ED TECH | apassionforteaching

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A Passion

for

Teaching

Ed Tech Tools

Sharing Tools to Facilitate Learning.

Technologies have opened many new horizons for learning and teaching, well beyond the classroom walls. Here are some common issues many of us have faced in our classrooms and ideas on how ed tech can help us overcome them.

How can I get my students to prep for class?
How to create authentic written assignments?
Tools for students to share each others' contributions.
How to introduce retrieval practice in class to reinforce learning?
Tools to make content videos.
Alternatives to written feedback.
Best tools to share course materials with students (and often a lot more).
How to create more time in class for practice and applications?
Students too can curate content.

How can I get my students to prep for class?

Google Forms, quiz

Ask students to answer a short and easy quiz on the material they read, watch or listen to for the next class. You can see who answered, their score and the number of attempts.

Kahoot!, Socrative

In class quiz games. You can check who has prepared for class and it will encourage students to prepare as no one likes to be last.

In class quiz games. You can check who has prepared for class and it will encourage students to prepare as no one likes to be last.

See 'Getting Students to Prep (and a lot more): the new art of in-class quizzes'

How can I create authentic writing assignments?

Google Sites, Wiki

Have the students create a website and post their findings.

See 'Making assignments more meaningful: creating a shared website in class.'

Wikipedia

Ask students to review an Wikipedia entry and you can follow the changes they made when you look at the history of the post.

Tools for students to share each others' contributions.

Padlet

Padlet is like a pinboard on which all students can pin their answers, favorite website, example, etc. The professor and/or students can comment on other people’s posts.

Since writing this, Padlet became paying, although you can still create a up to 3 free walls (you can re-use them as often as you want). See below for alternatives.

Lino, Wakelet, Dotstorming, Scrumblr, Pinside, Pinterest

Alternatives to Padlet.

Google Sites

Create a Google site for your course. It is very easy and takes not time (at least to create the website, creating the content is something else...). Students can then post their work on the site.

Google docs or Google Slides

Create a shared document on which each student can add their contribution.

How to introduce retrieval practice in class to reinforce learning?

Kahoot!, Socrative

Have a quiz on last week's (or last month's) topic.

Socrative

Exit ticket: ask students to remember a major point of the class, or write a point that was not well understood before leaving the classroom.

Tools to make content videos.

Screencast-o-Matic

Without downloading any software you can make a short video (up to 15 minutes) of whatever is on your screen and record your explanations.

Explain Everything

You can draw, use a presentation, show a video and add your voice over the visuals.

Power Point or Google Slides

Record your explanations to your Power Point of Google Slides presentations. Probably the easiest way to make a video if you already have a presentation ready.

Alternatives to written feedback.

Screencast-o-Matic

Show the student’s work on the screen and record your feedback. I was surprised at how much the students liked it.

Kaizena

Add voice comments to Google docs, Word or PDF files. You can even link to a ‘lesson’ you have already done so you don’t have to repeat yourself when students make common mistakes.

Best tools to share course materials with students (and often a lot more).

School’s Learning Management System

(Moodle, Blackboard, Google Classroom)

Google Sites, Wix

Best option as the students know their LMS, everything is in one place, and they get reminders about what it due.

Create a course website to post your content, syllabus, links to videos, etc.

How to create more time in class for practice and applications?

Videos (Screencasting-o-matic, Explain Everything, YouTube)

Create your own videos explaining the theory and let the students view them at home (with the added advantage of seeing them when and where they want, and at the speed that suits them best). You no longer have to cover all the theory in class, just answer the questions and go over the tricky points as you work on applications.

Students too can curate.

elink.io

You can create a webpage with links to the different elements of your curated list and a short comment on each.

Pinterest

Many students will already know Pinterest so it will be easy for them to create a new board related you your topic.

Tools to help create learning activities

LearningApps.com

Easy to use tool to create different types of games such as matching, MCQ, the Millionaire game, matching on an image, line, etc.

Hubs Mozilla

Create, for free, 3D virtual spaces. They are really easy to create. The spaces can then be used for a poster presentation or escape game, for example.

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