Providing our students with technology for a successful futu

Providing our students with technology for a successful future.

Nowadays teacher can use technology for many things. They can use WebQuests to map out lesson plans, take virtual field trips, and hold video conferences. We can also provide our students with new technology to help them when writing papers and doing research by using speech recognition software and text reading software.

WebQuests are like the teacher version of an essay web map. It is an easy and effective way for teachers to map out their lesson plans and provide good instructions to assignments, and assess the expectations that the teacher sets for his/her students with the completion of the assignments.

Each WebQuest has five steps:

• Introduction – what will be done in this assignment, and any expectations the teacher sets.

• Task- instructions on what to do.

• Process – step by step directions to further explain the assignment.

• Evaluation – grading process.

• Conclusion – how the teacher feels that the students did on the assignment as well as what they learned and if they meet all expectations, the teacher set for them.

To create WebQuests you can use the following websites:

http://createwebquest.com/

http://questgarden.com/

http://zunal.com/

A virtual field trip, or virtual tour as sometimes referred to, allows the teacher to introduce his/her students to different places in the country or other countries that you could not normally visit in a days’ time or during school hours. In order to do so the class spends time during this virtual field trip in the computer lab. Scholastic.com and Google Earth provide many locations to where you can visit virtually. With the help of virtual field trips, students can further their knowledge of other places around the globe, and learn other cultures, traditions, and languages.

Something that works well with these virtual field trips or tours is videoconferencing. This learning technology gives students the opportunity to experience face-to-face interaction with people from other places in the world. Videoconference requires two computers, one on each end of the videoconference; it also requires cameras and a projection device. The projection device allows text, both digital and printed, to broadcast from one side to the other.

In order for our students to be successful in school, we much teach them about the tools that are available to them. For example, when writing a paper using Microsoft word, you get all these notifications stating your spelling errors and grammatical errors. Whereas if you use a technological device that has speech recognition software. You can say what you want and it will write it down exactly the way you say it, so that you can go back and read through and notice your errors on your own. You can also find mistakes by using a screen reading software that reads back to you what you have wrote so you can hear how its sounds. Many smart phones have this software in the phone when you buy them. You can use the microphone to speak what you want to text someone or what you want to email them or even when you want to search for something on Google.

Software

Virtual Field Trip

Videoconferencing

WebQuests