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This is the first of a regular column in PAGE ONE featuring technology-in-the-classroom advice from tech-savvy Georgia educators.
Technology in the Classroom:
Easy Tech Tools to Facilitate Meaningful Student Work
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Megan King, a Spanish teacher at Houston County High School (Warner Robins), is passionate about engaging communities as well as students. King represents the PAGE Teacher Academy on the PAGE Board of Directors and she has presented at PAGE, SPAGE and FEA conferences. You can follow her on Twitter @profeking. 24 PAGE ONE
eaningful work is the key to student engagement. Our students have ever-advancing devices that instantly connect them with people and information. Therefore, the work we design must honor their lifestyle of efficiency and connectivity, as well as their intelligence. By designing work in line with the way students use technology, we build relationships that bridge the gap between accessing information and mastering new skills. Here are a few easy-to-use technologies that powerfully facilitate student work, feedback and assessment: Polleverywhere and Socrative enable you to broadcast closed- or open-ended questions for immediate feedback on student mastery. These websites are great for students with limited data access because students can respond via text message. Try using open-response questions as writing prompts or topic lead-ins. Quia and Quizlet allow you to build and share online games and quizzes specific to unit content. Quia can even auto-grade your quizzes in real time. Mobile friendly Quizlet gives students many ways to manipulate and master content. QR codes from easy generators such as goqr.me give students quick links to websites, documents or even text. With Remind101, teachers can send text messages to distribution lists. You can broadcast homework reminders, study links or “don’t forget to bring” requests. It’s easy for students and parents to sign up. Put Your Heads in the Cloud
Encourage students and colleagues to the move to the cloud for collaboration and storage. Using the cloud simply means that you create and save files through the Internet instead
of from a computer. Creating a spreadsheet in Google Docs or a presentation in Prezi, for example, is cloud-based work because it can be accessed from any Internet-ready device. Cloud-based tools such as Wikis or DropBox make easy work of distributing assignments and collaborating. Many of these tools also track user access and modifications, helping to keep students accountable. Broaden the Audience
Widening the audience is a great way to relate content to students. When you provide content as part of social networks used by students, the content’s value can grow exponentially. Real-time online communications sites such as TodaysMeet and Twitter make it super easy to provide students with an audience to expand on classroom conversations. Sites such as edmodo.com, kidblog.org or edublogs.org give you a safe way to instantly affirm student work through commenting. Students can create a blog to track current events, document research, journal or invent characters. Fellow students can be the audience. Educators, of course, must always be mindful of student age groups as well as district and site policies designed for student safety. Commonsensemedia.org can help you and your students make good decisions for learning and creating in the digital world.
The Power of Digital Storytelling
Digital storytelling is a terrific way for students to create personal or content-based stories. This median can be especially appealing to kids who love art or to those struggling with written literacy. Digital media enables us to “unfold a highly January/February 2014
