Technology

List of Classroom Technologies

The third Standard of Practice states that college members use appropriate technologies in planning for an responding to student needs. What follows is a list of the various technologies I have used in Junior level classes that I have taught over the past few years. 

For a long time, I was a reluctant ‘late-adopter’ of technology. I had developed a certain skill-set as a classroom teacher that I knew how to use effectively, and was hesitant to become a beginner again by integrating new technologies into my practice. During a recent graduate studies course, my classmates and I were forced to engage with many new applications and technologies, and the experience was ‘eye-opening’ to say the least. I have since tried my best to incorporate new technologies into my practice in a way that supports and enhances student learning.

I was proud to host a teacher-led professional development workshop at my school on February 17th, 2017 to commemorate Digital Learning Day (www.digitallearningday.org), a world-wide celebration of instructional technologies. Teachers volunteered to share 5 minute micro-presentations on their favorite classroom applications of technology. It was a resounding success and everyone enjoyed learning from their peers.
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Included in my list are technologies that I have implemented over the past couple of years, some which are currently being implemented in our school. I’m also including some more technologies that I have not yet had the chance to engage with but hope to very soon. 

Classting 

​This is a safe classroom social media platform similar in function to Edmodo. It is free software and simple to use. We use it to share notices and homework with parents and students, to enable communication between students, parents, and teachers, and to share and celebrate learning by posting photographs, videos, and podcasts. It has been a central place to host multimedia presentations and creations made by students using other technologies.

Classcraft 

​This is an elaborate, gamified classroom management system. Students create avatars like those found in fantasy computer games like World of Warcraft. Depending on the type of character they choose, they have access to ‘powers’ that allow them to influence the class. Misbehaviors result in their avatar losing ‘health points’, while positive behaviors gain students ‘experience points’ that let them upgrade their avatars with new costumes and powers.

WeVideo 

​This is a simple video editing app that allows the user to record and combine video clips and photographs, add post-processing effects and a soundtrack, and upload to YouTube. The free version has one ‘theme’ of post-processing effects and one soundtrack. A yearly subscription costing $5 per year unlocks about 10 or 15 more themes and songs. We used it to create video records of classroom activities to share on our social media platform for parents and kids to view.

Stop Motion Studio 

​This is another free Android application that students used to create stop motion animation videos of their favorite scenes of their novel study books. The interface is very simple and involves taking many photographs. Later on, soundtracks can be added in-app or after the fact in video editing software.

Open Broadcaster Software 

​This open-source software was used to create screen casts of student slide presentations with voice-overs. They were then posted to our social media site for later viewing. The software is intended for live streaming, but we only used it to record our screen. I also used this quite often to create screen casts to demonstrate technologies to teachers and students in our school.

YouTube Video Editor

​Students and I used YouTube’s built-in video editor to edit and add soundtracks and sound effects to videos that we created. Videos were hosted on student’s personal channels or our class YouTube channel.

TodaysMeet

​TodaysMeet was used to create temporary chat rooms for backchannel chats during Socratic circle discussions in Novel Study classes. While a small group engaged in discussion about topics and themes related to the text, the rest of the class listened and posted responses and further questions that were projected for the speakers to read and respond to.

Plickers

​Plickers is an online/app platform that allows teachers to create selected response questions before class and display them for the class. Students respond by holding up a simplified QR code card unique to them supplied by the teacher. The orientation of the card determines the letter (a, b, c, or d) of the response they wish to choose. The teacher scans the codes of the entire class simultaneously using their smart phone camera. Results can be displayed in real time on screen. I used this for quick formative assessment on Monday morning to check if students had completed pre-reading over the weekend, and as an exit-slip activity at the end of some lessons.

Google Sites (new)

​Google Sites new interface is in Beta right now, and we used it a few times in class this year. I created a number of simple websites for students and parents to access curriculum content. Some students chose to create websites to present their work for various projects.

Weebly

This is another simple website creator that a couple of students used to create a class website to share with their friends in class. I host a personal blog and portfolio on one of their paid services. You are looking at it now!

PowerPoint

Students used PowerPoint numerous times throughout the year to create slide presentations to share with their classmates.

Google Slides

​Students used Google Slides to create presentations for class as well as one-slide posters and holiday greeting cards to share.

Google Forms

​Some students used Google Forms to create surveys for their Passion Projects this year, and I used it to collect responses from students in a ‘Teacher Report Card’ survey that I distributed at the end of each semester.

Minecraft

​Some students created 3-D models for their Passion Projects using Minecraft. They did this independently on laptops during class without support. The models turned out nice. They took screen captures to share them in their presentations.

Smartphones & Tablets

​Most students owned a smart phone and brought it to school daily. They used it for research, as a Korean-English dictionary, and to take photographs and videos and record audio. They also used them to interact with certain online applications like TodaysMeet.

PowToon

​This is a tool that I haven’t engaged with yet, but would like to. It allows users to create simple animated videos to share information. I’ve seen videos created by colleagues and others online and they’re quite good.

KidBlog

​We’ve just begun using student blogging and e-portfolios this year in the Junior grades at my school using the KidBlog platform. It costs $40 per year for a teacher account, or the school can sign up for an ‘Admin Pro’ account for $3 per student. This allows kids to have an e-portfolio that will follow them from class-to-class, year-to-year. The interface is pretty simple, and teachers can vet posts before they go live. It also allows teachers and students to choose whether each post is private, shared with the class, parents, other selected classes, or the world.

ActivInspire

​We’ve just had smart boards installed this semester, and I’ve had a chance to play and learn from a colleague about the ActivInspire software platform. It has some powerful tools to use with a smart board, and could be very useful in class to have students interact with the smart board.

Smart Board

​I don’t have any experience using smart boards in class, but we’ve just had them installed in our school this year. They are certainly convenient to interact with compared to a TV screen projecting the computer. I look forward to seeing how students can interact with the technology.