Simple K12 Webinar: The Right Tools for the Right Job: 30 Tools in 50 Minutes Presented by: Steven W. Anderson
The pre-recorded 1:00:03 webinar I viewed took me 3 hours to watch because I couldn't help but stop the webinar and investigate the tools Steven Anderson was teaching about. This webinar was extremely informative and fun as I went out and further examined these tools. Steven Anderson is the Director of Instructional Technology for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools in Winston-Salem, NC. I am thankful that I took part in his webinar, I believe these tools can help transform parts of my teaching.
The following are tools that I found to be of interest:
My Blog Voki A Voki can be used to create avatars using your own voice. In a classroom a Voki could be used for introductions, project presentations, assigning homework in a fun way, outline daily objectives. Teachers can create a classroom account to manages lessons and student assignments through Voki. I was fascinated by this site. I believe my students will love interacting with their avatars.
 |
This
tool allows you to upload pictures and create motivational posters,
magazine covers, newspaper pages, comic book covers, etc. I believe this
tool would be helpful to create classroom motivational posters with
students on them, trading cards with nutritional information on them and
what is new in health news articles. I created this poster of my pups
in under two minutes. It is quick and easily incorporated into a
classroom.
Creative Commons
The
Creative Commons website allows that user to collaborate, share, reuse,
remix work from and with others all over the world. People can share
images, documents, video, and audio without worry of infringing on
copyright laws. Creative Commons also allows educators to share and stay
up to date with the latest education materials.
Compfight is an image search engine that searches Flickr and Google with Creative Commons providing you with images to use in a classroom legally. The possibilities of this site are endless allowing a teacher to upload images for Power Points, Turning Point presentations, and class documents just to name a few. I typed in the word Physical Activity and found 1,984 images.
The tool call Screenr allows you to record up to 5 minutes of a screencast from your document presenter such as Microsoft Word or a Power Point and post the cast to your website. I would use Screenr to recap lessons, show work using a document camera or post information for absent students. This is another tool that I found easy to use and had my screencast recorded within minutes of logging on.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
- Demonstrate the understanding of how technologies can effectively promote student learning
- Reflect upon and demonstrate effective use of digital tools and resources
- Evaluate and use a variety of current technologies to enhance content instruction and to advance students technological literacy
- Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of safe, ethical, legal and moral practices related to digital information and technology
- Demonstrate an understanding of the use of adaptive technologies and other digital resources to personalize and differentiate learning activities for every student
- Evaluate, adapt and reflect on emerging tools and trends by participating in local and global learning communities and by reviewing current research and professional literature
Reflection
The webinar The Right Tools for the Right Job: 30 Tools in 50 Minutes has provided me with a tremendous amount of cool teacher tech tools to bring into my classroom. However, at the end of his webinar, Steven Anderson suggested picking a few tools and working with those tools at first, to avoid getting overwhelmed. Tech tools such as Voki and Big Huge Lab can be an amazing way to engage our students and get them excited about their own learning. These tools help the educator guide and inspire learning. I finished the webinar excited about the possibilities these tools can bring to my students and my classroom. In only two weeks of my EDU 533 class I have gained so much knowledge in the field of educational technology and I haven't even scratched the surface. I plan to share this blog with my colleagues and incorporate these tools into my teaching.
