Freebie Man Giveaway: 21st Century Skills
Submitted by Michael on Tue, 01/12/2010 - 2:00pm
"The authors have done nothing less than provide a bold framework for designing a 21st century approach to education, an approach aimed at preparing all of our children to successfully..." Read more here
Contest Rules:
Suppose you have a non-tech teacher. What tech tools would you suggest they start with to integrate technology into the classroom? Post up to 3 suggestions in the comments field below. Once more than 20 people have commented on this blog, we will select a name at random to win the book! We'll contact you and ship it on out...no work on your end.
Comments
1) MS Photo Story - Easy to use, free, kids love it, applicable to all content areas
2) Wikispaces - Great for group or individual projects, free, easy to use, uses are endless
3) Blogging - excellent source for PD, expands class time to 24 hrs, promotes participation of ALL students, oh, and free
I would say:
1) Twitter/Plurk - for PLN
2) Diigo/Delicious - for compiling all those great resources your PLN gives you
3) Google docs - the possibilities are endless!
1. Every teacher needs a document camera with a projector. It's easy to use and most teacher are willing to try it.
2.Sound Field Amplification systems help the teacher use a natural voice to communicate with children. The system helps all students hear and stay focused.
3. Add a laptop to the teacher's projector/document camera and the teacher will be able to access great learning activities to share with students. Add an interactive whiteboard and it just gets even more exciting!
If the teacher is truly non-tech, I would want them to learn about using tech before trying. To that end, I would recommend:
1. twitter-best place to get exposed to the latest tech tools
2. ning-best place to ask questions both techie and non-techie and to help build a PLN
3. worlde-it is easy and fun, can be used for a variety of reasons and it is very non-intimidating
They would need to be simple to use and be of immediate and broad use. 3 I always share in my traininga are
-delicious
-animoto
-voicethread
Forgot to mention: they have to be free!
Google docs delicious and skype
1. Google - http://www.google.com/educators/tools.html - Google has internet search, educational search, free blog hosting, Google Docs, free web site hosting, and more. There is a huge amount of tools and resources available from Google for free for educators. There is also email, calendar, and task lists that are all free. These applications can help teachers and students.
2. Evernote - http://www.evernote.com/ - Evernote has a free account and is a great resource to take notes, clip information from the internet, and stay organized. Keep your lesson plans and other notes on here and have access to them from anywhere.
3. Tech & Learning Magazine - http://www.techlearning.com/ - this magazine has a huge amount of resources, links, and articles about technology and education. There are news articles, how-to articles, blogs from ed tech leaders, and reviews of educational technology, along with other links and resources. It is free to subscribe and you can get either print or electronic copies.
Tech tools I would suggest:
Using an interactive white board. Create a Jeopardy game, use the cool tools that come with whatever board you have to create some really awesome lessons for your students.
Get your PLN up and running! Join Twitter, find a Ning group or two, talk to your school library media specialist and tech teachers!
Use Google apps! Create a web page quickly and easily, create forms, upload pictures (using another must have...a digital camera), take students on a google earth lit trip, etc.
To help bring a non-tech teacher on board, there are many tools to start with. Understanding that this could be a new teacher, it would also probably be very helpful for these tools to be FREE. Of course there are many pieces of hardware that could help like an Interactive Whiteboard, or a projector, or a laptop...however FREE tools are going to help build a foundation.
1) TWITTER (or some sort of PLN) I was not a huge fan at first, however I don't know what I would do without it! I have learned about new emerging technologies, resources, tools, strategies,...and they keep coming by the hour, min., second.
2) Google Tools: Google Calendar to get organized personally but also with your team. GMAIL, Google Docs for COLLABORATION and presentations, Translate for translating a word-sentence-or even a complete web page, Custom Search,...the list goes on.
3) SKYPE: Although it is the 3rd in my list, it is probably #1 in terms of tools that I use. The Videoconference feature is outstanding and the chat feature is great, however you can also share files OF ANY SIZE immediately (Powerpoint/keynotes, Pictures, Videos). Skype an author into your class/library at a fraction of the cost or collaborate with other teachers/students (i.e. penpals).
4) I know...3 tools. #4 is a MUST and that is a willingness to try these new tools.
Introduce them to the free online bookmarking tool for teachers to post safe grade appropriate internet links for students to use that doesn't contain any advertisements. PageKeeper is one of the tools we use and is super easy to use. To check it out go to http://pagekeeper.teachingmatters.org/home
My link is http://pagekeeper.teachingmatters.org/link/851/list
After introducing faculty to PageKeeper they then were looking for a site that offered a few more features so we are now testing out portaportal (http://www.portaportal.com/). One of our guest accts. that supports 4th Grade Everyday Math can be viewed here: http://guest.portaportal.com/4th_lovett
I would also introduce them to the digital Flip Camcorders. Our teachers are sold on them. When faculty saw they could take quick movies and or have their students use them as well I knew we had a winner. Our 5th graders use the Flip software to take snapshots and and learned to edit the video within minutes. The Flipshare software was so easy to use that our many of our faculty use these videos as their weekly newsletters to parents since the Flip software allows you to share the movies online.
I'd have to say the 3rd easy tool that faculty all love is the document camera. It is very easy for them to pick up. The small Elmo allows them to hook up to their laptop to project from that and/or they can quickly press a button on the Elmo and it switches back to the document camera. They love this feature and it was very easy to manage.
1) Digital camera and some kind of online service - Take pictures of your class. Have students take pictures. Make them into printed books, use them as story starters, create artifacts of their creations. Take it a step further and upload those pictures for parents to see - use picasa, snapfish, shutterfly, or any of the myriad free online photo sites.
2)Document Camera/Visual Presenter and projector- I echo the suggestions already posted. Teachers can use the books and manipulatives they already have, but present them in a much larger format. It saves overheads, making copies for students to "follow along", and increases collaboration opportunities. Students can work in groups, write on "old school" paper, and share their work with other students immediately.
3)I would say interactive whiteboard, if cost was no object. The impact on teaching is inevitable. Even if the non-techie teacher uses it as a glorified whiteboard, eventually they will hear/see/learn about some cool think other teachers are doing using whiteboards. Having the equipment available removes the hurdle allowing teachers to implement ideas immediately.
1. Set up a web cam and load Skype. This networking tool is critical in a time of restricted travel and professional development budgets. This technology allows anyone to go anywhere virtually and work with anyone with the simple cost of a web cam.
2. Google Apps. This has changed the way my students and I collaborate. We use the calendar tool to track project dates, use the spreadsheets to maintain group information, and the forms tool to conduct exit interviews with the students. The Sites option makes it easy for students to create websites and for me to easily create a class site to share information. I also like that I can go into the revision history to see how the students are doing on collaborative projects and who is and is not doing their part.
3. Social Bookmarking. Sites like Delicious make it easy to share and collect useful websites. The tags make it much easier to track your own bookmarks and ensure that you always have access to the web address when you need it.
Here are three real-life scenarios I've worked through with educators.
Scenario 1: No More Transparencies?!?!?!
I did have someone show up sick to her stomach that the school was phasing out the old-school overhead projectors. She presented me a stack of folders of various papers and transparencies that were her holy grail to teaching and now, with two weeks before the start of school, what is she going to do?
Recommended solutions: Given the time crunch this wasn't the time to get her up and running seemlessly on PowerPoint, though this is our next step. We immediately turned to the document camera as our tool of choice. It was straightforward, our instructor immediately "got" the technology as it did remind her of her overhead projectors. We could also "take pictures" of her doc cam images for her to reuse, and she loves the idea of being able to insert these images into a word document with directions and notes for students who miss class.
Result: Successful use that has fostered interest in digitizing more materials. We are selectively working through powerpoints of her lectures and she wants to be able to post some online even.
Scenario Two: Inspiration/Kidspiration as a productivity tool. Mind mapping software is fabulous for visual learners, and we can do a lot of great things beyond creating diagrams with these tools. For tech newbies I try to find their "What's in it for me" hot button, and if I can show them how I've saved them time --they love it. I often show folks how to create a worksheet or printable fill in guide using Inspiration & Kidspiration (or other mind mapping tool). Showing them the benefits of creating elegant handouts/forms, guides, etc is nice baby-step for them to continuing growing to using more tools, and eventually online tools. It gives them a sense of control and success in a very practical and functional way.
Scenario Three: Collaborative Journaling/Blogging
An instructor was literally drowning in spiral notebooks. Her Literature students were required to journal their observations of current events and how they correlated to some of their readings. Not only was collecting the notebooks a nightmare, but then the students were without their journals while she read and gave them feedback. Some students remarked that sometimes they have an idea but didn't have their notebooks with them to record them. In fact, some students had started texting each other observations but didn't have a way to share them broadly.
Enter the Collaborative Blog. Other than having students email papers to her for grading, the class utilized little technology to-date. Working with an instructional technologist, we set up a class blog where all of the students were contributors and could enter their posts and observations. What the teacher quickly found was that she did not have to bare the burden of responding to 20 individual entries, but found the students commenting to each other, and a richer dialog emerged. And, no more spiral notebooks! She admits she fumbled around a bit, but she credits her success to being open with the students that this was an experiment, and they helped her through learning the tool and improving the assignment for the next class.
1)Projector with document camera. Even the non-tech person loves the opportunity to demonstrate and project anything larger than life.
2)Join Twitter to network with other educators and to be inspired without much effort.
3)Start a blog, like at Blogspot, to simply post homework assignments and then develop it into an opportunity to share student work, respond to current events, etc.
1. First, and easiest - a document camera. Show things to a class (large or small), zoom in and out. Make the small large enough to see and learn from.
2. Start using a FlipVideo camera. Simple, easy and remarkably powerful!
3. Create a class blog or wiki.
Use Discovery Education/TeacherTube/YouTube/PBS.org/ etc as places to find videos to show to the students either from one computer or using a projector.
Let the students show you what they know and have them use draw tools to make a diagram--ie the parts of speech.
Search the internet for sound game sites and feature one each month or every couple of weeks in the classroom.
Interactive Whiteboard would be the #1 tool. Most applications can be run from them along with notebook where you can embed things. IB's should be used with an application which can be engaging for students as well as lessons designed to meet critical thinking levels, include assessment, and serve to differentiate instruction.
I would suggest they create a wiki for their class for the students to access for classroom information.
If their school has it, I would suggest they start using Senteos (or some other polling software) to get instant feedback from student knowledge.
And, lastly, I would suggest that they get on Twitter and start building their PLN. For a classroom to have technology, the teacher has to start seeing it's wealth and the best place for that is Twitter!
I would suggest a video. Then perhaps, have students create games for each other in what2learn.com or perhaps have another teacher/previous student, show them how to use a free content creator from contentgenerator.net and make a Teacher Invaders or Fling the Teacher review. They'll eat the games up- and the teacher will see enthusiasm.
Then perhaps, ask the class if they were to have to do a project on the subject- what would be their top 5 tools- and take it to a vote- everybody chooses 5 tools. Only the top 5 prevail. Let them use what they want BUT make them have to learn in small groups that they choose this time. Anything from a Maya Angelou-type summarization of Jane Eyre- in a podcast to a glogster about serial killers. Even a stop and go animation of Julius Caesar. She needs to feel the enthusiasm- and see the results.
I would think that the 'change-up' in the teacher& 'his/her' curriculum would be exciting enough that the kids will want to prove what they're good at. This should be proof that it works. And if it works, a teacher will find a way. If he/she's a true teacher.
Let the students lead on this one- and the impression it makes should be enough that this teacher will seek out other teachers and truly have an idea of what's the end result is supposed to be.
First, I would recommend a site for social bookmarking and searching. I use both Portaportal.com and Diigo.com (Education group.)
Second, voicethread.com - there are some really great example of what people have already done that the teacher can pull up and use. Then when they are comfortable, the can create one with their own students.
Third, Google Earth. There is a lot you can do with it, but it can be used at a very basic level in the classroom. A motivated teacher can also find may instruction type pages for its use on the internet.
Post new comment