By Farid Gasim
What do you get when you run out of fun, interesting teaching ideas? Lessons are dull, activitities aren’t engaging and students are no longer tuned into their learning. Luckily, injecting a little bit of technology into your plans can be jst what you need to re-energize the classroom and your students.
Use these awesome ideas to make learning exciting again.
1. Improve Listening With Podcasts
By listening to a narrator tell a story or an expert discuss a topic, podcasts can help students strengthen their ability to gather information through multimedia.
They’re also easy for teachers to access, because they’re free and readily available on a number of platforms. With so many to choose from, you can cover a wide range of topics, as well, including social studies, economics, art, sports and real-world math.
2. Curate Resources With QR Codes
Similar to scannable tech, QR codes make it easier for your students find the resources you want them to have. The process is simple: “Once you decide what information you want to share, whether it’s a link to a website or the URL of a video, upload that information to a free QR code generator and save the image,” says Nicole Long, teacher.
Print and tape QR codes to students desks for easy access throughout the day, or use them for specific project resources as needed.
3. Bring GarageBand to Your Classroom—Not Just the Music Classroom
This app is not just for music teachers. GarageBand is digital recording tool that lets students capture their voice with a microphone or play a variety of virtual instruments. Teachers use it to incorporate media into any lesson plan.
4. Host a Virtual Debate
Building and supporting an argument is crucial for students and debating is a great way to teach students how to do exactly that. Use a tool like Skype or Google Hangouts to host a virtual debate with another classroom in your school, in your town or across the world.
More: How to Use Mystery Skype as a Classroom Tool
5. Print A Virtual Reality Headset
This is a great way to introduce your students to printing functional products while learning about virtual reality. 3D printing helps students bring their ideas to life, and by analyzing the design, they have a better understanding of what it takes to create their own products—and what goes into making the ones they buy every day.
More: How to 3D Print Your Own Virtual Reality Headset
6. Create an Interactive Wall with #ScannableTech
An interactive word wall can transform spaces in your classroom. This is a fun way to engage students with content and promote a sense of curiosity. Augmented reality and QR codes can be used to create interactive displays for students that can be scanned. When a student wants to learn more about something, that’s all they have to do.
7. Start a Class Newsletter
Newsletters are perfect for sharing special events, updates and accomplishments with families. A newsletter building tool helps teachers share information with families about the events happening in throughout the month. Students can author their own newsletter each month so parents can learn about the classroom through the lens of a student.
A few class newsletter tools include:
8. Spice Up You Classroom Presentation with Buncee
Encourage students to create fun, engaging content for classroom presentations, with Buncee, which over 500 animations to choose from. Students can also use this platform to create interactive stories.
You can use this as well to bring media and online content into your presentations and lessons. Students will love a 3 minute video break and you’ll love not having to stop your presentation to show it.
9. Inspire Authentic Research Projects
Allow students to find inspiration online for a project of their choosing. They can watch a TedTalk, watch a documentary, listen to a podcast and more. Once the topic is chosen, they can use online research to explore what they’re passionate about. This sets a purpose for their reading and writing activities.
10. Go for a Virtual Field Trip
Virtual field trips transport students to places they just might not be able to visit with you during the school year. You can head to the White House, swim under the sea, check out exhibits at museums and much more.
Find a field trip:
- 10 Virtual Field Trips to Explore the World
- 5 Virtial Field Trips to Take With Your Social Studies Class
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