Teachers:
Throw Away The Old Playbook!
What We've Learned...
Hello! This post comes to you from two Secondary English Education majors at Kansas State University. Our names are Katie Kohman and Joslyn Lang. This Summer, we've both learned a lot about educational technology resources available to us as future teachers. With that being said, we both know how important it is to utilize these resources and not to just stick with what we know. There are many types of resources teachers can use to spice up their lessons, including but not limited to, iPads, e-Posters (like this one!), Meograph, VoiceThread, infographics, etc.! Here, we will show you why it is important that we, as future teachers, utilize some of these resources, and how they are beneficial to our students. Teachers: throw away the old playbook! It is time to learn about technology.
As you can see above, we have utilized an infographic - just one of many tools teachers can use to make learning more exciting. As much as we wish we could take credit for creating this one, we can't. But we would like to share with you some of the statistics from it. These statistics show just how important technology is in the classroom.
- Just 1 in 5 teachers feel their classrooms have the right level of technology
- Almost a third of all college students take at least one online course (kind of like us, now! Go DED318!)
- 43% of teachers have used online games in the classroom
- 6 in 10 students have used a digital textbook
- 76% of teachers believe that technology in the classroom enhances the material being taught
- For more awesome statistics, please zoom into the infographic. It contains a lot of great information!
Our super educational movie
Super Teachers DED 318
Above, we utilized another educational technology tool: ThingLink. ThingLink can be used for many purposes. We each created our own ThingLink in DED318 to serve as a sort of resume, but here, we designed one to show you how iPads can be used in the classroom. Yes, that idea may seem bizarre to you teachers who are still holding on to your old playbook, but there are many apps these days for teachers to use while teaching. Click on our ThingLink, and you will be linked to many of these technological options! Perhaps you will find that both ThingLink and iPads are tools that you can utilize in your classroom when you finally let go of your traditional ways!
Why use technology in the classroom?
Why Use Technology In the Classroom?
It's all about technology!
As you can see, this post contains MANY insights to technology that can be used both in and outside of the classroom. We've now introduced you to Smore (this educational poster you're looking at now), infographics, iPads and apps, ThingLink, videos, and more! With so many options, there's no need to hang on to that old playbook. These easy-to-use tools can spruce up otherwise boring lesson plans for you and your students. Here are a few more options for you to try out that we did not use on this poster:
We challenge you to use some of these technological resources in your classroom, or at least try them out for yourself! Even you traditionalists may be surprised how easy and exciting they are to incorporate in your lesson plans. So go for it: throw out the old playbook and get with the tech!