Tech Tools in Education: Are they helpful?
The main benefit for me in using technology in my classroom cannot be overstated. Mainly I am grateful for their ability to organize my teaching and make it accessible to myself and to my students. I love organization but by nature tend to be disorganized. The fact that all of the apps in the G-Suite for Education work seamlessly with one another makes it hard to discuss one specific app without blending into the others. For instance I love that fact that I can receive an email with an upcoming date involved and can respond and then quickly click on the google calendar and create an event and then just as easy click on the google tasks and start to add tasks needed to be accomplished before the event without leaving the gmail app. Then when teaching I can have an organized outline in my drive as well as a google slides presentation organizing the information to be shared with my class.
As an educator communication is key and with the G-Suite for Education I have so many options of technology tools that I can use to communicate with my class and with my parents. I can share docs and use comments, share calendars and provide opportunities for response and interaction. I can create and share forms, create a class in Google Classrooms, share files and folders from my Google Drive. And who know what tools they are working on in their labs to make my life easier and communicate even better.
With all of the data that I can receive from my Google classroom and Google Forms, I can use Google sheets to help analyze and report out on my findings. Which will give me directions to go in needing to differentiate my instruction using the tools in Google Classroom or Google Forms.
Professor Logan ( Lectures 2.1-2.8) included a dizzying amount of tech tools and settings that are designed to make the teaching workload more efficient. Professor Logan highlighted Google Calendar, Sheets, Forms, Drive, Classroom, Groups, Tasks, Keep and Docs all with a plethora of options, add-ons and settings designed to make life easier. My head is spinning and I am not sure where to start. Using Classroom, Forms and Docs greatly helps with organization as students create and upload their assignments. I no longer need to kill trees by printing out a plethora of worksheets and then carrying them from school to home and back again to be able to correct them and return them to students. Using these all digital methods with the use of a smart phone with the classroom app I now can grade anywhere and anytime. I can return their work with helpful comments and ask for revisions or can edit right on their google doc. It really is quite amazing to think about how much time is saved and brainpower is less distracted.
In the movie, What About Bob, the protagonist was reminded often to “take baby steps” . Edutopia agrees in their article How to Integrate Technology.. Educators can take this advice to heart as they think about incorporating these technologies into their classroom. They should find one tool and begin to integrate it into their classroom. Once successfully and comfortably integrated they can try another tool. Some tools are for direct instruction while others can be used to save time and to aid in organization.
Resources
How to Integrate Technology.
This really resonated with me because I am also a little disorganized by nature. When you walk into my classroom, you can usually find stacks of random papers everywhere. Usually, I know where to find the things I need, but the look of it in my classroom overwhelms me a lot of the time! Having everything in one place certainly does make it easier to find things and share with parents. I thought it was interesting to consider what else they might be working on to make our lives easier. :) With all of the tools introduced to us this week, I can't imagine what we are missing! Having access to everything at the tips of our fingers is also so incredibly helpful. I look forward to reading the article you attached. Thanks for your thoughts!
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