Technology Tools for Students To Know

 Welcome Again 

Today I am going to address two other issues regarding technology in education.

1. What technology tools are important for your students to know how to use?

2. What technology tools will best enhance your students project work and presentation?

Until now, we have learned and talked about the technology tools that teachers can use to enhance teaching. Students must know how to use these tools too, otherwise, the teaching and learning process would be incomplete.  

There are many interesting tools that students can make use of depending on what they might need. 

Nowadays teenagers but not only are surrounded by technology, they know how to use different apps and tools. However, it is important that they know how to use tools that serve the learning process. 

1. What technology tools are important for your students to know how to use?

Undoubtedly all the learning tools are important and very useful. However, I will distinguish some of them only.

Blog

A blog is a personal online journal that is again and again updated and intended to share with others. Blogs inspire students to clearly express their ideas. Most blogs also have a commenting feature, so that people can respond to one another's thoughts. Blogs also address the need to increase and expand various aspects of social learning. From my point of view, blogs are an effective means of gaining insight into students' activities and provide a way to share the knowledge and materials collected.

Wikis

Another tool is Wikis. I like Wikis for a couple of reasons. 

Technical skills involved in the use of wikis are low and most teachers have no difficulty in using the wiki platform.  With only a few steps, it is easy to create wiki pages. Regarding content organization, the wiki task helps develop their organizational skills. Besides, wikis facilitate collaborative learning.

Google Drive

Google Drive is simply a cloud-based storage option that gives us the ability to keep our photos, emails, and other files on their server.

But having extra storage is just the beginning.

Google Drive also comes with a suite of office tools :

Docs  Google’s word processor comparable to Microsoft Word

Sheets, Google’s version of Excel

Slides, the Google answer to PowerPoint

We can even share these documents and make edits in real-time so collaborating between teachers and students has never been easier.

2. What technology tools will best enhance your students' project work and presentation of the results?

I want to mention and highlight Prezi.

Prezi can be compared to Powerpoint, but the later is considered to be a little bit outdated.

Prezi is more appropriate for young people, students in our case. 

• Prezi presentation has zoom in and zoom out function which is very easy to navigate. If you are discussing a particular topic, simply zoom in your canvas with the information that you want to give emphasis.

• It is quick and easy to insert images, audio, and video. Photos can be inserted at any angle you desired. Users can zoom, rotate, resize, or edit a certain object.

• Presentations can be embedded into a webpage or blog.

• It allows user to customize their design pages by making them look like a real newspaper or a magazine article.

• Since it is a web-based software, working in any computer with an internet connection and Flash is easy.

• It is compatible with almost all web browsers and modern computers.

• It contains frames that allow users to group multiple presentation media into a single presentation.  

 As for the other tools their usage depends on the type of project and topic. 

Now  I want to share with you another website, that I find very useful and interesting for teachers. Below you will find the link to it as well.

BookWidgets

BookWidgets allows teachers to create a ton of different types of interactive content. Examples of each type of widget are available to use as a template to start out, and a tutorial walks you through the steps. There are 40 different widgets you can create that can be shared through a link, a QR code, an email, and Google Classroom. Simple assessments you can integrate include exit slips, quizzes, and worksheets. Kids can practice and review skills with flashcards, puzzles, or games such as hangman or bingo. Create a blended/flipped learning approach with personalized materials that can be easily assigned through your Google Classroom. When creating quizzes, select from over 30 types of questions for all content areas. Include answers in the setup so that quizzes can be self-grading and students can gain instant feedback. Differentiate digitally by creating versions of one worksheet and assigning it to groups of students in Google Classroom. The WebQuest widget is especially useful for a blended approach; within the widget, you can embed instructional videos, games, and quizzes.

https://www.bookwidgets.com/ 

Even though I have mentioned only some of them here, this doesn't mean that the other tools are less important. 

To conclude, whether technology is integrated during class time or after school hours, students are given more opportunities to interact with instructors, collaborate with peers and engage themselves in the learning process. Specific technology examples that have been shown to enhance student engagement include web-conferencing software, blogs, wikis, social networking sites and digital games.

Thanks! I hope you find this post interesting.🤭Ⓜ