Technology Resources

Exploring technology is very important and keeping up with the latest tools is imperative for students to be successful. There are so many free resources at our fingertips. Teachers must take their time to educate themselves and become familiar with these resources.  Students must be able to explore and learn on their own in the classroom while enjoying class. For these reasons I chose two tools to share with other educators.

https://cramberry.com


This site allows students to make their own flash cards or use pre made flash cards in the system.  Students can create a free account and browse flash cards.  Cramberry analyzes students progress and shows cards that students need help with more frequently. Flash cards can be stored with all users of cramberry. Thus classmates can study and share together.  Cramberry is on ipod, ipad, and the i phone.  I chose this site because flash cards were an important part of my learning. Flash cards allow students to learn and memorize terms. A lot of the time with my students the trouble begins with a lack of exposure to the word and being unfamiliar with the terms.

www.academicskillbuilders.com

Educational video games that are aligned with standards and researched base.  Students can play with others in the class or as individuals. Students set their own password and can give it out to other students to join their game.  Students are allowed to play games by grade level allowing students to work on their academic level.  Students are required to make rapid responses while using strategy.  Four academic areas are addressed on this site: math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills.  Therefore, all parts of math are present, typing, spelling, geography, and word relationships.  My students love to play games on the computer, they view that as a reward.  I am always looking for sites that are not blocked by my district and that allow students to think critically while having fun.  

As a principal of the school I would encourage teachers to allow students to have computer time daily to engage in one of these sites, even for 15min.  I think students need to see that learning can occur in all faucets and can be enjoyable.  My students at my school do not have computers at home or internet access, therefore, any time allowed on the computer is treasured. The boys really enjoy playing games against each other and tracking scores. Both these sites report progress to the teacher which allows teachers to have more data students and to assess students’ needs.