Educational Technology Resources
Educational Technology Resources Should Meet Three Main Goals:
• Tools should show students what material they have mastered and what skills they still need to learn. • Resources should integrate data efficiently to show teachers their students’ progress, allowing teachers to quickly modify instruction. • Tools should automatically tailor instruction to the individual student. Three educational resources to research educational technology and facilitate student learning are: EdSurge Product Index is a community-driven database of educational technology resources, games, and applications. Items are organized and searchable by grade level, category, and learning needs. Each resource listed includes a detailed overview of the product and reviews written by educators. Common Sense Education, a division of Common Sense Media, runs a database of educational technology resources. The site contains ratings and reviews of applications and games written by the company’s team of experts and working educators. Like the EdSurge Product Index, Common Sense Education’s database is searchable by grade level, subject, and purpose. Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything is an educational technology website designed by Kathy Schrock, an educator and librarian. Her site features articles and resources about educational technology tools and pedagogy. Much of the information on her website provides ideas for educators on how to use technology in the classroom. Two Methods for Integrating Educational Technology In a Flipped Classroom, students access instruction online, outside of school time, in place of homework. Classroom time is reserved for guided learning with the teacher or project participation with classmates. This method allows teacher to be available to support students when they are applying their knowledge. The teacher acts as a facilitator of learning rather than a didactic lecturer. Station Rotation involves a classroom setup where students rotate among fixed stations, one of which is online learning. The online learning station typically features students working on a self-paced learning application that offers differentiated learning. Other stations may involve small-group instruction with the teacher, group projects, or pencil-and-paper projects. |