The ubiquitous nature of technology means that it is always around us. In our work as educators, we use technology to support efficiency with rudimentary tasks, to organize our calendars and agendas, and to store our lessons, textbooks, and student information.
A key idea in Dr. Rubén Puentedura's SAMR model is to be purposeful in how technology is used in teaching and learning. With so much educational technology available, it is sometimes difficult to choose when, where, why and what should be used to improve learning outcomes.
One strategy is to break down the purpose of technology use, focusing on its use to complete specific teaching and learning activities.
As part of a series of three articles, in this first I will discuss the use of technology to support lesson creation and instruction. The following articles will focus on the use of technology to support student engagement in learning and assessment of learning.
<h2 id="technology-for-lesson-creation-3″>Lesson creation technology
Many components need to be brought together before any lesson can be facilitated. Even if your school district requires you to use a certain curriculum with associated content, how you approach your plans for teaching those lessons may vary.
First, decide where you will store all your learning materials. Google Drive is a good option and has applications included for word processing type documents (Google Docs), Surveys and Questionnaires (Google Forms) and Slide Presentations (Google Slides), among others. plugins and extensions as Solid. Other robust options for selecting content are also available, such as Wakelet either rowed.
While storyboards are popular when creating movies, they can be a useful instructional design tool when planning lessons, especially when technology is involved. These eLearning Storyboard Templates can be useful.
As you collect content to develop or complement your lesson, using open educational resources (OER) will ensure that you appropriately use copyrighted materials and provide attribution to the author. These are digital citizenship skills that can also be modeled for students. He Common open educational resources offers free and open resources across all subjects and disciplinary areas that you can pull from and add to your lessons. Similarly, Creative commons can be a useful resource when planning your lessons.
<h2 id="technology-for-lesson-instruction-3″>technology for Lesson Instruction
Once you've used technology tools to plan, organize, and select your lesson materials, you can try additional digital platforms to facilitate instruction.
Animation is an interesting option for presenting concepts and content, especially new content that can be difficult to understand. Using animation tools that can break instruction into easily understandable chunks can keep students engaged. powtoon and animator You have free options that you can play with. Animated videos could be used to open the lesson, as icebreakers, and/or integrated into a larger instructional presentation. Students may even be impressed to see that their teacher has created a multimedia animated video!
You can also present content within a learning instructional platform such as Close to the capsule either Rockeror create interactive slides to show in class or virtually. There are many multimedia slide options available, such as Google Slides either canva, that are easy to use, have free options and templates to get you started. To make your content presentation engaging and interesting, include a variety of images, videos, and text. These slideshows can be used in live lessons and/or in full lessons or recorded mini-lessons.
Intentional use of technology is important to ensure that we don't get lost in the options and lose focus on why we incorporated it into our classrooms in the first place. As you use technology to plan, create, and facilitate amazing lessons, consider how it works and how using those tools can help you achieve your instructional goals and students achieve learning outcomes.
