Teacher Insight Thursday: Technology in the Classroom

In a society where technology has become an integral part of many people's lives, it has become increasingly important, in my opinion, for teachers to integrate technology into the classroom.  It is our responsibility, as teachers, to prepare our children for the future and technology is ever changing.  Our students will encounter technology almost every day.  

I have developed a list of 10 different ways we can integrate technology into the classroom using ideas from various websites: 

1.     Go on an internet scavenger hunt or create a web quest for your students to complete

2.     Free Rice.com: not only will your students learn vocabulary, they will be helping others as well.  Free rice is a website in which you are asked to give the definition for a word.  Each correct answer means 10 grains of rice will be donated to those who are hungry.  Let's look at a chart: 

One Day 10 vocabulary words         100 grains of rice

One  Week 50 vocabulary words         500 grains of rice

One Month 280 vocabulary words 2800 grains of rice

One Year 1800 vocabulary words 18000 grains of rice!

(Note: The chart above is based on a 180 day school year)

Almost 20,000 grains of rice per student for a year! Think about this! If you have 25 students, thats almost 500,000 grains of rice donated by your class!

3.     Video Conferencing: Maybe you are learning about someone in politics and want to ask them questions? Or maybe your students are reading books by a certain author? Then skype or video chat with them! Contact the person of choice and find out how you can set up a video conference with them. Then have your students come up with a list of questions to ask

4.     Design a class website

5.     Apply for a Smart board grant

6.     In my pre school class, we use i pads.  You can find many free educational games for your students to play! I set a 15 minute time limit for each student.

7.     Have your students record themselves

8.     Encourage older students to use Prezi for their class presentations.  You can sign up for a prezi account here

9.      Spellingcity or BigIQkids: these websites allow you to create your own spelling list or vocabulary list.  Then your students can play games with the words or take online spelling/vocabulary tests.  I used it in tutoring and my tutees loved it!

10.     Jeopardy on Powerpoint.  Directions for this can be found here

Many ideas from the list above were found here: 50 Ways to Use Technology in the Classroom