Education and Technology – How to Focus on Maximising the Teaching Opportunities

Technology can provide many benefits, including: a wide audience for student work, collaborative opportunities with people all over the world, access to experts, use of tools to deliver a message effectively, and tools to systematise complex processes.

Unfortunately we haven’t got to the stage where technology is available without hiccups yet. Often schools are hindered by lack of access to technology (not having one on one devices), frequent cuts to internet connectivity, popular and useful sites blocked by systems, and lack of skills – teachers and students.

I am committed to finding ways to utilise technology to enhance my teaching practices, not just look for gimmicks that fix a short term issue. To this end I will aim to make use of the following technologies:

  • Blogs – to provide a central storage point for access to links and resources, to provide information to staff, students and parents, to share work, to encourage people to respond to student work, engage a wider audience in conversations
  • Wikis – to provide opportunities  for students  to co-create, collaborate
  • Voki – to engage the audience, direct a specific message in an entertaining way
  • Powtoon – utilise an animation tool to communicate learning powerfully, engage audience (transform learning)
  • Scratch – to teach students coding language
  • Vimeo – to communicate using video
  • Animoto – to encourage students to use visual and auditory elements to communicate a strong message
  • Voice Thread – to use the power of visual, auditory and written messages, combined with people from various parts of the world
  • Diigo – to curate important articles, reference pieces
  • Edmodo – to communicate with students around the world
  • iPads – in the junior primary years – My Story, Explain Everything, Book Creator, Tellagami, QR Reader, Show Me, Skitch, Puppet Pals
  • Twitter – to encourage traffic to blogs, pose questions of my educational Personal Learning Network, access current information and diversity of opinions
  • Skype – to connect with others
  • Fuse – to connect synchronously with teachers in various parts of the world
  • Thinglink?? – gimmicky? or purposeful?

What else would you add to this list?

 

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