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"Five Ways Teachers Can Use Technology to Help Students Posted: 05/07/2013 8:34 am Follow éducation , Classroom Technology , Open Source , Public Schools , Teacher Technology , Technology In The Classroom , Technology News SHARE THIS STORY 57 273 34 Submit this story By Darrell M. West and Joshua Bleiberg Thomas Edison once said, "Books will soon be obsolete in the public schools... our school system will be completely changed inside of ten years." Amazingly enough, however, one of our nation's most important inventors was proven quite wrong. The American education system has a remarkable resistance to innovation and the classroom experience has changed very little in the 100 years since Edison's prediction. Advances in information technology have revolutionized how people communicate and learn in nearly every aspect of modern life except for education. The education system operates under the antiquated needs of an agrarian and industrial America. The short school day and the break in the summer were meant to allow children to work on family farms. Schools have an enduring industrial mentality placing students in arbitrary groups based on their age regardless of their competencies. Technology has failed to transform our schools because the education governance system insulates them from the disruptions that technology creates in other organizations. The government regulates schools perhaps more than any other organization. Rules govern where students study, how they will learn, and who will teach them. Education regulation governs the relationships of actors in the system and stymies the impact of innovative technologies. Furthermore the diffuse system of governance creates numerous veto points to limit innovation. To overcome these obstacles, we must persuade teachers that technology will empower them and help their students learn. We argue that there are five strategies for successful teacher adoption of education technology and that these principles will he

"3 Tips on Integrating Technology in the Classroom Former Gov. Bob Wise discusses Digital Learning Day and how high school teachers can embrace technology. By Laura McMullen Jan. 25, 2012 SHARE Integrating technology into a high school classroom isn't a one-step process. "You can't just slap a netbook [computer] on top of a textbook and say, 'Great, now we have technology," says Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, an advocacy organization. Wise says that digital learning starts with teachers, whose performance is enhanced by technology-not the other way around. That's also the idea of Digital Learning Day, which the Alliance is spearheading. The first annual Digital Learning Day falls on February 1 and will celebrate innovative K-12 instructors who successfully bring technology into the classroom by assigning online course content, using adaptive software for students with special needs, and utilizing online student assessments and other digital tools. Educators, as well as parents, students, librarians, and community leaders, can learn about classroom innovations and get new ideas by chiming in during the virtual National Town Hall meeting held on Digital Learning Day. [Learn how a new iPad app is revolutionizing textbooks.] "The whole intention of Digital Learning Day is to really celebrate teachers and good instructional learning practices," says Sarah Hall, director of the Alliance's Center for Secondary School Digital Learning and Policy. And good teaching, especially the kind that involves working with evolving technologies, sometimes requires good advice. Hall and Wise shared the following ideas for effectively using technology in the classroom-not just on Digital Learning Day, but anytime. 1. Plan ahead: There has to be a comprehensive strategy in place to implement technology into the school system, Wise says, and the teachers have to be involved in the planning stages. "When a schoo

In this website teacher can find almost all of the essential tools In technology that could contribute to the students learning.

Richard Byrne demonstrates 3 browser extensions for Google Chrome that would be helpful in the classroom.

Richard Byrne's Tech for Teachers blog- Specifically, Google "how to" vids in one place

Socrative lets teachers engage and assess their students with educational activities on tablets, laptops and smartphones. Through the use of real time questioning, instant result aggregation and visualization, teachers can gauge the whole class' current level of understanding. Socrative saves teachers time so the class can further collaborate, discuss, extend and grow as a community of learners.

This awesome website provides teachers with ready to use lessons and resources to bring real-life math into the classroom.

Harry & Rosemary Wong offer effective teacher & classroom strategies in their free monthly column.

new teacher bootcamp for web 2.0

This site provides a student rubric for blogging and would be a good guide for students as they begin this exercise.

Educreations is a website on which teachers can create online video lessons and tutorials using their own voice. This tool is utilized a great deal at our school to explain math concepts. It helps students (and parents) when they need help doing homework--they can simply log onto a tutorial that the teacher has created in order to clarify the day's lesson.

I think someone mentioned this in class. The third grade teacher I work with is using Class Dojo and the students love it. I think she has it as a free app on her phone, so as she is walking around the classroom she can give either the whole class, or an individual student some positive reinforcement. She uses just the positive reinforcement buttons, but there are negative behaviors that you can identify as well. You can type in any positive or negative behavior you wish. I think this looks very motivating for students. I would use it on my phone, too, rather than project it because I think it can be very distracting for students to see the avatars and hear the bell ringing when the teacher reinforces a student's behavior.

Here the apps are organized according to subject and grade level, which I find incredibly helpful. Rather than scrolling through numerous pages of apps, this has them organized, so it is much quicker to find what you are looking for. Also, you can organize your own collection, and some are web based.

Another list of tools for teachers

HUGE list of links to web tools

The History Engine is a web-based educational tool hosted by University of Richmond. Students use this site to learn history by researching, writing, and publishing specific episodes of American life. The online, searchable database contains works of students from all over the country. Excellent site for teachers, students and anyone interested in history.

this is a link to accessibility tools for use in the classroom