In the 21st century, teachers need to be up to date and current with the way the project information to students. Technology is a wonderful medium to use for teaching students information in a variety of ways. With activities like the ones described below, teachers can introduce topics, teach aspects of skills, practice skills, and review skills in many different forms so students do not notice it is the same information being taught in many different forms to ensure student learning. Here is a link to a site that has many different strategies to keep students' attention and keep them
engaged.
Some useful tools to use in the classroom are
PowerPoint,
ActivInspire, and
Glogster. All of these applications are free downloads or come with a typical computer software. This is great for teachers because they do not have to go out of there way and spend more of there own money (we all know that teachers use a lot of money out of their own pockets to pay for things for their students already).
PowerPoint is no longer just a presentation tool to be used by adult professionals. It can also be transformed into an interactive activity for students to complete by themselves or in pairs. This is revolutionary because the teacher no longer has to stand in front of the class and lecture. The students now get to explore and discover the information rather than have it handed to them. Through virtual field trips, students are having fun and learning at the same time. They will be excited to do work instead of dreading it. I will use this in the classroom by introducing a topic like aquatic life and have the students work in pairs to travel through the exhibits in an aquarium learning about each animal as the go.
ActivInspire is another tool that can be used in the classroom as a smart board activity at the front of the classroom. It allows for students to come up to the board and do activities in front of the class. This is great for students because it keeps them active and paying attention. It also helps them to learn through doing which is a very beneficial part of the learning process. In the classroom, ActivInspire can be used by giving a spelling lesson on the smart board. Introduce the section of spelling, like -ake words, have them practice writing them, recognizing them, writing them, and using them in sentences.
Glogster is a tool that serves as an interactive poster for students to explore. It allows for graphics, videos, text and other media to be on a page that can be linked to other pages also. This tool is great because the students can go through the webpage at their own pace on their on computers. Also, the teacher could send a link and have the students review the skills at home or outside of class. In a classroom, a teacher can introduce a topic, such as the
solar system. The students can click on different aspects of the solar system like the planets, the sun, and moon. Each aspect will bring them to a new page that has activities, games, videos, pictures, and information about the subject. This is a great way to introduce this topic.
