5 Strategies to Create a Technology-Infused Classroom

Many teachers believe that by just using a projector and a document camera they are integrating technology into their lessons.  Yes, these tools are important, but technology should also be in the hands of our students in order to fully integrate it into everyday lessons.  Here is a list of five ways that teachers can create a technology-rich classroom and impact learning in the process.

 

Classroom Management Systems

Edmodo and Google Classroom are two very well-designed Classroom Management Systems (CMS) that can be used to send messages, assignments, quizzes and grades to students all within the digital world.  Why spend hours at the copy machine?  You can create one document and then link to it using either application, and your students will have access to it from anywhere, on just about any device.  What a great way to keep your classroom open, long after the doors to the school have been locked!  Students really like these applications as well, and are drawn to their simplicity.

Online Assessments

Online assessment tools are a great way to gather quick and reliable data on how your students are taking in information.  These tools can also serve as a way to provide some individualized reteaching of concepts for those who may need extra support.

Sites like Kahoot, Quizlet, Socrative, and even Google Forms all offer fun and unique ways of creating quiz questions for students.  In some applications, teachers can provide explanations for correct or incorrect responses, that can help to reinforce concepts.  Answers are recorded for the teacher, and students receive immediate feedback, which is what they really need to internalize information better and for a longer period of time.  Most of these applications can be downloaded in a CSV file, that may be used for some online gradebook systems.

Google Ecosystem

The Google Ecosystem has a wide variety of tools and applications that provide career and college-ready skills for our students.  Using Docs, Sheets and Slides, students can work together, in a group, on the same document at the same time, allowing them to communicate, collaborate, think critically and create all within that document.  These tools are great for teachers as well, as the versioning component permits teachers to see how much work was contributed by each student, which can serve well for documentation purposes.

Twitter

As teachers, we are always looking for more ways to improve our craft, and Twitter is a great place to start.  Sign up for a Twitter account, and search for different forums and individuals to follow.  A couple of handles that I recommend are Kevin Honeycutt (@kevinhoneycutt) and Edutopia (@edutopia).  There are so many great teachers out there, it is time we connect with one another to help our students succeed even more!

QR Codes

QR (quick response) codes can used by teachers to manage class rotations, treasure hunts and provide informations.  Students can use them to add more details to digital journals, create interactive books or create video reports.  The free QR code creator site, http://www.qrstuff.com/ allows the user to create codes that link to websites, videos, images, email, SMS messages, phone numbers, and even informational text.  The possibilities are endless with what students can do with a QR code!

The five strategies listed above are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to online resources that teachers can use the in the classroom.  These are the top five tools that I use with my students, that help bring an energy and excitement to my lessons.