The one guaranteed constant in educational technology
is change, and the pace of that change is definitely accelerating. So as we
approach the New Year I thought it a virtuous time to reflect on this years
development in the use of technology at my school.
Blogger
Blogging has enabled both myself and my
class to publish for a real world audience our reflections of learning. When
starting out there was trepidation as many staff were worried about the amount
of posts they could do. Initially I worked with one other staff member to build
their confidence. We rolled it out to the other staff once they saw the
benefits of creating a constant flow of information to parents and students
through blogging.
Pic Collage
They say a picture tells a thousand words.
With this in mind we enhance to look and feel of our class blogs by embedding collages
created in Pic Collage. Pic Collage is a Top 10 mobile photo app. It is quick, fun and easy. Rotate, resize, edit and delete photos using simple, intuitive gestures.
Add text, stickers and backgrounds or clip your images with just a
few taps and drags.
Educreations
I often find students respond better to
feedback when it is personal and demonstrates what they needed to improve their
performance. Using Educreations I have been able to take a photo of their work
sample and then both physically and orally annotate this. I then create QR code
link this feedback and hand this to the student. Educreations also allows me to
create blended learning content to reinforce, extend, introduce or
individualize content for my students.
Blendspace
One
of the greatest discoveries I made this year was Blendspace. It is an
easy-to-use platform for creating multimedia lessons that students can access
online. Using a drag-and-drop interface, videos, text, links, images, and
quizzes can be organized into the grid to create the lessons. Content can be
pulled from Educreations, YouTube, Google and other online sources, as well as
your own computer or Google Drive. I then embed this into pages within the
class blogs to freely allow students to access these without the need of an
internet search.
Twitter
My go to for Professional Development. Twitter
has allowed me to be networked with leading educators from all around the world.
My PLN guides my understanding on current educational trends and developments.
Participating in chats gives me an hour of in-depth ideas on a particular
topic. Helping me see through the eyes of other educators their experiences and
findings.
Symbaloo
My book-marking tool. It is a customizable start page
that lets me add all the most important links in a format that is easy to use.
The webmix appears as buttons with icons or logos.
Scratch
You are able to read many articles about
Scratch; however, simply it teaches
reasoning skills and a basic understanding of programming that will serve
students well no matter what their future occupation.
GAFE – Google Drive supported by Hapara
Teacher Dashboard
We have been a Google Apps for Education
School for the last four years. In this time we have been increasingly utilizing
the power of this product. This year as part of our BYOT program we introduced
Hapara Teacher Dashboard. It allows teachers to manage and
organize the Google Apps in their classrooms.
Teachers
can see which applications students are running (or have previously used) and
can communicate directly with students and parents through the Google Apps
suite of products.
Hapara
also offers a Remote Control that allows teachers to monitor and control the
applications on students' computer (even from ipads) from any location. To
ensure that students are on-task, teachers can open the same applications on
all student computers and observe their work in real-time.
LMS
This year I have with different stages
worked with many Learning Management Systems. In younger years our students
have been using Google Classroom, our older Primary students have been working
with Edmodo and our High School utilizes Moodle. With all of these many of the technologies
mentioned above are embedded into to allow smooth work flow for both student
and teachers.
Camtasia by TechSmith
Similar to Educreations, Camtasia helps me
create blended learning instructional video content for my students. This
provides more time in the classroom to act in a one on one or one on small
group capacity with students.
Padlet
Padlet is
an online graffiti wall where teachers and students can have discussions, share
web links, post notices, collect feedback, or watch and share videos.
Minecraft
This year I successfully implemented a unit of work
on transport using Minecraft. It provided a real world 3D environment where
students created, designed and collaborated together on the systems needed to
provide a make believe island with a fully functioning transport network.
Where to from here?
With the onset of 1-1 devices I will move
further towards gamification of other units of work using Minecraft and digital
badges (points and awards for
completing certain tasks) provided through Credly. Twitter will also take a greater place with
class accounts established to gain a snapshot of student insight.
As it can be seen 2014 has been a wonderful
year of growth for our teachers and students. 2015 is shaping up to be a bigger
and more exciting year of technology integration.