Technology Use in the Classroom

I would like some ideas people are using to incorporate technology into the curriculum used in the classroom. Please post the types of ways you are using technology. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Tammy Moore on July 3, 2009 at 2:20pm

We host our own, so I haven't personally tried these. I merely have kept a list of sites that others have mentioned, just in case.

Here are some quotes I have collected from others using Moodle hosting:

Diana Dell: Teachers new to Moodle can request a free Moodle classroom at http://sqooltools.com

Free hosting at http://www.e-socrates.org/

http://www.tmdhosting.com/moodle-hosting.html

http://ninehub.com/

Free hosting at http://www.globalclassroom.us/

I did a Yahoo search and found several other free hosts. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff1-&p=free%20Moodle%20host...

Wonderful place!
http://www.keytoschool.com/

Permalink Reply by Greg Hart on July 6, 2009 at 7:56pm

As a district level resource teacher, I am not in a classroom to use technology with students. I do try and model instructional technologies for the teachers that I work with in schools however. Mostly during trainings I use interactive technologies like a Smart Board or Mimio (depending on what's available). I am now working on modeling a teacher website so teachers can learn how to set up and maintain a useful website for their parents and students.

After reading this post, I am curious, how many of you have school districts that provide the ability to have your own website on a school district server? Here in my district, every teacher is provided space for hosting their own website. They are even provided an easy to use web authoring tool that allows them to create a simple website that follows their schools template. Are there any other districts that do this?

Thanks,

Greg

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Willems on July 28, 2009 at 10:58pm

My district has given teachers this capability in the last couple of years. We are using schoolfusion. Before the district offered teachers this, we have used TeacherWeb. Our principal paid the yearly fee for teachers to use this.
I am in a rural community in northwestern colorado.

Permalink Reply by Jennifer on October 20, 2010 at 6:51pm

good question i was wondering myself. I think there are several districts out in the world who are able to do this be wasn't sure.

Permalink Reply by Amy Pahl on July 12, 2009 at 10:53am

This summer I have added a lot of technology to the classroom. One way I have found to be helpful is by finding web based video that supports the lesson. For instance, when I was teaching about sound waves I found an old Disney video on youtube that really captured the nuts and bolts that I was trying to hit upon. It was only 10 minutes so the students could maintain their focus throughout the whole showing. Then I found another short video that showed the use of a Chladni Plate. The students thought it was so interesting that they asked if we could see it again. It was less than 3 minutes so we did another viewing. When we went on to do our experiments and follow up lecture the students had a great information base to scaffold off of and they demonstrated great retention and learning.

Another thing that I have found is Teacher's Domain. There are all sorts of lessons there with different connections to technology. Yesterday I did an archived Webinar published by PBS and discovered the wonders of Cyberchase, which I will be using tomorrow in the classroom!

The one problem that I have been experiencing though is that sites like youtube are filtered in the district and I have to get clearance ahead of time to access the site and they don't always have the support programming needed to run the technology I am trying to use, like Quick Time or Flash. In the future I am hoping to have access to an LCD projector so that I can run these things directly from my laptop.

Hope these ideas are helpful :)

Permalink Reply by James Teas on July 17, 2009 at 1:04pm

I faced the same problem (district restricting access to YouTube). I found a way to save YouTube videos and play them back. If you copy the URL from a YouTube video, go to www.savetube.com, and paste in the URL, you can save the YouTube video. However, they are in FLV format. To view an FLV video, you can download a free viewer (I use Applian FLV Player).

Permalink Reply by Penny Hildinger on November 12, 2010 at 8:29am

You can do this also in Keep Vid . When you paste the You Tube url into the download bar, you can choose the format you would like to download it in. It has saved me a lot.... I also use it to download the You Tube videos and upload them to my wiki page so the studetns can watch them without the ads and other distractions.

Permalink Reply by Donna Feher-Hesen on November 26, 2010 at 8:50am

I have the same problem in my district, blocking things. Even things that they recommend. I will have to check out the savetube website.

Permalink Reply by Leyton Roberts on July 26, 2009 at 2:56pm

We do in Northern VA in Loudoun County, but it's a limiting factor...everything is screened and there isn't much eye candy or interesting things. One template fits all.

Permalink Reply by Joanne Selig on September 10, 2010 at 8:00pm

I have just joined Classroom 2.0 for Beginners and am looking for web 2.0 tool posts. I am glad I found this one, even if it was started a while back. I am the ITRT at a small PK-8 school. We are have used wikispaces and I will start using weebly this fall.

Permalink Reply by Hannah Mathews on September 22, 2010 at 7:42pm

In researching Web 2.o classroom strategies, I came across several that are easy, free, and easily adaptable to any classroom and various contents. My students and I love Wordle. There are a ton of different ppts and other resources out there about using this in the classroom, such as this one:
http://www.slideshare.net/murcha/using-wordle-in-the-classroom-pres....

Additionally, I just started using Wallwisher. Again it is free and easy. You need to have Google Chrome set up on the computers as I had trouble running it through IE. Teachers can post questions, video, and other links and students can post to respond. My students are very excited about it. Again, there are many resources out there to help you find a way to use it effectively in your classroom.

Permalink Reply by Jennifer on October 11, 2010 at 7:35pm

I think the use of using a wiki would be help for group projects.