Technology 101: Welcome to Tech Vale

Today in ICT for Teaching & Learning we discovered a variety of tools that can be used in the classroom as starting points for student projects and learning.

Here is a piece of word art that I have created as part of the brainstorming process for a student inquiry project.

The above word art was created using this online word art generator. I have shared this word art as it outlines a few concepts and items I am passionate about. I believe this tool could be useful in a variety of classroom situations ranging from a way to get to know your students to a new way to present new terms to students. I have summarized two ways word art could be used in the classroom in the bullet points below.

• Have students prepare word art outlining their passions
• Allows teachers to understand students' motivation and develop related content
• Develop a word art that present vital terms of a unit
• Can be presented at the start to show new terms to students
• Can be used as a review tool where students need to define all the words they see

Another meaningful way to get to know students could be through the use of a Pinterest "All About Me" board. Students can prepare the board with photos of things that interest them. The board could then be shared in an online forum with the rest of the class. I believe this would be an excellent way to break the ice on the first day of a new semester, particularly in grade nine classes where students are new to the school community. An example "All About Me" page can be accessed here.

Teachers can also get to know students better by asking them to share some videos of their interests. Teachers could later fall back on these videos if they provide relevant curriculum material or use the videos as a starting point for class Genius Hour projects. Additionally, YouTube is a great source for short video clips that can provide extra reinforcement of class concepts. Videos can be embedded into class slides to avoid having to navigate many applications during class time. Below is an example of a student interest video embedded in this blog post.