I had the opportunity to join in on Monica Burns' webinar of "transform from Tech-sort-of to Tech-savvy." She explained how technology can transform teaching and learning, but that can sometimes be easier said than done. Monica explained four easy ways to make your classroom more tech-savvy. The first tip was to honor you students' curiosity. As a teacher, you want to find out what your students want to learn about and what their interests might be. The app Padlet, is a great tool to use to help kids share what they want to know, or their interests, all on a visual, interactive, app. This is a great app because it is more of a picture/visual tool that is better than having the students write sentences about their interests in a subject. The second tip was to create your own backchannel. This means you give your class ways to talk in real time, online. The app Today's Meet is a great app to do this tip, because it simulates a group chat, twitter, chat, or some kind of chat room. This can help teachers monitor participation, keep students accountable, and participate in something that the students will probably know how to do because they do so in their lives everyday. The third step is to turn students into movie-makers. You want to get your class CREATING. This allows you to look deeper than just content instruction. A great app is Spark Video because the students can share their creations/knowledge with a large span of audiences. Students can share with each other, the class, their parents, the school, etc. The bottom line is that they are creating instead of writing a paper. This encourages the students to express what they learn in different ways and this is super important. The last and final tip is to incorporate Virtual Reality into the classroom. This kind of scares me becuase I do not really enjoy VR. However, VR can be a great tool for students to share with one another and connect with an audience. Google cardboards can be purchased and this allows students to creat something and then share with everyone with VR. I am interested in using VR in the classroom so this was a good tip for me to learn about. This seminar was very helpful for me becuase it Monica explained how easy it is to be tech-savvy in your classroom.
