These educational tools can help you to make lessons fun, interesting, and more effective. Khan Academy: Many teachers use this excellent collection of math, science, and finance lectures and quizzes to supplement their classroom materials. MangaHigh: MangaHigh offers teachers a wealth of resources for game-based learning in mathematics. FunBrain: If you’re looking for a great collection of educational games, look no further than FunBrain. On it, teachers can take advantage of fun tools for math and reading. Educreations: Educreations is an amazing online tool for the iPad that lets teachers (or students) create videos that teach a given topic. Perfect for studying or getting students to show off their knowledge. Animoto: Animoto makes it simple to create video-based lessons or presentations for the classroom and to share them with students or anyone else. Socrative: Available for computers, mobile devices, and tablets, this student response system engages students through games and exercises on any device they have on hand. Even better, teachers can easily assess student progress and track grades. Knewton: Adaptive learning has been a hot topic in recent months, and with Knewton it’s something that any teacher can access and use. The site personalizes online learning content for each student according to his or her needs. Kerpoof: On Kerpoof, students can get creative with their learning with games, interactive activities, drawing tools, and more that are both fun and educational. StudySync: With a digital library, weekly writing practice, online writing and peer reviews, Common Core assignments, and multimedia lessons available, this site is a fully-featured tool for teaching and learning that can be a big help in the classroom. CarrotSticks: On this site, teachers can take advantage of a wide range of math learning games, giving students practice while they have fun.

Today Tomorrow

In today's classroom, teachers find that they often have to compete with technology to keep students interest. It's important to recognize that a) students use this technology b) they will use it in class. Short of taking students' smart phones, tablets, etc. away from them at the beginning of each class, most teachers have to learn to work with technology in the classroom. The struggle to deal with inappropriate technology use in the classroom can be mitigated to some degree by integrating its use into the lesson. Below you will find a number of suggestions. Tip 3: Use Email to Your Advantage It's often useful to send out an email to students with resources that you want to use during the lesson. If you want to use web resources, create a class email list to send out a short update with clickable URLs that students can use to access materials. There is nothing that will slow a class down more than writing a long, unwieldy URL on the board and asking students to type it into their smart phone, iPad, etc. to access. Tip 4: Set Up a Class Blog / Learning Site There are numerous online services that allow teachers to set up an easy to maintain class blog / site. You can use this to post assignments, give homework, keep students informed with resources, etc. Ask students to bookmark the homepage and you can provide a short blog posts with resources students can use during a specific lesson as suggested in using email. This makes using students' gadgets even easier! Tip 5: Revisit Common Software in Terms of Learning Possibilities Take time to find out what software packages students are using on a daily basis. Once you have a short list, spend some time with the packages to find out what tools they provide to help out with English learning. For example, using a text editor such as Word for Windows you can help students set up spell check in English as students type. Instruct learners to try to correct their own spelling mistakes signaled by red underling BEFORE they check the correct spelling. With a few simple instructions these tools can become powerful self-study aids. Tip 6: Keep Technology Use Limited and On Task This principal is similar to any teaching task. The more general an objective or activity is, the easier it becomes to lose focus. For example, imagine that you are using a video in class to work on comprehension. Instead of watching an entire episode of a sitcom, use a service such as Hulu or English Attack! to watch individual scenes. This will help you students keep integrate new vocabulary, improve their comprehension through repetition. Tip 7: Have a Backup Plan Always have a backup plan in place when technology fails. Unfortunately, this still happens and it's a shame to have to change lesson focus entirely just because Windows needs to install the latest version of Flash to play a video. Tip 8: Use an Interactive Whiteboard If you work at a school with deep pockets, I highly recommend working with an interactive whiteboard. Related Teaching ResourcesTips for Classroom ManagementShort Activities for the ESL / EFL TeacherESL Conversation Lesson Plans Focusing on Technology Related ArticlesClassroom Rules for TeachersFive Important Classroom ProceduresNew Teacher Survival GuideTech Tools - Essential Tools for TeachersWelcome to the Elementary Education Site on About.com Kenneth Beare About.com English as 2nd Language Sign up for My Newsletter Headlines Forum if(z336>0){w('Advertisement');adunit('','','about.com',ch,gs,336,280,'1','bb',3);w('')}if(z155>0){w('Advertisement');adunit('','','about.com',ch,gs,336,155,'1','ps',4);w('')}Advertisement if(zp[7].d){Dsp(zp[7],'ip')} if(zp[11].d){Dsp(zp[11],'ip')} if(zSbLAds Training Materialscorporatetrainingmaterials.comPowerpoint training materials to teach MS Office & Soft Skills. How To Speakhttp://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=CMDtLg-OlUqXOO8jzqgGL8oHoD4PQ4JwE85adwlPAjbcBEAcgvKX3ASgJUIaAwI38_____wFgyebnjfykqBOgAaWwjNgDyAEBqAMBqgShAU_QOPpeX9oO5rcJATMuVWIj8d2xQyASm9B8wW8pMcQFv8PSzkCuUmqg4dvpzC9sNJ4rfPjsB

Tip 1: Get Students to Help Out

Tip 2: Take Advantage of the Gadgets in Your Classroom