Tech I'll Be Using In The Classroom - I Think

This post will be about the different productivity tools I think I’ll be using in my classroom.

The first will be some sort of desktop/laptop. With those tools, I can see myself using several applications and systems.

Calendar – I currently use Google Calendar for keeping family activities straight, and I can see me creating a new calendar just for my classes. That will give me a way to keep track of events from major (testing, vacations etc.) to due dates of assignments. If I am in a school with Google Classroom, I can also share the calendar with my students so they can see important things. I would also consider an organization app like Wunderlist.

Email – I can see that as being an important way of interacting with administration and parents.

Google – In this class and others in the program, I’ve learned that there is a huge number of things out there to help teachers. From lesson plans to work sheets to class room activities, I plan to honor my previous career as an engineer by continuing to use technology when possible as opposed to inventing it.

School District Systems – I’m sure there will be a school sponsored LMS which I will be using for reporting grades to the school, students and parents.  I’m also hoping there will be a school system that hosts teacher pages or the like. (I know these were available in my kids’ school.) I would use those as another way to communicate with parents. I know that sometimes parents want things pushed instead of going to get it, I also know that may people prefer to seek information on their terms (like we can do with an aggregator when creating our PLN). I will try to make sure that anything I use that relies on pushes (like Twitter) is the same info on the teacher page. I know I get frustrated when one source contradicts another or one is significantly out-of-date compared to the other. I’m seeing some useful aspects of Twitter in connecting with some of the kids on my team (see my posts about my learning project). But I’m also seeing some downsides. There is a sweet spot for posting – too many and the important things get lost and too few and some people might forget about you. I’m trying to post just a few important things for the players on my team, but I really don’t think it’s getting through. When we run a new drill in practices, even those that are following me don’t seem to know what’s going on.

Kahoot! – This seems to be a pretty engaging way to conduct formative assessments. I can see how this can be used to bring variety into the classroom. (see my blog post about this cool tool)

GeoGebra or similar – This can work for creating lesson examples or assignments for the kids. It can help to tech the geometry without fussing over the construction. (see my blog post about this cool tool). The graphing calculator functions can also be useful if I want to project the trace of a problem via the overhead to make sure all the kids can check their work on their own handhelds calculators (yeah, people still use those).

Some sort of presentation tool – many to choose from here PowerPoint, Google Slides, Haiku Deck, Presentrain or Visual.ly are ones I already knew or have learned about recently.  This tool would be used to project some things during direct instruction.

Remind – I’ve seen plusses and minuses in this app. It can be useful, but it can also be annoying. If a administrator uses it for everything, people can get annoyed for being interrupted so much. In my opinion, it’s best used for communicating changes in plans or schedules, not updates or actual reminders.

School supplied software linked to text – I know that APS is using this type of software through Pearson. In High School it was MathXLS and in Middle School it’s Digits. In each case, the software can be used for pretests, homework, extra practice problems and summative assessments. I’m on the fence with how much this will be useful in the classroom. The systems I’ve worked with have been very picky about format and almost test how well the kids can use the system equally to how well they know the material. There is limited ability for partial credit or teacher discretion if a silly mistake leads to an incorrect answer after doing the math correctly. But, these systems seem to really help take paperwork load off the teacher, freeing up time for higher level tasks. In addition, the kids will need to navigate the on-line type tests, as that is what the state uses for the high-stakes testing.

As I sit here thinking, I’m sure I’m missing things I’ll use. But just by doing this exercise, I see how much I will be relying on technology and software as I teach. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ll be staying true to my engineering roots by using technology to complete a task.