One of my favorite tools I discovered was blendspace. This tool is, at its core a place to collect resources, measure student understanding and monitor student progress. It can be used to present, differentiate, and collaborate with students on lessons. It has a very user friendly search bar that pulls from many different resources including Youtube, Google images and websites, and Gooru (which is another of my favorite tools that I will get to below). Blendspace can be used on any device with internet access.
This tool is great for teaching and student learning. It allows the teacher to gather all of their resources together in one presentation format to be better prepared and organized. It is great for students because they can access the materials all in one place, rather than having to navigate to multiple sites for different components of the lesson. I have not tried this tool out yet with my students, but I can see myself using it to differentiate lessons by building a few of the same lesson and leveling it for students. I could also allow them to choose part of what they are going to do to further differentiate. I also plan to use it as a formative assessment tool. The quiz feature allows you to create and administer your own quizzes and then it grades them for you.
This tool is so versatile, I believe that once I have built the lesson most of the work will be done. As a teacher I can directly instruct or let students work at their own pace and facilitate. The possible challenges I see would be students being off task, the internet not working, a particular piece of the presentation not working, the original poster of materials such as a video removes the item, and this does not apply to me however students may not have a device to view the material. I have thought of some strategies to combat the possible challenges. First off if students are off task, I can look closer at the elements being chosen to try and gain and keep attention. Also if I let them work at their own pace, that leaves me free to walk around, answer questions and keep students on task. As far as the technical difficulties that could arise, I would just be prepared with alternatives such as a tactile activity or project based learning activity that does not rely solely on technology. If students do not have a device, they could be paired with a student who does or could follow along on the SMARTboard, although that would take away some of the differentiation options. I embedded a link to one of my blendspace lessons, click play to begin.
This tool is great for teaching and student learning. It allows the teacher to gather all of their resources together in one presentation format to be better prepared and organized. It is great for students because they can access the materials all in one place, rather than having to navigate to multiple sites for different components of the lesson. I have not tried this tool out yet with my students, but I can see myself using it to differentiate lessons by building a few of the same lesson and leveling it for students. I could also allow them to choose part of what they are going to do to further differentiate. I also plan to use it as a formative assessment tool. The quiz feature allows you to create and administer your own quizzes and then it grades them for you.
This tool is so versatile, I believe that once I have built the lesson most of the work will be done. As a teacher I can directly instruct or let students work at their own pace and facilitate. The possible challenges I see would be students being off task, the internet not working, a particular piece of the presentation not working, the original poster of materials such as a video removes the item, and this does not apply to me however students may not have a device to view the material. I have thought of some strategies to combat the possible challenges. First off if students are off task, I can look closer at the elements being chosen to try and gain and keep attention. Also if I let them work at their own pace, that leaves me free to walk around, answer questions and keep students on task. As far as the technical difficulties that could arise, I would just be prepared with alternatives such as a tactile activity or project based learning activity that does not rely solely on technology. If students do not have a device, they could be paired with a student who does or could follow along on the SMARTboard, although that would take away some of the differentiation options. I embedded a link to one of my blendspace lessons, click play to begin.
My second tool I was very interested in was Gooru. Gooru is a tool that allows you to create a share collections of free K-12 resources to personalize learning. They offer many tutorials on how to get started. You can explore the website for free without creating a login. How does it work? Basically you can search the community and find lessons already created about almost anything. Then, you can save it (you have to login to save) and keep it the same or as the website puts it, you can “remix” it. If you like the whole thing, keep it all. If you like certain parts, you can choose to only keep those. Once you have it perfect, you can share it with students via my classes. The teacher can go back and look at students progress over time. It is similar to blendspace, but not exactly.
Gooru is simple to use for teachers and students alike. Teachers can create quizzes, add videos or pictures and then let students get to work. Guru, like blendspace, helps teachers to be more organized and allows for differentiation. It is more geared for quizzes and assessment in my opinion. With the options available, students and teachers can get a lot accomplished together. I think this tool could have the same challenges as I mentioned previously with blendspace. I will address the issues the same way I will address the issues with the same strategies. I embedded a link below to a Gooru collection, click study to begin.
Gooru is simple to use for teachers and students alike. Teachers can create quizzes, add videos or pictures and then let students get to work. Guru, like blendspace, helps teachers to be more organized and allows for differentiation. It is more geared for quizzes and assessment in my opinion. With the options available, students and teachers can get a lot accomplished together. I think this tool could have the same challenges as I mentioned previously with blendspace. I will address the issues the same way I will address the issues with the same strategies. I embedded a link below to a Gooru collection, click study to begin.
There are many other tools I really like and enjoy using for different niches of learning. Depending on the task I also like wordle and tagxedo, voki, and Geogebra. Each of these tools has different application for a specific use. Overall, I enjoyed being able to explore and give my opinion many tools for teachers. I know there are still so many more that I have not discovered yet. I cannot wait to see what I’ll discover next!