What 'Tech Tool' Has Had The Greatest Impact On Your Teaching?

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on December 18, 2007 at 1:08pm

Smartmusic is specifically designed for performing student musicians. 10 Method books are integrated into the software as well as thousands of exercises (scales, etc). Once installed (it can be downloaded) it only costs $25.00 per year to access all of the files. I can see an extended use with language learners.

Music comes up on the screen and you can choose what instrument is playing. Piano and other accompaniments make it 'fun' tp play along with. Tempo can be sped up or reduced and recordings can be made (Mp3's) and e-mailed, if desired.

I chose this as on of my top ten music tech tools last year. Follow the link to get to the Smartmusic site.

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Permalink Reply by ddeubel on December 18, 2007 at 5:39pm

Thanks atq,

I took a look and probably best for music teachers but I can see why you value it so much....I agree that changing the tempo helps on all counts and I use the Karafun player for this. www.karafun.com Free download with editor for making karaoke files but what is unique is that you can make a song and then slow it down so students can practice. You might find some use for it. we literally have thousands of teacher produced .kfn (the karafun file) songs on EFL Classroom 2.0 . and I've presented constantly on using it in the language classroom for EFL students. But it could be used (and has been) in a regular classroom as part of increasing literacy and reading .....even the students making the files teaches them so much.

Another great "music" tool I use on my site is the Wimpy player. www.wimpyplayer.com Really the only flash player out there that streams well and allows the teacher to have all his/her videos in one spot and bang, one button full screen presentation. Students can access at home and watch and you can even give homework assignments that way and avoid spending time watching video in class.....Mike at wimpy is an invaluable programmer and really does a great job. I usually don't plug "paid" things but this one is worth the 30 bucks.

David
EFL Classroom 2.0

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Permalink Reply by SusanTsairi on December 17, 2007 at 12:05pm

I would have to answer that Ning (specifically Classroom2.0 - EflClassroom) and more recently twitter have had the greatest impact on my teaching and student learning. From being the lone computer/internet enthusiast in school, I now have a network of colleagues , spanning oceans and continents, willing to collaborate, share ideas, help and information all of which impact my work with students.
I visit at least one ning network a day and have twitter open on my computer all waking hours. We are also using ning in the classroom .

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on December 20, 2007 at 6:46am

I'm surprised that more folks haven't listed Classroom2.0 as you did. Perhaps it's a 'given'. Reality and research show that teaching is often done in isolation. I see collaborative (learning-focused) networks as essential to transform education by keeping teachers fresh and alive with new ideas.....it really does take a village (or a country or the world) to do this. Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by kolson on December 19, 2007 at 9:28am

I'm a Web 2.0 baby (just started all this stuff last month!) but so far I'm loving blogging with my students at edublogs (www.mrsolson.edublogs.org) and I'm going to start teaching with Google Documents. I teach technology, currently keyboarding, and I find all of these tools to be great ways to integrate my content area with core content.

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Permalink Reply by Rashmi Kathuria on December 20, 2007 at 3:17am

I appreciate your effort on creating a wonderful blog. I visited the blog and liked the way you are posting regularly. I watched videos .

Good job!
I am also blogging with students and posting the work done in my mathematics laboratory. Its URL is http://mykhmsmathclass.blogspot.com

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Permalink Reply by kolson on December 20, 2007 at 9:09am

I checked out your blog as well - very nice! I love getting to see what others are doing with blogs

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Permalink Reply by Rashmi Kathuria on December 21, 2007 at 7:11am

Thanks for visiting the blog. You may suggest some ideas on how these web tools can be used effectively with students?
I would be glad if there are some inputs from your side.

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Permalink Reply by kolson on December 20, 2007 at 6:29pm

Just want to ammend comment to add that my district's administration won't upgrade to Safari 3.0, so I'm unable to use Google Documents in my classroom. I'm so bummed about this - I spent so much time planning stuff, but since I travel throughout the district and only one of my schools uses Safari, I wasn't aware of the problem until a day or so ago when I did a trial run at that school. I requested the upgrade with a very detailed description of the reason for the need, but no go. So, I'm thwarted by a very, in my mind, easily fixed technology deficit.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on December 20, 2007 at 6:53pm

Here's a discussion on document sharing--would any of these suggestions help?

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Permalink Reply by kolson on December 20, 2007 at 7:07pm

Thanks, just checked it out. I'm determined to use G Docs, just have to figure out a way around my predicament! I desperately want to use the spreadsheet and presentation features (I'm a business education/technology teacher) to compare to Excel and Powerpoint.

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Weir on December 19, 2007 at 5:51pm

I think the greatest impact has been the availability of Wiki's not just the main Wikipedia, but the ability to create personal and corporate wikis. These tools, some being highly specialized are the development of expert systems which can allow us to direct students and other industry contributors to these sites. In my everyday work, I have to identify resources for highly specialized terminology and theorem. I would be lost without my list of Wikis.

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