The Not-So-Tech-Savvy-Millennial

I didn’t get a cell phone until I was 18; a laptop until I was 24; a smartphone until last year. I still don’t have an i-pod or an i-pad. Yeah, I’m behind the times.

I love technology . . .to an extent. I’m a pro at Facebook creeping, I’m a Pinterest addict, and I couldn’t even dream of handwriting anything anymore thanks to word processing. However, that’s about the extent of my skills.

Cue grad school class in Technology. Also cue my groans, sweaty palms, and visions of “Fs” floating in my future.

Nonetheless, the class has truly helped changed my mind about technology, especially when it comes to the classroom. Don’t get me wrong; Bill Gates doesn’t need to move over or anything. However, I’ve come to realize that by using my Promethean Board as simply a Power Point projector and living in the old school world, I’m not doing anyone any favors. I don’t want to turn into that hobbly old English teacher who wears her glasses too low on her nose and is out of touch. I want to find ways to use technology to enhance my classroom, to speak to the new generation.  Am I still nervous? Yes. Will I be trying Skype anytime soon? Probably not.  Baby steps will be my approach. Below, see some helpful apps and sites that even I can use :)

Socrative

I’m so excited about this program that I’ve already made quizzes on it for next year. Essentially, it is an online quiz maker that takes away the need for the promthean voters/clickers. Students can log in on a device or computer to your classroom and take a quiz. The program grades their quiz for them, giving them and you automatic feedback. Gone are the days of taking home reading quizzes, grading them, and finding time in the distant future to review them. Socrative reporting options even allow you to see which questions the majority of the class missed so you can review them automatically.

Kahoot.it

This website is aimed at elementary, but I definitely think high school will enjoy it. Kahoot is a game maker. You essentially make quizzes on the website, adding pictures and video as you like. Again, students can use a laptop or device to log in, join in the game, and answer the questions. The game gives the students points based on correct answers and speed, building a fun, competitive atmosphere. I’ve also started making games on this for next year.

Class Dojo

This website is definitely elementary, but I’m going to give it a trial run for a week or so next year with some of my classes. This behavior system gives each student an avatar. You can click on their avatar to give them points or take points away for certain behaviors. You can customize the behaviors. Students’ scores are kept in easy to read reports. Parents can even create accounts to log in. I will be using this purely to keep track of participation at the high school level.

NEWSELA

I love this program. The common core has pushed for nonfiction, supplemental materials to be added to the English curriculum. This website, which is free, allows you to set up classes and assign nonfiction articles that are current and sorted by subject. Even science, business, or history classes can find relevant articles. Articles come with quizzes which can be taken on line and scored. Student progress is recorded in reports so you can track growth. The best feature? For each article, you can change the lexile level. This makes it seamlessly easy to differentiate for all readers in your class. The articles look exactly the same, too, so students sitting beside each other will have no clue.

Do you have any apps or websites you can’t live without as a teacher?  Feel free to comment about them below!