Interactive Worksheets From Paper? Compare Available Online Tools

There are lots of powerful online publishing tools available today. They are referred to by many names: courseware, digital curriculums, and the Adobe Creative Suite, to name a few. But almost none of them start with your tried-and-true papers stored in the filing cabinet. They all seek to leave your beloved worksheets behind or force you to recreate them from scratch.

Your school system may recommend using Google Classroom. Sure, you can scan each worksheet, make it a PDF, and then distribute it via Google Classroom or your school’s LMS. But to be able to transform your papers into online, interactive worksheets without being a technology wiz? That requires a specific type of app.

Don’t ditch your curated teacher resources: Turn interactive worksheets from paper

Going online is not easy. You have a four-drawer file cabinet full of lesson plans, activity ideas, projects, and worksheets. You’ve been collecting and using these workhorses for years! They’re reliable for getting students to practice their skills and apply what they’ve learned. And (most of) your students over the years liked them, too.

Choose an app that turns interactive worksheets from paper that’s built for schools

Here at TeacherMade, we believe we offer the best tool for turning PDFs into digital interactives. But there are other tools available, and we think it’s best if readers do some comparison shopping.

We chose to focus on two teacher-centered apps focusing on paper-based resources that teachers need most right now. Their products will transform PDFs into interactive activities—and one even attempts to do scoring for you, as TeacherMade does.

Kami App

The Kami Chrome Extension lets a class annotate a PDF when installed in teacher and student browsers. For example, a teacher can assign a reading passage to her American Literature 1st period class in Google Classroom. Teachers can load the PDF into Kami and provide a link to their students.

Let’s use Huckleberry Finn as an example: the assignment is to read Chapter 14 of Huckleberry Finn and identify three examples of how slavery impacts Huck and Jim’s interactions. Students would respond by using the annotation tool to underline or highlight at least three parts of the text and leave their rationales in the margins via text or audio. After students save and submit the assignment, the teacher can see their responses.

The free version of Kami is a brilliant way to facilitate discussions and critical analyses of a text. If you have pocket change for the paid version, there are even more features to explore. Check out Kami to learn more about classroom flipping, remote learning ideas, and group collaboration tools.

You won’t find the breadth of assessment tools that TeacherMade offers. So if you’re looking for an app that saves you time each day with creating assignments and grading them, choose TeacherMade.

Liveworksheets

Only a teacher would have dreamt up the Liveworksheets site! Using it, you can turn paper worksheets into interactive, digital versions for students to complete on their computers. You can even auto-score their work using a fixed scale of 10. Though some of the features can be a little convoluted, it’s a free site for worksheets. The site is currently supported by ad revenue.

We break down the biggest differences between Liveworksheets and TeacherMade here.

Convert your paper worksheets into interactive online activities!

TeacherMade helps thousands of teachers reuse their paper worksheets for online learning. With TeacherMade you can:

Convert a PDF, image, or Microsoft Docx into an online interactive activity
Integrate the activities into Google Docs, Canvas, and Schoology
Use TeacherMade’s auto-grade features to save time
Utilize our advanced student feedback features to hone in areas for student growth