Question:
We are surrounded by new technology gadgets every day. What technology gadget or web site could you never live without...and what tech toy or web tool have you seen or hear about that simply does not appeal or make sense to you? Tell us your "must have" and "could care less" tech choices. Technology can include ANYTHING that turns on, uses power or batteries, or has buttons.
Replies:
SC
Technology is great,But some teachers, nor studenst are not familiar with how these tool work.Between parents and teachers an important part of leveraging of involvement, e-mail, and even cellphones as a way of getting in touch with parents, also me as a teacher never give out cellphone number, but I can be reach by e-mail,and I can understand why parents wouldn't want to be contated by e-mail or cellphone. Most parents want face to face conversation quickly, most of the time , I'm (in touch) within 48 hour" so sure technology is great some like it and some do not.
MO
My school district invested in purchasing the SENTEO program. The program comes with a class set of hand held clickers as well as software to install on computers. Teachers use the software to develop quizzes/tests. Then, one can deliever the quizzes using paper copies or project it on a SMART Board. Students enter their responses (multiple choice, true false format) on the hand held clickers. Students LOVE this!!! It makes taking tests fun, and serves as a great pre or post assessment activity for students. Also, the teacher benefits because the program offers a snapshot of which students answered which questions correctly and the percentage of your class that completed the quiz/test questions correctly (bonus for teachers-quick timer saver on grading and uses less paper if you project it on a SMART Board). I LOVE this technology and would recommend it to any teacher to incorporate it into their daily classroom activities.
NE
I could not live without the Activslate that accompanies my Activboard. As for what I "could care less about", I would have to say the portable labs. It takes quite a bit of precious class time to distribute and collect them. Students are frequently careless with the way they store them resulting in damage to the laptops.
PA
At our school we've run into the same problems with the wireless lab. Nontheless, it is constantly in use, so our admin has decided to dedicate a space in my 2 story library for it to "live". Teachers will bring students to it. This means a loss of my large group instruction space, but we hope it will resolved the other problems.
PA
What I find next to worthless is twitter. I've read some and they are generally empty headed. It is really difficult to do justice to an idea in so few words. It's also easy to be misunderstood.
Marla - Farmington, MO
I absolutely love the website Starfall.com for my K students to use in the classroom. I couldn't live without my good old CD/tape player. It is used all the time for listening centers and whole group songs as well as soft background music. I couldn't care less about Twitter. I certainly don't need one more way for others to find out about my daily life!
Anna Lawrence - Winder, GA
I love my wireless remote for moving through a Powerpoint presentation without having to be right by my laptop. I hate to say how much I use that to assist me in class and how trapped I feel if it isn't working for some reason one day or another. I hate to think of teaching without it how limiting it would be to me. I really do not use scanners as effectively as I could do, possibly because it seems that it never works right for me the first time. I would be interested in knowing more about what a document camera is and how one would work in my classroom.
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