Author: Austin Gray

By: Austin Gray

Activity:

• Sharing fellow colleagues how to use technology in the classroom. Specifically looking at Sway, Popplet, and ThingLink

1. target audience
   1. Coworkers/Colleagues in your school/department
2. subject of lesson
   1. Technology in the Classroom
3. instructional goal (what do you want students to know or be able to do)
   1. Learn the to use the technology presented.
4. technology being used
   1. ThingLink, Sway, Popplet
5. how technology supports instructional goal
   1. Colleagues are going to follow along and take notes as I present the material to them. They will take notes on how these different technology applications can be used for presenting to their students, as well as which ones would be good for students to do in groups or alone.

1.) What did you learn about the intersection of technology and instruction? What was you progress on becoming a tech-savvy” teachers?

• This class was super beneficial in exploring how to use educational technology in the classroom. The supplements that we were taught, I have already used in my classroom and will have in my toolbox for future teaching to come. I really enjoyed learning how to use all the different educational technology over the 13 lessons, I didn’t realize there was so much out there to use for free. With technology playing such a huge role in today’s society it extremely useful to use these applications when presenting material to my students and to have them use for projects. Before taking this class I was everyday tech savvy, but now I’m extremely tech savvy because I know how to use 13 different applications that are educationally beneficial for my teaching practice.

This class was driven by mini-projects instead of test and papers. How did you respond? What does that tell you about student motivation?

• I really enjoyed how every class was a small lecture/ overview of the applications and then we were set free to explore how to fully use them. I was fun to make projects as we were exploring how to use new applications. I really liked how we had to comment on other students because we were able to learn about all the people in our class. Also we were able to see how different people used the applications for their lessons/ classrooms and really gave me lots of ideas for future teaching. I really think that the motivation came from having fun activities and positive energy from the whole class as well as the teacher.

[embedit snippet=”biome”] 

I really like this Application called EdPuzzle. It allows for you to take a video and create Questions though out the video to keep the students engaged. They have the option to create Multiple- Choice, Short-Answer, Comments, Voice Over, and Audio Notes.

I could see using this is my biology classroom for Homework. Having students watch videos online at home and answer these interactive questions I have and submit there work online. This would allow me to keep accountability for the students to make sure they watch the entire video.

As you can see above I used a screen recorder application. For a PC computer I used a application called Loom. This is a free application through Google Chrome that you can download.

This application would be a easy way to record Power points and upload them online for students to watch by themselves or for a substitute teacher to play for the students in the case of you absents.

Above is the Anatomy of a King Salmon with ThinkLink being used as the Application!!! Works super great and straight forward!!!

Okay….So I tested the water with both ThinkLink and with Google Tour Creator. For me personally in Biology classroom ThinkLink is best used because we don’t really perform many tours…unless I was to use it for a biomes lecture. ThinkLink works perfect for diagrams and adding in information. But Google Tour is also great but it’s more centered around a guided tour feel. Which seems above and beyond what I would need for my HS biology class.

So between the 2 apps Sway and Adobe Spark Page I personally like Adobe Spark Page better. They are basically the same though. Visually they are both pleasing to the eye, are a good way of keeping the reader engaged, and easy to use. What gets me about Adobe Spark Page though is that it is simpler overall to use, there is no having to find your way around, its super straight forward!

Below you will see that I used Sway to show where I am from and Adobe Spark Page to show where I like to travel!!!

Check out a little bit about myself in this cool app

This App by Microsoft called “Sway” is super cool!!!

Super easy to use and has really cool features .

I can see having my Biology students do fun projects with this application

This would be a good tool for kids to learn how to do when presenting . They could do it with their Labs that they make Hypothesis, procedure, materials, data, analysis, conclusion. Also students can upload videos, this would be good to show lab procedure

• The app is super easy to use and student friendly
• In the right hand corner there is a “How To” in the App
• I would use this as a assignment where students are to work in groups and create a learning map
• The students can visually see information.
• I can have students make a phylogenic tree.

I hope students can help plan a family valentines day event. Maybe going to a event, doing an activity, or going to a brewery.

I learned how to Map different activities and that I could use this offline on my phone.

Target Student Audience: Freshmen

Lesson Goals: Being able to differentiate between Abiotic and Biotic factors

How would you use it with students: Use it as an introduction to a unit before we dive deeper.