What I Love About Teaching: Using Technology in the Classroom

Hi y'all!  It's Stephanie from The Learning Chambers.  I can't wait to share with you guys what I love about teaching.  I LOVE that I'm a teacher in the ever growing technology age!  I mean my school is surrounded by new construction and our internet has been down on a few occasions.  Y'all, the struggle was real!  I was like I can't teach, I don't have this and I can't open that!  It was rough!

Today, I wanted to share some of my technology favorites that can easily be implemented in any elementary classroom.

If you read my blog, you know that I use edmodo daily in my classroom.  I've been using it for four years and for various things.  The one thing that I use it for the most is for math homework.

I create a short video tutorial that the kids watch for homework and then there are questions at the end of the video that they answer for homework.  Most of my kids have a parent with a smart phone or they have a tablet of their own that they do their homework on.  I have a few without access, but they are allowed to do the math homework here at school in the mornings or during our workstation time.

I also use Moby Max, which is an app within edmodo that helps the kids practice math facts and other math skills.  You can  send it to one of your edmodo groups by visiting the app store and searching for the free math apps.  My kids LOVE Moby Max.

I have two different blog posts that I have written about how I use edmodo in my classroom.  You can click on the pictures below to read those blog posts.

My second favorite tech app is Spelling City.  My kiddos love using it to practice their spelling words.  I have a free account and I'm able to add their spelling lists weekly.  They log into our free class account and then they can choose different games to help them practice their spelling words.  So much better than just writing your words 3 times each.  Right?!?!

My last favorite way to use technology in the classroom is to have students create a presentation after a unit of study or after a research unit.  It's the best way to show off what they learned and something that they can keep forever.  I wanted to share some of my favorite presentation apps and web tools that you can easily use in your classroom.

Haiku Deck is a slideshow type presentation app for the iPad and it also comes in a web based app as well.  You can click on the picture above to see the web based app.  It's super easy to use and comes with backgrounds and pictures built in that your student can choose from.

I still really love to use popplet with my kiddos.  They can easily put all of their facts in a web and add pictures as well.  You can export their finished popplets as a jpeg image or a pdf.  I love that!

I also just started using Google Drive with my kiddos.  They have been creating slideshow presentations about their famous person research using Slides.  It's super easy to use and I love that they can search for images inside of Slides.  I'm planning on writing a longer post later after their presentations are finished.  Stay tuned!

Thanks so much for reading about how I love to use technology in my classroom.  I would love to write more technology posts and would love for you to follow my blog to read more.