9 Digital Learning Tools Every 21st Century Teacher Should Be Able To Use The 21st century is a time of rapid change, and while the brain may not be changing (much), the tools we use to feed it are. This puts the 21st century teacher in a critical spot–of mastering constantly evolving technology and digital learning tools–the same tools their students use every day. So below, we’ve started with 9 such tools, but this is obviously just scratching the surface. This list is not meant to be exhaustive (obviously), or even authoritative (but rather, subjective). This is the 21st century, after all. Months after this post is published 2-3 of these tools could be outdated, and if this turns up in the Google search results of a query in 2018, they may seem downright laughable, but here and now, this is a fairly accurate litmus test of what the kinds of tools the average 21st century teacher can be expected to use and master. And incidentally, it pairs nicely with a related post, 36 Things Every 21st Century Teacher Should Be Able To Do. 1. 2. 3. The formula is simple.
FNO educational technology students schools libraries teachers parents staff development Storehouse - Visual Storytelling Multimedia & Internet@Schools Magazine The 10 best classroom tools for gathering feedback Getting feedback from your students can serve multiple purposes: it can help you understand your students’ comprehension of the material, it can give you insight into what teaching methods work or don’t work, and it can help engage students in their learning process by knowing they have a voice that is heard. Not only can feedback offer insight for both teachers and students, it can be an integral part of group work and classroom time, given the plethora of connected devices in the hands of our students these days. That said, there are a lot of classroom tools available for gathering feedback. You can poll students or have them create a survey for a project, use clickers and other classroom response type tools in real time, get feedback on teaching methods, and more. Twitter Sometimes, a particular tool ends up being awesome for a slightly different purpose than it was originally designed for. Socrative Verso Plickers Doodle Polldaddy Poll Everywhere Google Forms Infuse Learning Kahoot
Create Killer Presentations with Explain Everything Explain Everything is a whiteboard and screencasting app that makes creating interactive lessons a simple proposition. Its full-featured editing options and its import/export functions allow it to stand apart from the other competitors I tested. Read on to find out why the Explain Everything app’s educational focus, adaptability, and user engagement make it the best its kind. Explain Everything Review Background: According to MorrisCooke, the force behind Explain Everything, the app is a “unique interactive whiteboard and screencasting tool used by over 1.5 million students and educators.” The app is recommended for grades 7-12, but teachers of lower grades may still benefit from the app by using it to liven up lessons. Methodology: I began the evaluation process by downloading several popular interactive whiteboard tools for tablets, including Explain Everything V. 2.55. Pros: Integrate content from myriad sources and incorporate social media for easy sharing. Scores How Do You Use It?
81 Dash - A Nice Backchannel Tool for the Classroom 81 Dash is a nice backchannel platform that I learned about today during the "Smackdown" at Hack Ed 2014. 81 Dash provides a place for teachers to create chat rooms to use with students to host conversations and share files. Once you are registered you can begin creating rooms. In your chat room you can exchange messages and files. As the owner of a room you can delete messages written by your students. Students join your 81 Dash room by going to the URL that is assigned to your room. Applications for Education81 Dash resolves the complaint that teachers have about many backchannel tools. Backchannels in general provide a good way to hear from all of the students in a classroom.
10 Word Cloud Generators You Have Probably Never Tried A few days back, we looked at five great ways to incorporate word cloud generators into your classroom. There are obviously many more uses out there for them – but that is a discussion for another post. We’ve mentioned most of these before – in a post from way back when – so I won’t go into too much detail about each individual one, but we’ve added a few notable ones to the list. The vast majority of them work the same: plug your text into the box, select a few options, and you’ve got yourself a word cloud. If you do a quick search for word cloud, you’ll see so many different types. Do you have a favorite word cloud generator from the list below? Wordle Jason Davies’ Word Cloud Generator WordSift WordItOut Tagul TagCrowd Yippy WordMosaic AbcYa Tagxedo VocabGrabber
5 Ways To Use Word Cloud Generators In The Classroom Photo Courtesy of flickr and Sue Waters The popularity of word clouds remains pretty constant in education, and it’s not difficult to see why. They’re a great way for students to distil and summarize information. They help students get to the crux of an issue, sorting through important ideas and concepts quickly in order to see what’s important. However, it’s important to remember that the process of creating word clouds is just as important as the resulting resources. How to Use Word Clouds with Students Far from just an assessment tool, creating word clouds can be useful in promoting critical thinking, relationship building, and even as a great kick-starter. 1. As educators, we’re well aware that words are the building blocks of comprehension and cognition. Word clouds are an excellent way to help our students develop their vocabulary. This method is particularly useful when analysing characters in books. It doesn’t have to stop at characters, either. 2. 3. 4. 5. What’s Next?
The Backchannel: Giving Every Student a Voice in the Blended Mobile Classroom A backchannel -- a digital conversation that runs concurrently with a face-to-face activity -- provides students with an outlet to engage in conversation. Every time I think about this tool, I remember my student, Charlie (not his real name). Given his learning challenges, he struggled to keep up during class discussions. Long after his classmates grasped a concept, he would light up in acknowledgement and then become crestfallen as he had no way to share his revelation. At the time, we did not have mobile devices. TodaysMeet would have let teachers create private chat rooms so that students could ask questions or leave comments during class. Consider the students like Charlie who cannot process at the same pace, the ones unable to speak up over the din of the class, or those who want to share ideas to a point of disruption and need an outlet for their enthusiasm. Capturing Curiosity From time travel to stem cells, her students unleashed their ideas. Connecting to the Conversation
emaze - Online Presentation Software – Create Amazing Presentations Kaizena · Give Great Feedback · Voice Comments for Google Drive 20 Options for Real-Time Collaboration Tools About ETR Community EdTechReview (ETR) is a community of and for everyone involved in education technology to connect and collaborate both online and offline to discover, learn, utilize and share about the best ways technology can improve learning, teaching, and leading in the 21st century. EdTechReview spreads awareness on education technology and its role in 21st century education through best research and practices of using technology in education, and by facilitating events, training, professional development, and consultation in its adoption and implementation.