OpenBoard.
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- sufficiently free
- Create learning material
- Other
Convert Word files to Markdown, e.g. for subsequent use in CodiMD.
Open source tool, free, no registration, can be used online immediately.
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- recommended
- sufficiently free
- Accessibility
- Create learning material
Since 2017, abandoned 2023.
- GDPR
- no registration
- sufficiently free
- Videos
Advanced video editor with MacOS, Windows, Linux and iPadOS versions. All-in-one tool for editing, colour correction, VFX, motion graphics and postproduction.
Commercial provider, free basic version, no registration needed. Since 2004.
- GDPR
- no registration
- recommended
- sufficiently free
- Create learning material
- Videos
Video hosting and basic editing; create in-video questions.
TUM: Campus license.
- GDPR
- Videos
Commercial provider, registration require for free trial version (which visibly watermarks your output) but TUM has a license (see instructions here). Since 2002.
- GDPR
- no registration
- TUM
- Collaborative boards
- Collaborative documents
- Create learning material
- Images
Collaboratively create all kinds of diagrams. Cross-platform app with many third-party integrations.
Open source, GDPR-compliant, free, usable without registration (online or on desktop). Since 2012, evolved from 2000-era JGraph.
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- sufficiently free
- Presentations
Open source plugin for MS PowerPoint, no registration. Released 2012, last update 2020.
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- sufficiently free
- Maths
- Presentations
Powerpoint extension to typeset LaTeX mathematics, on Mac or Windows. (Note for Mac users: In Keynote/Pages, you can natively insert maths; otherwise use the LaTeXit service anywhere.)
Free open source plugin for MS PowerPoint. Released 2007; actively updated.
- GDPR
- no registration
- open source
- sufficiently free
- Presentations
- Video conferencing
Commercial provider, EU-GDPR conform, requires payment and registration. Released 2009.
- GDPR
- sufficiently free
- Presentations
- Quiz/ survey
Create presentations and learning units, and integrate into your LMS (e.g., Moodle). Quizzes, surveys, mindmaps, gamification. [Real-time ranking (quizzes), and following specific students requires Expert (€120/year) package.]
Private provider, GDPR conform, requires registration. Released 2015.
- GDPR
- sufficiently free