Day 13 – @TeachThough 30 day reflective teaching blog challenge
Name the top edtech tools that you use on a consistent basis in the classroom, and rank them in terms of their perceived (by you) effectiveness.
This is a hard challenge for me, as I have already stated Edtech tools are NOT a predominate feature in my classroom. Our district does not have the resources to have tons of tech tools at our hand. I do use a projector and computer daily, sadly they are not in the hands of my students as frequently. Here are the tools I use the most in the order of effectiveness and value to my instruction and student learning.
1. Class Blog: I use this daily. Post my learning target, assignments, and videos. This is the entry point to my instruction. It is designed to keep the students and parents informed of what is happening in my classroom. If a student is absent, everything they missed is explained on the blog. Key resource for my students.
2. Remind: I use remind to help bridge the home to school gap. I send home a Monday message with the weekly vocabulary list, and learning target for the week. Thursday, I send a study guide and quiz reminder. Study guides for test an other reminders are regularly sent. Great tool to use to help connect home to school.
3. YouTube:As I tell my students, YouTube is the single most powerful learning tool around today. I use videos to introduce concepts, provide examples and hook my students. I can find so many wonderful video for anything I need to engage my students. I wonder what I did without access to YouTube just a few year ago (it was blocked). I try to model that if you don’t understand anything you can find a video to explain it.
These are my top 3. I do use more tools just not regularly. I have my students blog using Kidsblog, but not as often as I would like. I use Quizlet to help my students review vocabulary. I love the PhET interactive simulations. It would be nice if I could use them regularly. Access for my students is a huge issue. We are trying some BYOD this year so it might improve.
Sweat to Inspire 