As I am about to cross the finish line of this semester, online learning has taken over the world. Things will never be the same as they were; technology has forever changed the way learners acquire new knowledge and master skills. While it was forced upon educators rather rapidly, I find myself thankful for this class as it helped me begin my journey in navigating the endless amazing sources available. I believe that as time goes on, more and more curriculum will be done on screens. Thanks to this class, I feel much more prepared for my future as modern day teacher in an ever changing world.
When we began the class, we started working fairly basic but valuable websites. In particular, I found Interactive Google Slides to be really fun. Like a modern day choose-your-own adventure book, interactive slides allowed my to create an activity for the preschoolers I was working with at them time about learning social cues and being a good friend. It would have to be done with an adult, but i believe it could start some good conversations.
As the semester progressed, we worked with another Google tool: Google sites. I decided to focus on kindergarten standards to create a website about weather. Google Sites is easy to navigate and has a lot of really great features such as embedding YouTube videos and other Google Tools. This is my favorite tool we learned about; I have a feeling I will be frequently using this!
Another valuable tool we got to learn to use is Edpuzzle. Edpuzzle allows teachers to crop, pause, and add questions or comments to any YouTube video. It also takes away advertisements and suggested videos at the end, so students won’t potentially click on something you don’t want them to. There is so much great YouTube content, especially for remote learning, so I know this tool will come in handy too!
Finally, I believe my best piece of work from this class is the final project I created: a Google site for personal narrative writing for the 4th grade. I wanted to challenge myself working with content for older grades, and found that it was much different than working with the younger grades due to the type of content you can provide for them as well as the complexity of instructions they can follow. I used Google docs, Edpuzzle, YouTube, and image inserts to create an abundance of resources for the writers.
Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay