Top 20 Collaborative Study Tools for Students

Updated on July 2nd, 2018 by Quertime Writer in Web Tools

Collaborate with other students online with everything from research and discussions, to creating written essays and presentations. Working with other students online has never been easier and more accessible, and most of the tools listed below are free to use if you sign up for an account.

1. WeVideo
Students use WeVideo to create videos together. It’s a collaborative video-creation tool. It can be used for making documentaries, video essays, and for video storytelling. It makes it easier for students to come up with their own videos and then knit them together into one movie later.

2. Wunderlist
Use this as a web-based to-do list for students working on the same project. As students complete each task, they may tick each item off. Students can add things and take them away too, and students can take note of which elements they completed personally.

3. ThinkBinder

Use this tool as a meeting hub to create web-based study groups. There is a whiteboard function that may be used to help students get their ideas out and discuss them, and students are able to sketch with the tool too, which may help them get their points across better.

4. Scrible
Research and share things with your student peers. You can bookmark pages and share them with your friends. You can save articles, annotate the Internet, capture images and thoughts, use filters and share the products of your learning with people on social media.

5. Simple Surface
This tool is used as a whiteboard. It is a space where collaborating students may add their own is and thoughts. It can be used to host the plan or schedule for a project, and people can share their ideas too. You can publish what is written on the whiteboard onto social media too.

6. VoiceThread
This is a collaborative tool that students and teachers can use to create multimedia slideshows. Create documents, images and videos, plus you can add in voiceovers. Share files with other people, export and receive data and files, and use the tool to place things on websites.

7. A.nnotate

You may annotate web pages with this tool and collaboratively take notes with other people. You can grab information and put it onto a Microsoft Word or PDF document, and you can collaboratively make notes and annotate things to be used later in separate projects.

8. ThinkFree
These are Cloud office tools that may be used on their own or collaboratively. It is built for simple and easy collaborative projects, and it also has mobile support. Documents may be created and edited by a number of people, whilst still saving backups in case something goes wrong.

9. Scoot & Doodle
You may work with as many as ten people at a time with Scoot & Doodle. They say they can get students working creatively, together and on their own because the tool was originally designed for teachers to use within classrooms, but you do not have to be a teacher to set it up.

10. WordPress.org

This is WordPress.com’s big brother. It is a versatile tool you can use to create websites, and the great thing is that you can add permissions to allow other people to contribute and change things. You can control how many permissions each contributor has, which limits how much each contributor can change or publish.

11. Google Drive
The Google Drive actually offers a lot of collaborative tools where you can gain access to word processors and such. The people from your group may load things into the same folder within the Google drive, so that a project may be worked on by lots of different people.

12. Dropbox
This is a Cloud service where you may drop your files and have other people look at them. The owner of the cloud space is able to set up permissions that allow other people to use the file too. It means that files can be added and removed to allow people to work together.

13. Evernote
This is a very popular cross-platform tool, and the great thing about using it collaboratively is that most students already have it. Categorize your files and share them. Make finding pieces of work, images, audio, videos and voice memos easy to find and share.

14. Sketch

Mark up an outline paper or project with Sketch. It was created by the makers of Evernote, which is a highly popular note taking and organization app. With Sketch, you and your friends can draw arrows, question marks, checkmarks and other annotations and share them around.

15. Prezi
This is a tool you can use instead of PowerPoint. You can create dynamic and fun presentations and you can collaborate with groups of up to ten people. You can create graphs and integrate images. It makes creating presentations very easy.

16. Blackboard Collaborate
People sometimes use this tool for online classes, but there are a number of ways it can be used to help people collaborate. People can create web conferences, add voice authoring, conduct real-time classes, and use the instant messenger to make contact with other collaborators in real time.

17. 99 Chats
You can use this collaborative tool if you have at least four people to use it with. It sets up a four-way chat that can include up to 99 people at one time. It is easy to use and easy to set up, and unlike similar tools it does not have bugs that stutter or stifles conversations online.

18. Canva
Create good-looking slides, posters, flyers, collages and Infographics. Do it alone or do it with your student peers. Select your template and use the drag-and-drop system to create whatever it is you are creating. Have others share in the working experience, or use Canva to share it with friends. You can download the files as PDF or PNG too.

19. Crocodoc

Make and take notes collaboratively with this tool. You can highlight and underline things within a piece of text. You can also collaboratively fix pieces of work and make notes such as strikethroughs and highlights. Comments may be left on piece of work too. It is handy for going over old essays with friends.

20. CiteULike
Work together and find research with your friends. This tool was built to help you find scholarly articles and cite them. You can then share the citations or the research with your peers. It is also possible to set up automated recommendations from places that you consider to be reliable sources.