Everyone has favorite things in life. During my time in this Educational Technology class, I discovered what my favorite resources to use are. Here are my top three favorites:
Favorite #1
The first tool that I fell in love with this semester is iMovie. I thought it was so fun and easy to create movies and little videos that I can share with my family and friends. This is a resource that I will definitely use again and again. I also plan on using iMovie within my very own classroom. There are a number of different ways that this resource can be useful to classroom learning. For example, this semester one thing our class had to do was draw a slip of paper that had a message we had to convey using iMovie with no talking for the movie. Then the class got to watch everyones movie clips and try and guess and what their message was. It was so much fun. My partner and I had to convey the message of recycling. This would be great team building for the beginning of the year to use with the students. Each pair would have to convey a rule of the classroom through their video clips. These could be things such as how do we treat others with respect, do not bully, line up quietly. The ideas are endless!
Favorite #2
The second tool that I loved this semester was Smore. This is a free online resource to make flyers with. This was a great resource that teachers could use to create a weekly or monthly flyer about the highlights of the things the class and students did either that week or month. The teachers can then easily send the link of this flyer to the parents of the students or post it on their classroom website. This would be a great paperless alternative to the flyers that I was sent home with as a kid that wasted a lot of paper and for some students did make it the trip home. This resource is a great one for all educators to use!
Favorite #3
The third tool that I loved this semester was ThingLink. It was used to easily create interactive images that linked to other resources, websites, and videos. This allows for students or educators to share and discover deeper stories through images. This gives research reports a whole different twist. A teacher could use this resource within their classroom to allow for the students to create a report. The students could research a historical person or a time in history, and then learn about that given subject, and include links to other resources and videos of the given subject. The students could then stand up in front of the class and give their report using the resources and videos that are linked onto their image to make their presentation even better.
