Digital Tools
Learning far and wide leads to the necessity for tools that can travel with us or span the distance. These digital resources are intuitive, tried-and-true in the educational community and my won classroom. Find the one that fits your classroom and style.
Good classroom technology integration isn’t about using the fanciest tool, it’s about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy for the lesson at hand.
The SAMR model, developed in 2010 by education researcher Ruben Puentedura, lays out four tiers of online learning, presented roughly in order of their sophistication and transformative power: substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition. The SAMR model was created to share a common language across disciplines as teachers strive to personalize learning and help students visualize complex concepts. It can be especially powerful during remote and blended learning when integrated classroom technology makes teaching and learning a more seamless experience for educators and students.
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Where do your lessons lie in the SAMR model?
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Here are some common classroom activities and how they can be modified to each level of SAMR
Its easy to work your way up the levels of SAMR with engaging tools!
This collection of tools can be used within a single classroom setting, but are also specially picked to help facilitate working with other people and classes around your state, country and the world! They are fun, kid-approved, and able to be interactive both synchronously and asynchronously, which is often vital to interschool communications.
FlipGrid
FlipGrid is a force unto itself in regards to its capacity for connecting people in a meaningful and personal way.
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Prompts on any topic can be started by teachers or students, and explored through student video responses. ​ Students can add written or video comments on each original response, creating the opportunity for lively conversation in synchronous or asynchronous timing.
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Ways to personalize the FlipGrid experience for students are numerous. They can change their appearance through filters, added stickers, digital hats and more! Videos made through FlipGrid can have captions or be interpreted broadening the groups that can create boards together.
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FlipGrid can be used to connect students within a classroom, but why not try extending beyond the borders of the classroom? There are several online communities of teachers who are looking to connect their classes with yours. Educators across the world use #GridPals across social media to find partner schools. Who will be your next set of penpals?
Bulletin Boards
Digital bulletin boards provide a way for students to share , look at, and respond to each other in a see environment. A board activity can turn into a wonderful intro or exit ticket activity, a spot-check for understanding, peer-review, or idea collection.
Padlet: Padlet is a live, interactive bulletin board that can be used as preparatory activity, peer review, post-assessment and more! Wonderfully easy to create for teachers, and easy to navigate and post for students, the webpage and app are very intuitive. There are several layout designs and styles including timelines, bulletin boards, and maps. When creating their posts, students can add images, links, video clips, audio recordings and more. Each post allows for peers to leave comments and discussions in real time making this an interactive opportunity for both synchronous and asynchronous activities.
Jamboard: Jamboard is a bulletin/whiteboard application available in the Google apps universe that can be used as a website or app. It is impressively collaborative tool that allows to students to post sticky notes like many other bulletin boards, but also allows for drawing, freeform writing and incorporating various types of media. Another nice feature is how boards can be linked together, presentation style, so learning and collaborating through them can be progressive.
Mapping
Maps are a fascinating way for students to investigate the world. Today's digital mapping not only contains highly detailed data or geological features, but has made the jump into including cultural, political, and environmental data as well. Students can spend hours exploring and creating maps to enhance their learning across the curriculum.
Google Maps: Google Maps is nearly ubiquitous in today's society. However, it can do so much more than simply get you safely to your destination. Like most Google apps, Maps can become a powerful collaborative learning tool. Streets and historical sites can be seen using Street View, allowing students to virtually step into places new to them. Students can work together to make themed maps by creating informative pins. For example, students could research and pin places that have successfully implemented student recycling programs. Each pin could contain information about the school or recycling program.
Zee Maps: Zee Maps is another way for students to build maps together. Each map is themed, and can be as large (whole world) or as small (your city or state) as your project dictates. Students are able to create pins in any location, found by name, address, or even coordinates. Pins can then be personalized with images, links, written descriptions, or other file types. Students have created world maps sharing art and music from places they have visited or lived. They were equally excited to share their own pin, and see what their classmates
Gap Minder: Gapminder identifies systematic misconceptions about important global trends and proportions and uses reliable data to develop easy to understand teaching materials to rid people of their misconceptions There are numerous powerful ways to see stats about economics, population, environmental issues, gender gap, and more. In the map section students can choose from a vast list of data, and see it populated across the globe. It is fascinating to see the data laid out this way, teachers and students will have a hard time looking away.
Mapping the Nation is an interactive map that pulls together demographic, economic, and education indicators—nearly one million data points—to show that the United States is a truly global nation.
Video Creation
Student created videos provide a vitality to the ways information is shared. Here are a couple of apps that will allow for students' individual voices to be heard.
CLIPS: Clips is a spectacular little video editing app. You can film directly in-app or use previously filmed clips. Clips are not only easy to add together, but students and teachers alike will enjoy how creative they can be in personalizing their videos. You can add still and moving images over the video, intros and credits. The thing I love best is the built-in captioning tool that adds captions live to each video clip. Videos can easily be exported and shared into a variety of there apps.
FlipAClip: FlipAClip is a stop motion animation video creation app that allows students to draw out their thoughts, responses, and reflections. With good tutorials and intuitive controls, even non-artistic students will have a blast animating their ideas. Audio can be added, as well as background images.
iMotion: iMotion is a stop-motion video creation app that can be used in a miriad of ways in conjecture with several other apps on this list. iMotion works with the built-in camera to allow stunts to make small changes that will become an animation. Features that make this easy to use are numbered slides, adjustable frames per second settings. There is also an onion skin layer that allows students to easily line up with their previous shot to ensure a smooth animation.
Resource Collections
Use this collection of categorized links in conjunction with the tools listed above to create outstanding digital learning experiences for your students.
