Technologies Aid in the Classroom

For me personally, I have used websites, such as Trello, to help me better communicate with my students and parents. I have used Trello this past year to set each of my Physics 30 students into groups for their final projects (or individually if they choose to). I had posted all of the required information on the Trello page and left the students to complete this project. As they complete each individual part of the project, they post their work to the Trello page, which allows me to immediately give feedback to them, and also a nice place to keep a record of all things they have completed with all previous versions of their work.

Another tool that our school has adapted this past year was to use Maplewood as a recording software for the students marks and attendance. This allows us to enter the students marks with comments on each individual assignment and have them available to use anywhere with an internet connection. Also, students and parents can log in at any time and see what they are missing, what their marks are like, and any attendance issues.

A classroom blog is also an amazing way to bring focus on the course work that you do within your class on a day to day basis. This allows student who have missed the class to find out what is required of them for the next day. This also allows parents to see what is happening within our room.

I believe all of these items have helped me to collaborate more with both parents and students. Parents are able to see which assignments need to be completed and what we are up to in each class, to allow them to be more connected to their own childs education. The students are also able to keep on top of any assigned work and ensure they are completed all of the required course work on time.

Since we have integrated our classroom with the use of the Internet and World Wide Web, a lot of the content in classrooms have changed. A lot of teachers have changed from having students do journal entries to creating a classroom blog or even Twitter page that allows parents to see what is happening within the classroom. In my class, I am able to do a lot of online simulations for Physics experiments that we would normally be unable to obtain. The Web has also allowed me, and many others, to share and receive pre-planned lessons and course material (why re-invent the wheel?). This has created a large selection of material for each teacher to use at their discretion.