WHERE ARE YOU IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM?
Are tech tools improving your teaching or just a distraction? The quiz below will rank you on our technology integration scale and provide you with smart tips to extend your tech comfort zone. Get started! – Take the 10 question Quiz and see where you rank! It takes about 3 minutes to take.
Ok, I just took it and I am an All-Star Advanced, Yippy Skippy!!!!!!!!!!!
All-Star (Advanced)
You are a wired wonder, comfortable adding a technological dimension to your teaching, learning, and life. The challenge is now to keep up with the pace of innovation and your student’s accelerated mastery of digital tools. Plus, how do you bring your school colleagues along with you? How do you bring like-minded folks into your school community? Click these links and get pro-active:
- Share your wisdom and help spread the word in one of Edutopia’s groups:
Multimedia Literacy
Online Learning
Technology Integration (Elementary)
Technology Integration (High School) - Explore how technology integration can give students a more personalized learning experience.
- Try using screen-capture software to explain a difficult concept and post the video on YouTube so your students can review at their own speed.
(See this example math video.) - Check in with other Twitter-savvy teachers for new ideas. And tune into the weekly #edchats, held every Tuesday at 12 p.m. EST/5 p.m. GMT and 7 p.m. EST/12 p.m. GMT.
- Don’t let the budget stop you. Learn how to find and write grants so you can get the funding to support important technology initiatives at your school.
- Help students make constructive use of social networking.
- Go the way of the wiki and build online creativity and cooperation in your classroom.
- Use online simulations and games as teaching tools:
- Explore the world of Wii
- Find real-world games on environmental sustainability
- Save the world with games that tackle social issues like solving world peace
- Discover how avatars teach teens about self-image
- Get some inspiring lesson plan and new media ideas from other Edutopia students and teachers.
- Join a professional organization, such as the International Society for Technology in Education, that guides and supports what you’re trying to accomplish with technology in the classroom.
One Illinois school district will have teachers and students using iPod Touch devices in classrooms this fall. District staff received 15 hours of training on using the devices for individualizing lessons and helping students improve reading fluency by listening to their recorded voices reading aloud. “This is the way students are wired to learn, and we are looking at every method to make learning more engaging and stimulating for our students and teaching more exciting for our staff,” the district’s superintendent said. Daily Herald (Chicago)
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If you don’t have Google Earth on your computer,
visit http://earth.google.com/ to download it.
Become an Explorer
About 18,000 educators (including me) attended the annual meeting of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) in Denver, where some are predicting that the future of classroom technology will be hand-held devices and computer games. Teachers are attending training workshops on using an iPad in the classroom and integrating student cell phones into lessons. The Denver Post (6/29)
I have to admit, I was amazed at the number of iPads I saw, they were everywhere. I don’t know the statistics, but, I bet (just guessing based on numbers using in sessions I was in) it was close to 50% of the attendees were using an iPad.
I was totally blown away by the number of vendors and such with apps to use in the classroom for the iPads. The iPad is so darn new, that I really didn’t expect to see much development yet, but, boy was I wrong. I do believe it is going to be game changer for education! Search my iPad category, I have lots of posts with resources already.
Steve Jobs 1955-2011
