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Global Technology
Today we were asked to research virtual reality in classrooms. I chose YouTube 360 because with this you can visit any place in the world without the limitation of not being able to look around you. You can visit other countries, space, the ocean, wildlife, etc. It makes it much easier to demonstrate certain places to your students and engages them more because they feel like they are actually in this other place. You can even make your own videos (or find videos) to share with other educators that may work in places where they can’t visit other places. Most schools cannot afford to visit a new place for every lesson plan, but with YouTube 360 they don’t need to. You can visit any place in the world from the comfort of your own classroom, and even visit the same places as other educators. This helps with collaboration because more educators will have access to the same resources, helping them come together to create intricate lesson plans. I am a strong believer that the more people work on a project, the better the quality of it is because you have so many backgrounds and knowledgeable people working together towards a common goal, to better education for students everywhere. Bigger and reputable organizations such as National Geographic create YouTube 360 videos of places that teachers would not have access to otherwise such as Viking battles, the ocean, space, wildlife, Antarctica, etc.
This is one of many videos that explore different parts and eras of the world. There are many creators that have made playlists with a variety of YouTube 360 videos for others to use and even share with others, the video above is 1/68 YouTube 360 videos. You can even combine this technological tool with other tools to create lesson plans and share with others. Some educators use GPT API to have it create some lesson and edit it to better fit your classroom, and even share with others. Here is an example of a teacher who created a lesson plan with AI and shared it on X for other educators.
The use of AI in classrooms has drastically changed how teachers can present information to their students and format lesson plans, and social media platforms have changed how much access educators have to new ideas and tools. It is important to research what AI you want to use with your students so you can use it to its fullest potential, as well as share with others who could better the work you have already started. AI and VR can make learning better, and it is important that we, as educators, know how to properly use these tools to give our children (and children in other parts of the world) the best education possible.
Virtual Reality Could be the Future of Education
Virtual Reality is quickly evolving and becoming a second world through our eyes. To be able to see different worlds and experience things through a headset can mean students can be exposed to more educational resources. Students can learn about other countries, anatomy, the ocean, and much more with one simple tool.
Students can take a quick trip to France in 40 minutes within their class period with a VR headset. VR allows the users to see different things easily, and very realistically. Virtual Reality can bring more engagement into the classroom as well because not only is it informational, but it is a fun experience for students. It can give the students something to look forward to in school. Virtual Reality allows students to see things in different dimensions, different countries, space… mostly anything you can think of. VR headsets can be very beneficial in the classroom.
In terms of Global Collaboration, students will easily be able to see into a different country and interactively see it themselves. Using Virtual Reality to teach students about other countries can be more impactful because the students will be able to see the world in their own eyes without actually being there, and it is very different than just looking at a photo. It gives the students more interest in wanting to see more of the world and learn about what is going on in different places.
Virtual Reality can be a great resource in the classroom for many different reasons. Schools should look more into these devices because the benefits and convenience of using them are unbeatable for what these simple devices can do!
Thank you for reading!
Nearpod – The Future of Technology in the Classroom?
Nearpod is one of the leading websites in creating interactive classroom experiences. The website has a wide library of over 22,000 pre-made videos, lessons, and activities from numerous educational publishers. Nearpod also lets teachers create their own lessons, with the ability to upload videos, PDFs, and slideshows to implement into virtual or augmented reality. These lessons are customizable, with over twenty different formats for assessments and media experiences.
Nearpod’s wide array of lessons, and ability to create one’s own lessons, allows for a near endless pool of opportunities for global collaboration and exploration. For example, in this featured lesson plan students are able to take a virtual reality trip to Hong Kong to explore the celebration of Lunar New Year and the traditions behind it, which also features an extensive lesson on the holiday as well as its impacts on culture in the United States. Thus, through lessons like these, students are able to immerse themselves into cultures and regions all across the world, and thus increase global collaboration through mutual understanding and learning about, and through, each other.
Overall, nearpod’s structure is very conducive to enhanced, or even transformative student learning, and allows for increased immersion into other cultures and places across the world, all without having to leave the classroom. The potential impacts a program like this may be the future of increasing global collaboration and learning in the classroom, even from an early age.
Resources:
https://nearpod.com/how-nearpod-works
https://nearpod.com/nearpod-library
https://nearpod.com/t/social-studies/3rd/an-introduction-to-lunar-new-year-35-L109601499
Excitement About Virtual Learning
For this week’s blog post I explored the WE Learning Center. This website provides many tools for educators to use to make teaching and learning better. A tool that I am excited to use are the workshops on the website. These workshops include educational information as well as games such as Bingo to better engage students in the topic of discussion. I am excited to use this tool because it can be added to a lesson plan or used as a lesson plan. Additionally, if I cannot apply any of the workshops to whatever topic I am teaching, I can use the workshops as a template for my lesson plan and for activities to do with my students.
The next virtual learning tool that I am excited to utilize is the teacher courses. These courses provide information provide worksheets for not only students but educators as well. These courses cover many different topics, and you can take the ones specific to things you may be unclear on regarding to teaching. Each course has a worksheet paired with to ensure that the educator thoroughly understood the information given to them. This website not only has tools to introduce in the classroom but also has tools to handle different and maybe difficult topics in the classroom.
This virtual learning center also has a video library filled with different types of videos to educate others. I am excited to use this tool when I feel as though someone else may present a topic better. Other people have different ways of looking at things so introducing new people to your classroom (such as the ones in this video library), which could help my students to learn how to look at things from a different perspective.
Innovative Tools to Make Learning Better
In this blog post I am going to be overlooking seven tools that could be useful in the classroom. The first tool that I am going to be discussing is called Google Classroom. With this tool, teachers are able to start video meetings, create classrooms where they can upload and grade assignments, post announcements, etc. Everything that teachers do in an everyday classroom, they are now able to do virtually from anywhere with the help of Google Classroom. Students are able to check assignments and they due dates as well as any feedback from their teacher. Overall, it takes all the most important elements of a classroom and makes it virtual, making it more organized and accessible to students.
The next tool that I will be discussing is called Google Docs. This is an application built into Google where you can create documents. This tool itself also has features built into it to make it easier to use. It comes with templates so you can just edit your information into an already built format. Its other features include typing with your voice, grammar check, keyboard shortcuts, using a braille display, customization, etc. It allows users to make any document their own and have features to accommodate everyone, optimizing how many educators are able to use it in their classrooms.
The third tool I will be reviewing is called VoiceOver. This tool was designed to make learning and reading easier for blind students. It can also be used to help students who learn better audibly rather than visually by reading. When using this tool, you are able to select the level of speech you prefer including speech, braille, text, announcements, and hints, all ranging from low, medium, and high. You will be able to choose the verbosity (how wordy you would like the voice over to be). In addition, you are able to select from two female voices and two male voices, as well as a customizable voice, truly accommodating everyone. Another feature called navigation allows you to use this voice over feature across the web and for any website of your choosing.
The next tool is National Geographic Kids. This tool provides games and multimedia to engage students in learning about animals, habitats, countries, and cultures. Students can explore this website and research different topics through magazines and other forms of media. There are also closed captions to make the resources more accessible to all students.
Another tool educators can use to make learning better is EdClub. This is a learning tool for students to learn typing, vocabulary, and spelling. It combines learning with games, which could engage more students as many of them would prefer learning through games rather than through worksheets and other typical learning techniques. Teachers are able to create customizable lessons through this application to create a lesson that best suits their classroom.
Google Meet is another great tool to incorporate technology into classrooms. With this application, teachers can host virtual meetings and teach through that. This was a big application used during COVID. Teachers can even screen share, put students into break out rooms for group assignments, students can share comments, etc. Educators can also use this to create a google meet with any special guest they want to talk to their class.
Pear Deck is an interactive slide show that presents students with information and asks them questions along the lesson to make sure that students are paying attention and understand the material given. Teachers can customize lessons with this as well as customizable learning checks. Educators can also upload their existing lessons and combine it with the tools in pear deck.
The last useful tool you can incorporate into your classroom is called Google Calendar. With this you can schedule when assignments are due and have it remind your students. You can also color code different reminders so you can better organize what needs to be done. This can be used with google classroom to send out reminders to your students as to when assignments are due and special events you want them to remember.
Empowering Students Through Innovative Accessibility Tools
In the dynamic landscape of education, accessibility tools play a pivotal role in ensuring that every student, irrespective of their physical or cognitive abilities, has equal access to learning opportunities. Let’s explore four groundbreaking tools that are redefining inclusivity in educational environments.
Rocketbook Beacons: Imagine transforming any whiteboard into a smartboard with ease. Rocketbook Beacons do just that. By integrating with popular cloud services through the Rocketbook app, these Beacons enable traditional whiteboards to become digital collaboration tools. This is a game-changer for note-taking and retaining information presented in classrooms. Students who might struggle with manual note-taking can now digitally capture, store, and revisit classroom discussions, ensuring no critical piece of information is missed.
Dragon Naturally Speaking: In the realm of assistive technology, voice-driven programs like Dragon Naturally Speaking stand out for their ability to empower students in creating, formatting, and editing documents simply by speaking. This tool is particularly valuable for students who face challenges in typing or writing, including those with physical disabilities or dysgraphia. It fosters a sense of independence and creativity, allowing students to articulate their thoughts fluidly and efficiently.
JAWS (Job Access With Speech): For students with vision impairments, JAWS offers a gateway to the digital world. This screen reader is crafted to enable users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. By reading aloud the text on the screen, JAWS not only helps in accessing information but also in performing various computer tasks, making digital learning spaces accessible to all students.
These tools exemplify the strides being made in educational technology to create inclusive and empowering learning environments. By embracing these innovations, educational institutions can ensure that every student has the tools they need to succeed and thrive in their academic pursuits.
( Grammar and Flaws checked and recorrected by ChatGPT 3.5 and Grammarly )
Reading Comprehension Hyperdoc
I browsed through different hyperdocs on X, and I found one made by an educator. She made five different hyperdocs, but I chose the one made to help reading comprehension. This hyperdoc provided reading comprehension strategies for teachers to give to their students. It has different steps that students can use to optimize their understanding of readings.
This is a very basic but informative hyperdoc. My past teachers have not used this hyperdoc exactly, but they used very similar ones to help my class and I with our understandings of readings. I remember having to follow each and every one of these steps and can affirm that if followed correctly, this helps with students’ reading comprehension. This makes sense because these steps force you to sit there and deeply think about the material instead of reading something and moving on without any thought. It properly separates and describes each step which may be helpful to other educators who cannot easily verbalize the steps for their students. I sometimes struggle with describing things step-by-step for other people so I know that I would definitely use this in my classroom as it is very easy to follow. The creator of this hyperdoc has four other ones for visualizing, inferring, predicting, and for monitoring comprehension. All five hyperdocs go together to really make students think about the information given to them and strengthening their critical thinking skills.
Reading comprehension may be more difficult to deal with because most of the work is up to the students. Resources and hyperdocs such as this one make it easier for educators to relay the skills onto their students, bettering education for the future. Bettering education is one step closer to bettering other world issues because change starts with our younger generations in the classroom. They are our future, and it is up to us to provide them with all skills necessary to succeed.
Hyperdocs: Click and Read
There are many ways Hyperdocs can be incorporated into a teacher’s lesson, but when you see an underlined blue text, you are most likely supposed to click on it. Hyperdocs are interactive applications, links, or sharing resources for students to use to navigate the internet easier. A link or Hyperdoc is an easier way for students to learn and surf the internet safely. They are specific links that lead the students to exactly what they need to be looking at, and clicking and reading makes learning easier.
Below is a video about what Hyperdocs are and how they can be utilized in education. In this video, there are also details about what a Hyperdoc can be, and they mention that it can be many things.
Hyperdocs are very popular for teachers to use in a lesson or PowerPoint and it is a very convenient way for students to be on the right track with their individual learning. It is an effective way of making sure the students are engaged in the lesson and students are also able to work on their own. It is important that teachers provide students with a lot of resources and Hyperdocs can be a great way to share resources with the students.
Thank you for reading!
Online Translation
Breaking Language Barriers
Computers have come a long way overtime and with advancements in technology came advancements in communication. With the help of computers and other electronic devices people all over the world are able to freely communicate with each other without the worry of a language barrier, because of applications like Microsoft Translator people all over the world can understand each other.
Benefits of Translation Applications
- No need for human translators
- Easily accessible translations
- Ideas from people all over can be spread and understood
Translator applications are the future of communicating with one another. By utilizing these applications the language barriers people have all over the world will never be a problem again. Ideas can be spread and understood by all without a human being having to rewrite and article or have a translator speak along with someone in order for them to understand what is going on. Translator applications are the future and the future is all that awaits us.
Childhood Education International Review
I chose Global Schools First – Childhood Education International because it is a resource for global education in grades k-8. I never really heard about this tool and decided that it would be good to learn about a new tool. This tool focuses on diversifying schools and implementing it into clubs, the learning curriculum, the school culture, etc.
One of their main focuses is sustainable learning. Sustainable learning “refers to educational practices that contribute to a continually evolving, healthy learning ecosystem in which knowledge is co-created and shared in a community.” This is especially important to me because my goal for my global goals project is quality education. Sustainable learning is one of the steps towards improving quality education because it works towards bettering education for everyone.
This tool also has a section in their website dedicated to courses. The main purpose of these courses is to help educators better their way of teaching and look at their students through a new light. Some of their free courses include “Webinars & Workshops Archive,” “Understanding the Impact of Trauma on Early Childhood,” “Integrating Social and Emotional Learning,” etc. There are a variety of courses that focus on very different topics, maximizing the number of skills that teachers can acquire. In addition, this is a global tool so there are courses in many different languages, improving quality education worldwide.