Have you searched endlessly for a free eLearning authoring tool that can help you create online courses? Well, if you’re still on the search, you’ve found the right guide to help. We’ve scoured the authoring tools market and handpicked the top 5 tools that can make your course creation journey easy without costing you a dime. Read this article to find out more about these tools.
What to Look Out For When Picking a Free Authoring Tool
It is no news that free eLearning authoring tools will have some limitations. But this doesn’t mean you cannot create awesome eLearning content with them. Here are some factors you should look out for when picking any authoring tool:
- Level of Intuitiveness: Many eLearning authoring tools still have a learning curve that requires you to have technical knowledge before using them. If you’re still a novice with some of these tools, it is advisable to go for a more user-friendly tool.
- Cloud storage: Some authoring tools allow access to cloud storage, although it is usually limited. However, if you do not mind the size, it definitely is beneficial for team collaborations. This way, your team members could make edits on the same body of work.
- Responsiveness: It is not uncommon to find authoring tools (even the paid ones) in which you have to produce content for various types of devices. However, some of these tools allow you to create the eLearning content only once, and it automatically syncs with any type of device. This feature is very important if you’re on a tight schedule.
- Ability to import to LMS: SCORM and xAPI are standards invented so that online content can be easily used on different LMS platforms. You must make sure your authoring tool can support at least the SCORM standard and can easily export content with HTML5 formats.
Top 5 Free E-learning Tools in 2022
- iSpring Free
Do you have a Powerpoint slide prepared that you want to turn into an interactive course? Then, iSpring Free is the best free authoring tool for you. Whether you’re an expert or a novice, it is preferable to use an authoring tool that just makes the job less stressful. iSpring’s interface is very user-friendly and makes sure all the original features of your presentation (e,g, animations, transitions) are all incorporated into your course.
However, not only people with pre-existing slides can use this tool. You can also use it to create a course from scratch. It allows you to import texts, images, YouTube videos, and many more. Apart from this, it also allows you to incorporate quizzes to test your students’ knowledge of the course. However, you only get access to three quiz styles: short answer, multiple-choice, and multiple responses. You can add features such as time limits or a maximum number of tries to your quizzes.
Courses created on iSpring are fully responsive and would work seamlessly on any device. However, iSpring Free limits the number of slides for any course to only 15.
- IsEazy
isEazy is another authoring tool that you don’t need to spend ages learning how to operate. It has an intuitive interface with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. This means that the finished course will look exactly as it looked in the editor. The tool also offers you ready-made templates which you can simply use to build your course by adding texts, images, videos, quizzes, and other interactive features.
Courses created on IsEazy are responsive and work perfectly on any device. The courses are SCORM and HTML5 compliant, which means they’ll work on any type of LMS. another outstanding feature of isEazy is its provision of cloud storage. Although the cloud storage space isn’t large (0.3 GB), you can still collaborate with your team and make corrections and revisions easily.
However, isEazy Free has its disadvantages. First, all the courses you create with this tool have the isEazy watermark. Also, you cannot choose fonts of your choice for your course.
- Udutu
Udutu is a web-based authoring tool. This tool also has a WYSIWYG editor, making it quite easy to use. This tool also allows you to import ready-made Powerpoint slides into the editor. However, you have to pay a $10 monthly subscription to access this feature. However, you can upload previously created SCORM-standard courses and re-edit them for free.
Also, it has some interesting free features like branching scenarios and interactive learning modules. It also allows simultaneous people to work on the course at once. However, courses created on this app will also have a watermark distributed with them. Also, you might want to make sure you manually save your course before exiting your browser. This is because the tool does not automatically save your work.
- GLOMaker 3.0
This is a tool that is totally free to use. Its editor is divided into two parts: planning and designing. The planning section is where you envision the goals of the course. It looks more like something out of a schoolteacher’s handbook. The designing section is where you plan the aesthetics of the various slides. While this seems like so much work, the tool offers you guidance on making it all work.
You also get access to different templates, slide viewers, and other features. However, the tool only offers two quiz types (word assembly / multiple-choice). However, this tool can’t work if Adobe Air isn’t installed on your PC. Its design could also be a little hard for newbies to understand.
- Adapt
Adapt is another authoring tool that is free to use. Courses created on Adapt have a web page layout – they look like long texts which you just scroll vertically till the end. While this tool doesn’t support many interactive features (branching scenarios) like other authoring tools, it has its custom design options.
However, to access these options, you’ll need to have a little bit of technical know-how. Overall, the tool is great for creating simple courses that are responsive on every kind of device.
Conclusion
E-learning can be expensive, but you can scratch authoring tools off your expenses list using free e-learning authoring software. Above are some of the best authoring tools you can find on the eLearning market.
