Category Archives: Educational Tech

Apr 23 2019
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Educational Tech

Become One With the Content!

Teachers all around the globe are finding it harder and harder to engage their students. With the current youth engaged continuously on their devices, having to come into a classroom, sit quietly, and listen to their teacher talk about concepts that seem foreign to them seems almost comical, but we continue to do it.

Image result for bored student

Lucky for us, the future of education looks much more engaging as technology continues to advance. Virtual reality is the new hot spot in schooling and seems to be spreading like wildfire and for a good reason!

What is Virtual Reality

Wired has a great article on virtual reality that ultimately encompasses all aspects of the software that you can read right here! However, in short, virtual reality (VR) is a false reality that is computer generated. The most common form of VR is a headset that projects images through the eyewear that makes the user feel that they are immersed in whatever ‘reality’ they are experiencing. Virtual reality is used for gaming, entertainment, and now, learning! The two leaders in VR are Oculus and Vive.

So What!?

Virtual reality is one of the most engaging pieces of technology out there today as the user is completely immersed in whatever it is that they have chosen. Because of the high level of engagement that VR provides, it is an excellent resource for education. Teachers who have the ability and resources to implement VR in the classroom have the luxury of engaging their students on another level. Imagine you are learning about the Battle of Gettysburg in your history class and instead of reading it out of a textbook and watching 30-year-old documentaries about it, you are actually standing in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania watching the Confederacy and the Union fight. Imagine shrinking down to the size of a red blood cell and traveling through the human body to learn about the circulation system. With virtual reality, these types of adventures that seem to come right out of The Magic School Bus can happen in your own classroom!

Watch some videos of classrooms that have VR in their classes and listen to how well the students react to it!

The reason why this technology is so engaging is that it places the students in the content and doesn’t require them to have background information to conceptualize sometimes abstract concepts. This technology supports a teaching technique known as embodied learning which is a style of teaching that involves the whole body with learning.

 

What do you think of VR? Would you implement it in your classroom? Let me know in the comments down below!

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Apr 15 2019
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Educational Tech

Digital Storytelling App: StoryboardThat

This week, I tried out a new storytelling program to see how it works and I will be reflecting on my thoughts in this blog!Image result for storytelling

Storytelling

For thousands of years, storytelling has been a way of communicating for humans and over time the way we tell our stories has changed. Here is a quick video on teaching storytelling in the classroom.

Storytelling is an extremely important skill for students to have as it enables them to get their message across to others in a structured fashion. In today’s world, storytelling has evolved away from just written or verbal stories and now with the help of technology, stories can be told in many different fashions.

StoryboardThat

The Good!

The program I chose to use to tell my story was called StoryboardThat. Here is a link to the website so you can check it out for yourself! This program allows users to create a comic strip like storyboard by using premade scenes, characters, speech bubbles, infographics, and more! Users are able to click and drag these tools to different parts of their comic strip and insert text to give the context of the images. When using it myself, I found the program to be very self-explanatory and I did not need to do any further research on how to use it.  The scenes, characters, and images the program provides have plenty of options and should fit any kind of story the user would want to tell.

The Not So Good!

The only downside to this program is that it only allows the user to create a comic strip that is 3×1 or 3×2 for free. Anything other than those two options requires the user to pay to upgrade their account. This could cause issues if teachers want their students to tell longer more detailed stories. The other small detail I found slightly frustrating when using this tool was that the characters were all standing and facing forward. There was no way to make the character positioned differently such as sitting, walking, or turned to the side. This limits the actions your characters are able to do within the storyboard.

Overall

I really did enjoy using this tool to tell a story and could see myself using this tool in my own classroom as a short warmup or cooldown activity to get the students thinking about their stories and visualize it in a comic strip.

My Storyboard

Below is an image of my own storyboard so you can see what a final product looks like. My story is about the journey I went through to get a new job as a server at a restaurant!

Let me know what you think of this tool and if you have any storytelling tools you like to use in your classroom in the comments below! Thanks for reading the blog!

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Feb 25 2019
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Educational Tech

My Thoughts on Twitter!

Hello readers! As I am beginning my journey of becoming an educator, I am experiencing many ‘firsts’, one of which is my development of a Personal Learning Network on this wonderful social media outlet known as Twitter! Throughout the process of starting to build my network through following other educators, participating in Twitter chats, and commenting and responding to other pre-service and service educators I am really getting to know the good, bad, and even ugly of Twitter.

Before I go into my personal thoughts about using Twitter as an educator, I will share a few videos below that you can check out about this topic so that you can familiarize yourself with it if you are not!

What are my thoughts?

In my opinion, Twitter is an AMAZING platform for educators and future educators to learn on. This is because you can make so many connections with educators with different backgrounds and experiences that may have taught them to look at things differently than you. This is helpful when you feel lost or unsure of what to do in certain situations. Twitter allows educators to help one another in times of need and give ideas.

Having Twitter allows an alternate form of instant communication in which the sharing of information and ideas is nearly seamless. It allows teachers to ask a question and instantly receive a response. Twitter also has such a great bank of resources posted by education leaders and information gurus such as videos, articles, blogs, and programs that you can make use of.

Being that it is a social media outlet, Twitter also is versatile in that it can be accessed on a computer, tablet, or phone. This allows for even greater access to the wealth of information.

How have social media space conversations affected the way I think about learning?

Through Twitter conversations, I have spoken with educators across the world. We have talked about different subjects such as motivating students, being authentic in the classroom, the importance of social-emotional learning, the list goes on and on.

Here are some snapshots of conversations I’ve had with other educators.

In this post, I speak with Marvia Davidson @MarviaDavidson about how important it is to foster resilience in our students through authentic motivation!

In this tweet, I am responding to an article a classmate shared and how important it is to connect with our students

In this photo, I am responding to the #edumatch Twitter chat about how we bestow a love of learning in our future educators but also students in general

Not only have I greatened my teaching philosophy by participating in educational chats and responses, but I have also gained knowledge of specific practices and strategies to be used within the classroom. For example, after reading an article shared by a fellow classmate, I learned about the TAG response strategy that requires students to ask questions of their peers work and give constructive and kind responses. I also have learned about the importance of a morning meeting routine in the classroom and how it can increase student’s moral and feeling of belongingness in the classroom which are two very important things!

There has to be something you don’t like?

I can honestly say, after only a few weeks of using Twitter as a PLN, I have no complaints. I am not an expert in social media outlets and cannot say for sure that Twitter is flawless, however, I can say that Twitter has so many benefits for current and future educators so I highly recommend!

 

So after reading this what are your thoughts on Twitter as an outlet for educators? Comment down below

 

Thank you for reading my blog and join me on my journey in becoming an educator by following me on my twitter @alexhend_educ98!

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Feb 10 2019
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Educational Tech

Engaging All Students through Google Slides and Pear Deck

Google Slides can be a great resource for educators to present new and difficult content. It is a celebration tool that allows teachers to share outcomes and information with students, parents, other educators, and administrators. Google Slides allows teachers to create colorful and appealing slideshows that contain different types of media such as pictures and videos to keep the students interested. However, no matter how beautiful and interesting you make your slideshows, there are always some issues that arise when teaching through these presentations.

Image result for slideshow

Here are some pros and cons of presenting new information through this type of outlet:

Pros
  • The teacher can incorporate multiple forms of media within one slide to maximize differentiation
  • The teacher can organize slides in such a way that allows the students to best understand the content
  • The teacher can add important notes and facts on the slide and elaborate while instructing
Cons
  • The teacher cannot ensure all students are being engaged at all times
  • Students may feel nervous to interrupt the teacher if something is not making sense to them
  • The teacher cannot stop to check for understanding for each concept easily

The cons of presenting with this type of outlet are daunting because as a teacher it is important that you are ensuring all of your students are receiving the content that you are delivering. However, luckily for us, there is a program that can help with that!

Pear Deck is a Google Slides add-on that allows teachers to add quick formative assessments and engaging questions throughout their slideshow that the students can answer on their own devices. This tool allows teachers to instantly check whether or not the students are engaged in the presentation and also who is and is not understanding the content. What a great tool!

Click here to go to Pear Deck’s Website!

Here is a link to a lesson plan including a powerpoint that a teacher could transfer into Google Slides and then add any questions they wanted to throughout to check students understanding.

Below I included a video on how to get started using Pear Deck in your Google Slides!

Let me know what you think of Pear Deck in the comments below! Do you have any other ideas on how to keep your students engaged in the process presenting slideshows? Thanks for reading my blog and if you want to see more of me follow me on twitter for updates on when I post on my blog and more! @alexhend_educ98

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