Instructors

Be A Better Medic is a part of Tier 1 Group that, according to their website, has been around doing Tactical EMS training since 2006. Recently, they started a new service that will e-mail you a "question-of-the-day." There are leaderboards and even a way to create groups for friendly competition. Best of all, it's free!  I have talked to one of their people via e-mail and they are incredibly responsive to questions and suggestions and the gentleman was very kind.

Khan Academy has lessons for everything from elementary general studies to college-level sciences and more. We love that they are a non-profit and aim to keep their services free. Whether you need lectures on basic anatomy or more complicated ALS material, Khan Academy probably has something to help you out. You can even create classes, add students and then assign them Khan Academy lessons to view. Their YouTube channel is great too!

ActivePresenter feels almost like PowerPoint to navigate, but it allows you to record your screen while presenting and add narration to it. Once you complete and edit your presentation, you can export it as a video and then upload it to other platforms like YouTube, EdPuzzle, Canvas, etc. We will talk about those later! This software is developed by Atomi Systems, Inc. and has both free and paid versions. The free version is good enough. 

Edpuzzle is kind of a mix between a Learning Management System (LMS) and YouTube. You can use ActivePresenter or any other presentation editor of your choice to create videos and then embed them with quiz questions. There are analytics that show grades and other helpful information on your student's progress. This also ensures that students actually watch your content in its entirety. Much like Khan Academy as far as being able to create classes and assign content to your students, but here you're using YOUR content rather that stuff created by someone else. You could get videos to use from other places though (i.e. YouTube). And it's free!

Canvas by Instructure, Inc. is a powerful Learning Management System (LMS). We love, Love, LOVE IT!  You can build entire classes full of content using this tool. Guess how much it costs? Also FREE! They do have a paid version, but for an EMT-Initial class, the free version seems to work just fine. You build content (this community can probably help with that) and then just add your students. There is grading, attendance and numerous other analytics to automate much of what we generally do by hand. Even test item analysis and the ability to have students interact through the use of message boards. There is also a free student app as well as a dedicated teacher app. When you make an announcement during class and immediately hear phones "ding," you know they got it!

Any Video Converter Free by Anvsoft, Inc. can be used to download YouTube videos and convert them into formats (i.e. mp4) that are usable for Edpuzzle, Canvas and other resources. There is also an upgraded version, but again, the free version is pretty great already. There is so much content out there to deliver to your students and AVC lets you deliver it without having to be online to access YouTube. This keeps you from having to worry about whether or not the location you're teaching in has WiFi or not. Also, you can save the videos for future use without risking a favorite video being moved or nonexistent the next time you go to access it. Just make sure to credit the creators and leave some love on their YouTube channel page for creating great content!