Teaching online allows a greater access to the use of
multimedia resources that engage and educate students in twenty first century technology. There are a plethora of resource available to
students and teachers. Of those, the
following three are tools that I would used for third grade and above.
Voki: https://www.voki.com
Voki allows someone to record their voice for up to 60
seconds and animate an avatar to present the message. This is a great tool to use in the online
school in several ways. First, it would
be a creative way to provide encouragement and feedback to students in a way
that would attract their attention.
Often, online education involves students completing computer
administered and scored assessments.
Although this provides immediate feedback, it doesn’t meet the need for
student teacher interaction. Using Voki
in this way would meet this need.
Second, Voki could be used to send announcements. Third, it could be used to create an
introduction of oneself to the class (either or both the teacher and student)
or post a short answer to a discussion question in a small group. Of course, when students post their voki’s,
all should be reviewed by the teacher before it is posted to the class. This is a fun and unique tool because once
students learn to use this, they will almost assuredly go on to use it in their
personal lives. This will allow them to
continue to develop communication skills outside the classroom. Here is a sample:
Kidblog: http://kidblog.org/home/
Kidblog is a blog for kids.
It allows students to publish their writing online as well as photos,
videos, and more. It is a great way to
build a classroom community since students can read and post comments on fellow
students posts as well as a global community.
There are several application for this tool: an online portfolio of student work, posting responses
to journal prompts, a creative writing journal, a problem solving journal, a
notebook to record information on specific topics, and more. I’d love to use this to have students
introduce themselves at the beginning of a class, keep a portfolio of their
work over the course of the year, and use it as a pen pal system.
ABC YA: http://www.abcya.com/
This is a website for students from grades k-5 that has
educational games and apps online in the subjects of english, math, social
studies, and more. This is an excellent
resource for online students. Often,
students need just a bit more practice to cement a concept. It can be difficult for teachers to meet this
need for the large number of students in their classes with many varied
needs. This site offers that for
students in a fun and engaging way. It’s
colorful and creative with lots of wonderful visuals such as cute characters
and animations. Students will enjoy this
and it gives teachers an important resource at their fingertips. They can allow students to pick their own
practice activities or assign them based on student need.
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