I want to start off by saying that I thought that all of the groups did a fine job on their presentations. This blog is in no way an evaluation of the presenters and my only goal is to evaluate how I think I would or wouldn't use these tools in the future as a teacher.
I think that the most useful tool for me as a teacher in terms of organization was padlet. I am typically pathetically unorganized and having a space to organize lessons in a visual manner is extremely helpful for me. Google Drive is a useful tool to organize all of the materials that I need but it is more of a hard drive type organization system with folders and files and such. I like Google Drive and all of the different options that it has but it is nice to have access to a method of organization that allows me to visually organizations many different kinds of media. It's also a useful tool in the sense that I can share my lessons with students. If I have access to laptops in the future, padlet is also a useful tool for posting multimedia assignments and projects in one space for the class to see or as an organization method for them to turn in assignments to me. I definitely see myself using this tool in the future for organization and hopefully for student work.
Another tool that I think would be useful is Socrative. The ability to use formative assessments in the middle of class is a useful tool for assessing whether or not students are actually understanding what I am teaching them. If they aren't getting the concepts that I am teaching then there isn't any reason to move forward with the lesson. In order to understand concepts more deeply, students need to understand factual and conceptual knowledge and Socrative is a great way to assess this knowledge. I also like the fact that you can turn formative assessments into fun, team activities using this tool. To me, these would feel less like quizzes if I am able to work with a team in a competitive manner.
All of the tools that we have been exposed to through this assignment require the right amount of access to technology. It is hard for me to use these tools in my placement because it's almost impossible to gain access to laptops. Obviously padlet is accessible to me but only as an organization tool and not as one that I can use to collaborate with students. Let me know what other people thought about all of these tools. Can you see yourself using them in your career?
Dear Derek,
ReplyDeleteI agree that Padlet seemed very useful. That was my group's topic and at first when I was researching it for our lesson, I was worried that it wasn't going to be a very helpful tool. However, I was happily surprised at how useful Padlet is. I'm considering making a Padlet as my class website because it is so easy to format and you can post all types of files on it. What I am super excited about is trying to use it in my computer science class. This class is taught in a computer lab, so all the students will have computers and be able to interact with Padlets I create for them.
Katie