What technology do you use most in the classroom?

I'd love to know about what technologies you are using most frequently in your classroom. Whether it's PowerPoint presentations or a fancy studio kit, I'm interested in hearing back from this community of educators about what technologies are most often used in the classroom.

Follow-up questions to this broad question include:

-What technologies that aren't readily available right now do you wish you had in the classroom?

-If you could build the ideal classroom technology, what would its main functionality be?

Music Education:

-What music-related technology do you currently use in the classroom?

-If there were no budget or other restrictions, which other music technologies would you acquire for use in your classroom?

UJAM:

-For those of you familiar with UJAM, what do you see as its potential for use in the classroom?

-What would you like to see added to UJAM to become a better educational tool?

-What have you already used UJAM for, either personally or in the classroom?

I sincerely appreciate your engagement with this topic, and hope it's enjoyable for others besides myself. It's tremendously helpful to hear from talented, forward-thinking educators as I work with UJAM to build the best educational platform from our technology, and I'm very interested in your input in order to accomplish that goal.

Thanks for your time!

Kathryn Moreadith

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Permalink Reply by Kathryn Moreadith on March 30, 2011 at 12:41pm

Hi Connie - thanks very much for your note. Yes! I just recently learned about SchoolTube. What a great site. Thanks for introducing me to the Educators page as well - I'll take some time to explore this and I'm sure it will be very useful! Thanks again.

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Permalink Reply by Kathryn Moreadith on March 30, 2011 at 12:42pm

Wonderful! Did you see UJAM presented at MACUL? I heard about the demo there and wondered if you had feedback you're willing to share. Thanks for sending the link - very helpful!

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Permalink Reply by Ashley Culverhouse on March 25, 2011 at 11:04pm

I am quite sure others will have the same response, but the most used technology that I use is PowerPoint. I like PowerPoint because it is easy and familiar. On the other hand it is always nice to see and better things. One program that I have learned about this year is Prezi. This program is an alternative to doing PowerPoint. Instead of having multiple pages Prezi has an interactive one page setup. All the information is on one page and can be as creative as your mind will let one go. If you have not ever seen or heard of it I advise you to check it out. www.prezi.com

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Permalink Reply by Kathryn Moreadith on March 30, 2011 at 12:43pm

Yep, I've heard about it now but was new to it before starting this discussion! Thanks for your feedback, Ashley. Enjoy all the technology out there!

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Permalink Reply by Lincoln Whitaker on March 26, 2011 at 9:28am

Right now I have a classroom set of i-Pads that I try to use daily. I have been using a website called schoolworld as my class website to give all of my assessments. It is pretty cool that I haven't had to print a paper test in about three months now. I also use the i-Pads to access quia.

The other technology that I use the most is my SMART Board and the notebook software that goes with it. I have incorporated this into my interactive note-taking and reading strategy.

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Permalink Reply by Mr Stu on March 26, 2011 at 7:56pm

I teach Social Studies and have found some wonderful ways to use technology in World History.

Prezi

Here are two Prezis. The first is students retelling the Greek myth, "The creation of Man by Prometheus" with scanned drawings assembled into a Prezi.

http://mrstuartralston.weebly.com/wh-prezi-myth.html

That small project was scaffolding for another project. In the second Prezi students conducted a cultural analysis of Athens and Sparta to explain how they could defeat the Persians (Greco-Persian wars) and lose to the Macedonians (King Phillip and Alexander the Great).

In their Prezis they recreated scenes from Sparta and Athens that related to the cultual elements of each City-State. Prezis layout and controls gave the students the ability to build a mental model of an entire City-State, with historically accurate scenes that would be taking place throughout that location. In this way, Prezi could be used for serious synthesis of the facts we had been covering in class.

After presenting the group Prezis to class, students then had to show what they learned. Each students wrote an essay on the essay question, and were able to refer to the Prezis. In this way, students were able to work as a group on the Prezis, but were still held to demonstrate their learning individually in the essays.

Check out the Prezis here:

http://mrstuartralston.weebly.com/ancient_greece_prezis.html

One has to be careful with Prezi, lest it turn into a slightly more dizzying version of Powerpoint.

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Permalink Reply by Kathryn Moreadith on March 30, 2011 at 12:44pm

Wow! This is very cool, thanks for sharing. Wonderful use of Prezi - I'm starting to get really intrigued by this one! Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by C.S.Stone on March 27, 2011 at 11:34am

I use Power Point, Prezi, Google Earth, Glogster, videos and interactives from Teachers Domain and will be adding a digital textbook and all the trappings in the fall.

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Permalink Reply by Angela Clark on March 30, 2011 at 11:25pm

HI, in our junior school class, our IWB (Promethean board using ActivInspire) is heavily used each day by both teachers and students - to model, demonstrate, practise, collaborate with a partner, design. We love it. We use flipcharts using Promethean software, have access to all the school programs such as KidPix, and also use a wide bank of Web 2.0 tools on it too.

We also have a pod of 7 laptops (every class does, so we can borrow from other classes to make up 1/2 or full class bank). These can be left in the classes' separate side room area (glass windows between this and the main room from bench to ceiling, sliding windows can open if you want - or closed to contain a noisier activity). They can also be taken into the classroom (wifi) for a small group/partner/individual work. We have two kiddies with major OT issues, so typing is a better option than writing for them at the moment while they get some therapy. Also have 4 kids on major alternate/extension programs. Great for differentiation.

We also have our own school intranet page (school stuff including photos - available to our school community only) and a class blog (Edublogs) where we post lots of fun stuff, learning games, videos, podcasts and where the kids learn to blog (using initials instead of names).

We also have access to 3 labs - scheduled times with some free to 'book'. Great if whole class needs to use the computer at the same time. Programs most used include:

Google products (Google Docs, Google EArth, Google Maps), Microsoft products (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Publisher), Wordle, Taxedo, PhotoFunia, Prezi, Audacity to name a few.

As teachers, we are discovering Elluminate! Amazing place to hold and participate in webinars.