Technology

Examples of technology for teaching and learning

01: Pear Deck - Pear Deck for Google Slides | Pear Deck — Pear Deck

5E Model Connection: Engage, Explore, Explain, Evaluate - Pear Dock is an interactive digital resource used to engage students in real time. It is a formative assessment and lecture tool that is built to support active learning through the use of questions, prompts, drawings, maps, and more. As students engage with the material, they are also exploring the content and skills of the lesson. Teachers can explore the collection of templates, lessons, and activities that are available and editable on the site. Through this resource, students are able to evaluate their learning and understanding of a topic which supports them in becoming self-directed learners. Teachers can use these evaluations or formative assessment tools to improve student understanding of specific disciplinary learning goals. They can see and interact with students as they show and explain their understanding of the content. Based on student evaluations, teachers can evaluate and modify their teaching strategies to strengthen student attainment, explanation, and knowledge.

How/Why: Pear Deck is a website and an app that helps to enhance student learning using technology. Through engagement and visually active learning, students can explore, explain, and evaluate the content within a lesson. It amplifies group discussions which center around collaboration, engagement, and elaboration of the material. It is an effective tool to turn your students into active learners. With the student paced mode opinion, students can choose to participate in the activities in real time or independently on their own pace and on their own time. Students aren’t the only ones who benefit from this technological tool. Pear Deck helps teachers instill formative assessment activities into lessons. Teachers can receive real-time feedback as they teach the lesson which allows them to respond and adapt to student needs. To add, they can instantly view student responses and share insight back to them.

Activity Example: →

Reading Lesson - As a class, you and your students have been reading a book and they have been so eager to finish the last few pages of it. Before they get to reading again, create a slide presentation lesson about what they have read so far. Within the presentation, create several different prompts that assess the student’s understanding and recollection of the text, its characters, problem(s), events, and more. This lesson will focus on monitoring student comprehension of the story.

Prompt 1 - create a slide that has the students put the story events in sequential order. List the events on the slide and have the students number them in the correct order.
Prompt 2 - create a slide that involves them choosing the names of the main characters. Generate a list of random character names, as well as those from the book and have the students select which names relate to the characters in the story. To add to this prompt, assess the student’s knowledge on those specific characters by having them connect their names to the best explanation that describes them.
Prompt 3 - create a slide that has the students state the problem in the story. Give the students multiple choice answers to choose from or give them free space to type it out.
Prompt 4 - create a slide that asks the students to define a term using pictures and words. Pick a vocabulary word in the text and have the students illustrate their meaning of the word. Provide the students with an accurate definition and example of this word on the following slide.
Prompt 5 - create a slide that includes the last part of the text the students just read. Reread the text to the class. Show an image or video clip that goes along with it. On a new slide create a prompt that encourages the students to predict what they think will happen next. Leave the space blank so they can respond in a short answer format using their keyboard to type their answer. Have the students answer this yes or no question: Do you think the problem will get solved? (Yes/No).
Continue the lesson by finishing the text
Prompt 6 - create a slide that addresses the solution to the problem. Have the students explain if and/or how the problem was solved.
Prompt 7 - create a slide that allows the students to evaluate the text. This is a place where students rate the story 1 through 5, 1 being terrible and 5 being they highly recommend it. Put the numbers one through five on a linear scale and have the students pick which number they would rate it out of five.

02: Popplet - Popplet | Mind maps made easy

5E Model Connection: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate - Popplet is a digital organizational tool that helps students think and learn visually. Students engage and explore the learning material as they use mind-mapping application to explain their knowledge. Popplet is known to create interest and excitement for students. This source supports collective brainstorming by allowing students to invite classmates to their board to work together in real-time. The share tool encourages students to engage with one another’s work, ideas, and questions. As individuals, pairs, or groups, students are able to create visuals that explain their thinking and understanding of a topic while they continue to explore the content. Students can save these diagrams and revisit them after they learn more about the material. This allows them to elaborate on the information they have previously put on their board. Their elaboration causes them to extend their learning to new situations and ideas and utilize their knowledge in new ways.

How/Why: Popplet is a teaching website and app that helps to enhance student learning using technology. This tool offers a variety of graphic organizers that the students can choose from based on the content they are learning. Students also have the option to create their visual from scratch, adding and including the features they want. For example, this site is beneficial when students need to connect and visualize relationships, write an essay, explore the phases of the moon, the stages of the weather cycle, or anything that must be organized into sequenced events. This source can even be used for visual learning of mathematics. Students can draw out different representations of numbers and equations using dots, number grids, ten frame squares, and much more. Through this site, students can create charts and trees, timelines, mind maps, webs, picture displays, storyboards, roadmaps, and the list goes on. Students are actively engaged in the lesson, given an opportunity to express their creativity, and have a choice in their learning through the numerous organization features. Popplet is an effective tool that helps students learn visually, as well as brainstorm and map diagrams and structures that will benefit their learning and understanding of a specific topic. It can be used in over 100 different languages, reinforcing the needs of those students whose native language is not English and students who may speak multiple languages. Overall, with Popplet, students can capture ideas, facts, and thoughts in a multitude of ways, helping them to immediately recognize and connect the relationships between them.

Activity Example: Social Studies Geography Inquiry Lesson - Creating an organizational diagram using two digital resources: Popplet and Google Earth

Google Earth - A computer program that presents a 3D representation of Earth based on satellite imagery. This piece of technology enhances student learning about the lives of people and the characteristics of places around the globe and allows them to compare/contrast these lifestyles and human/physical traits to their own. It allows students to visit places around the world without physically being there. It is a great tool for introducing geography, maps, the globe, and different parts of the world. - As a class or individually, students can explore two different states or parts of the world using Google Earth and record their findings using an organizational diagram in Popplet. This lesson focuses on geography and the characteristics of a state. To be specific, the students will be comparing and contrasting the human and physical characteristics of the states or areas they pick. They will record their thinking and evidence from research using a template of their choosing in Popplet. It would be a great idea to have an example of a Popplet completed to show the students, so they have an example to guide them.

03: Google Forms - Google Forms: Online Form Creator | Google Workspace

5E Model Connection: Engage, Explain, Evaluate - Google Forms is a web-based Google platform that teachers use to create online forms and surveys with multiple question types. Research has shown that students agree that using Google Forms as a classroom response system increased their engagement in the classroom. They are able to engage with the content through the use of open-ended and closed-ended questions. These questions include a variety of drop-down menus and answer selections, including multiple choice, checkboxes, rating scales, and short answers text boxes to gather student thinking. Students can explain and share their thinking more clearly when a short answer is required because it gives them the space to elaborate and extend their thoughts and connections or to ask questions. Google Forms helps to promote active learning and gauge student understanding of the materials during or after a lesson. Depending on the type of form provided, students can evaluate their learning by reflecting on what made sense, what questions or wondering they still have, and what ideas involve a misunderstanding.

How/Why: Google Forms is a mobile and web browser that helps to improve lessons and student understanding. It is a frequently used technology platform that allows for survey administration between people, groups, and in this case, teachers and students. It also includes Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, Google Drawings, and much more. This tool is free and easy to use, all you need is a Google Account. Teachers can customize and create forms from scratch, giving them flexibility and choice that they provide their students. They can analyze student responses with automatic summaries. These results can be seen at a glance with charts and graphs. To add, teachers are able to respond to surveys anywhere using their phone, tablet, or computer. Google Forms allows teachers to make surveys, quizzes, assessments, registration sheets, class sign ups, invitations, and more. It is an effective tool to gather and collect a variety of data for present and future use. This source can be used to assess student learning in a way that allows them to reflect on their learning goals and share their thoughts and knowledge. To promote student learning, this digital tool can be used to engage students in discussion, activate students’ prior knowledge, and identify misconceptions.

Activity Example:

Getting to Know You Survey - At the beginning of a new school year make a Getting to Know You survey. Create a number of questions that your students can answer in a variety of different ways. For example, in my survey, the first question is a multiple choice, yes or no question, the second (and the fourth) are short answer questions, the third is a checkbox answer format, and the fifth question includes a linear scale answer choice. This is an effective way to learn about your students in a way that allows them to share information about themselves that they might not want others to know. This activity introduces this tool to students early on which helps teachers decide if it will be beneficial for their students or not.

Self-evaluation reflection survey - Teachers can use this tool as a way to assess their students, give a course or lesson evaluation, or self-evaluation (exit ticket), and more. This piece of technology is a great way to include a form of evaluation concluding a lesson. Students can express their personal understanding of the content in an online forum where you as the teacher are the only person who will see it. It's helpful for the teachers to know where their students are regarding the material, as well as for the students because they are able to reflect on their learning and understanding of the content. This is where students can elaborate on their ideas, questions, and concerns.
- Exit slip/Self-Evaluation: Students will answer: “How well do I understand _____________?” They will select the color (or you can use numbers) that best represents their understanding:
  - 0: Red – I don’t understand it at all.
  - 5: Yellow – I understand it, but I still have some questions.
  - 10: Green – I can teach it to others.

Getting to Know You

"Technology shouldn't just be a gimmick to motivate learning. It should open a whole new world of possibilities for learning."

- David Geurin