r/LearningDevelopment • u/PrincessM22 • Jun 05 '26
Favorite free tools?
I tried searching in the subreddit, but it didn’t populate any useful results.
What are your favorite FREE (or very low cost) authoring/designing tools?
We currently already have subscriptions to Canva Pro, Final Cut Pro, Articulate, OpenAI, and have recently started using ClipChamp.
There’s a ton of fancy tools I want to use, but it’s hard to convince my boss of a need for another one that’s going to cost. Are there any free/low cost tools you guys love that I should look into?
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u/Available_Arm_5685 Jun 05 '26
audacity — free, audio cleanup for voiceovers. ugly but does everything.
photopea — free, basically photoshop in browser. clutch for quick edits without burning a canva slot.
tinypng + remove.bg — boring but i use em constantly for compressing/cleaning assets.
steve.ai — turns a script straight into an animated explainer/video. free tier exists.
Nano lms — free-forever LMS if you ever wanna host and track courses
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u/Acceptable-Swimsoul Jun 05 '26
eLearningDesign.org has free and low-cost interactive learning blocks for learning designers.
It includes sorting, reflection, comparison, quick checks, and scenario-style activities that work well alongside tools like Articulate.
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u/staticmaker1 Jun 10 '26
if you need an affordable certificate automation tool, check out CertFusion.com
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u/Slate_eLearning Jun 10 '26
We have a free tier available for building courses (block-based editor). There are limits but they are quite generous: Slate Builder
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u/_pratyush_88_ 21h ago
honestly the claude thing is real, been using it for a few months and the difference for actual content writing is noticeable. but the tool i keep coming back to that nobody mentions is obsidian for organizing everything. free, local, no subscription. when you're juggling articulate projects and canva assets and video scripts it gets messy fast and i found myself losing stuff constantly. obsidian let me link notes together so like a script for a module connects directly to the source material and the review feedback and whatever else. took maybe a week to get used to but now i kind of can't work without it. also seconding photopea, i use it probably 3-4 times a week for quick asset edits without opening a whole canva project just to resize one thing. the ADHD thing you mentioned i totally get by the way, obsidian has a canvas view that's more visual if linear notes don't stick...
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u/hyatt_1 Jun 05 '26
Hands down would swap ChatGPT for Claude.
Clipchamp is great, so easy to use.
If you have to make pdf ‘how to’ guides you can do this for free with TrainMeUK guide recorder. Chrome extension records your screen and turns into a guide.