Throughout my teaching
training course, my teachers have made me
use technology inside the classroom. Technology can be a great way for engaging
the students in their learning. They play games, create infographics or Power
Points Presentations to name a few, and at the same time they learn or revise
the contents. Here you have some ideas to improve your teaching in the
classroom.
Kahoot!
I’ve used this
app every chance I got, and it’s incredible how the kids loved it. The idea is for
you, whether you are a teacher or a student, to create a set of questions on
specific topics and they are answered through
the cell phone or tablet. First, you need
to give the students a pin, provided by Kahoot!, and then you can choose if you
want to play individually or in teams.
In my case, I
used it when I had to teach “reported speech” and a reading strategy.
For the reading strategy,
I prepared a set of questions, in Spanish, due to the level of English of the
students, and because I wanted to see if they understood the strategy. Here’s a
video for you to see how it works and if you want to read about the strategy, I’ve
made a post about that.
Video:
For the reading strategy, I prepared a set of
questions, in Spanish, due to the level of English of the students, and because
I wanted to see if they understood the strategy. Here’s a video for you to see
how it works and if you want to read about the strategy, I’ve made a post about
that and if you want to see how to fix a reading comprehension strategy, go here.
Video:
When I taught reported speech, once the explanation
was over, I used Kahoot! to revise and see if the kids understood everything.
The thing about
Kahoot! is that you need internet to use it and it’s not entirely reliable when
it comes to evaluating. You can download the results in an Excel sheet but, if
the internet didn’t work at some point, the results will be affected by that.
Plickers
I haven’t had the
chance to use this one, but I’ve been on the side of the student, meaning, my
teacher was the one using it. The idea for this app
is almost the same as in Kahoot! but instead of using the cell phones or
tablets, you print a set of cards (you can print them from their official site)
and give each student one. The cards
have a letter on each side of the barcode, and
when you ask a question to the students, they hold the card in front of them
with the letter of their choice on top. Using the app, you scan the room and
the app records the scores on a graph. The scanning takes seconds, and the
teacher can see instantly whether the students understood the concepts or not.
Facebook and Soundcloud
A good idea is
for your students to write a collaborative story. First, you need to create a group on Facebook, then, your students need to upload an image of their choice and write just a sentence
about that picture or about the story they pretend to write. After that, their
classmates will write a sentence each, trying to continue the story until one
gives it an ending.
After the
writing, a good idea is to correct the stories altogether,
correcting mistakes, adding new ideas but without changing the main idea of the
story. Once the correction is over, ask the students to record themselves
telling the story and adding sound effects when necessary. The last step is for
them to upload the recording to Soundcloud.
Writing
collaboratively your students will be able to become more effective writers, think
critically and they will be more aware of various writing strategies.
I believe that
technology has a great positive impact on teaching by engaging the students on
what they like and feel comfortable using, and also, makes teaching a lot more
fun. Besides, when we use technology in the classroom, students can take more control
of their learning. So, I really hope you
like these ideas for using technology not only for your life, but also for teaching.
Go, get out of your comfort zone and make your classes more dynamic!
