Websites to create interactive presentations in School

In order to introduce ICTs in Education there are lots of web pages that let both teacher and children teach and learn in a brand-new way . Here you have a list of some of them:

• Prezi https://prezi.com/  : Using Prezi in education is taking the classroom by storm, rapidly gaining popularity over other programs as the presentation tool of choice for educators and students.

• Emaze https://www.emaze.com :Teachers can engage their class with interactive presentations that make learning more accessible, stimulating, and effective. With Emaze, users can incorporate video, audio and text, offering a unique potential for student engagement. They can collaborate and share their work, convert their old presentations to an Emaze template, and make learning experiences that are memorable and fun.

• Genially https://www.genial.ly/ : is a web tool to create engaging interactive visual content. You can make interactive pictures, infographics, presentations, posters and questionnaires or guides. And, for me, the best thing about this tool  is that you can choose from a wide variety of free templates to create very professional interactive content or you can upload your own pictures and start from scratch. It also gives you the ability to integrate videos, audio, and any embeddable code among other things.

• Canva https://www.canva.com/: Instead of teaching students to solve problems with existing solutions, let them experiment and innovate in order to stumble upon something better. The goal is to come up with more human-centered, collaborative, and optimistic ways to create social change—or at least to start thinking that way.

Using Learning Apps in classroom

• ADVANTAGES

-Motivation and Engagement

While students are not always interested in a lecture, they may find curiosity about a particular subject due to an app. Using educational apps is a way to promote interest in topics that students might otherwise disregard.

-Individualized Learning

Children can go at their own pace rather than have to follow the teacher’s rate of instruction. Having the opportunity to learn without a teacher’s direct influence encourages students to value independent study.

Special Education Barriers Can Be Removed

Technology may give children with disabilities a way to learn that they cannot receive in a traditional classroom environment. For example, there are apps that focus on helping dyslexic children to read.

Assist Teachers

Anything that supports a teacher also helps students. In addition to assisting teachers with grading and organization, technology helps a teacher educate their students. Apps can act as built-in lessons and aid a teacher in tracking a student’s progress. Furthermore, the right app can enhance a teacher’s lesson by offering another approach to a subject.

• DISADVANTAGES

-Attention and Emotional Development

Daniel Goleman Ph.D., of Emotional Intelligence fame, worries that the use of technology is affecting the ability of children to focus and may impact emotional development. He argues that children may not develop necessary self-control and empathy for other people if they do not learn to pay attention in a school setting.

-Overstimulation

Janice Kowalski, M.D. notes that overstimulation due to excessive screen time has been linked to emotion dysregulation and a reduction in sleep. Although the recommended screen time for a child is much debated, it is clear that the use of education technology in school can only contribute to increased stimulation. Teachers and parents need to be aware of symptoms of overstimulation, such as difficulties in managing stress and regulating mood.

-Many Teachers are Not Familiar With TechEd

The majority of teachers learned how to teach using traditional methods because they have not received significant training in the use of apps and computers to enhance their students’ education. It is fair to wonder if a student’s education suffers because teachers don’t know how to integrate ICTs into a lesson plan.

-Technology Imbalance Leads to Learning Disparities

Knowledge of technology is not created equal. Those children that have more familiarity with tablets and computers have an advantage over those kids who don’t. This disparity lends itself to the possibility that education technology contributes to inequality in learning.

• FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCE

Using education apps in schools is a double-edged sword. There are many advantages but multiple shortcomings as well. Schools must learn to integrate the use of education apps into their classrooms in an efficient way, without oversaturating the classroom environment. Additionally, children must be taught to use technology responsibly.

Are Learning Apps Helping or Hurting Education? (2019). Retrieved from https://www.educationcorner.com/learning-apps-helping-hurting-education.html

The Benefits of Collage

«The practical benefits of collage are:

~ Collages are easy to create. No artistic skills are required.

~ Materials for collage are readily available.

~ Collages are very quick to make. It is easy to create a small collage in under ten minutes.

The emotional benefits of collage are:

~ Intuitive collage bypasses your censoring mind and can surprise you with new information about your inner life.

~ Intuitive collage provides a «symbolic release» of emotions, even if you are not yet conscious of what they are.

~ Intuitive collage can help you to «meet» and accept the inner parts of yourself that you do not normally express from your socialized self.

~ Intuitive collage expresses the various aspects of your personality in visual form, and this will help you to understand, organize and sort out your «inner landscape» so that you can witness it compassionately.

~ The imagery and colours in an intuitive collage can reveal emotions more powerfully than verbal self-expression. You will FEEL imagery on nonverbal levels»

Klammer, S. (2019). The Benefits of Collage Therapy. Retrieved from https://intuitivecreativity.typepad.com/expressiveartinspirations/2017/02/the-benefits-of-collage-therapy.html

Why use podcasts in class (and 14 activities to try!)

» Authentic materials—written, audio, and video materials students come across in everyday life—can be a wonderful addition to your teaching toolbox. Podcasts are an example of authentic material, and likely a format you and your students are familiar with. But why can they be incorporated into your class?

Why consider them?

Ohh, there are so many reasons. Essentially, podcasts cover practical content, interviews and current events, played out at real-time conversational speed with true-to-life accents. In short, this makes them great for training your students’ listening comprehension. They can be downloaded, listened to repeatedly, slowed down, sped up, shared, stitched together and cropped—and are available on every theme under the sun. (Really, from physics to fashion and cooking to cryogenics.) You can find them easily on Google, iTunes, and Play Store, plus on the websites of some large educational institutions and major broadcasters (such as the BBC and ABC).

Try these activities in class

1. Listening comprehension—Prepare a short questionnaire for students. Allow them to scan the questions, and ask them to complete it following the episode.
2. Listen for gist—Provide broad questions about general meaning: What is this episode about? Who is speaking? What are they talking about? Where are they? What’s the general mood of the conversation? Listen once to answer. Listen again, then compare with a partner. Compare open class.
3. Introduce new language—Pre-teach difficult words, then listen to the episode writing the words on the board as they come. Listen again and identify them in context. Following this, reinforce them in your students’ lexicon by working on them in class using your favorite go-to vocabulary activities.
4. Write a “letter to the podcaster.”—Ask students to write a response to the episode, addressed to its creator. (Depending on student interest and the podcast content, you may consider actually sending in these letters.)
5. Bingo—Based on the podcast’s theme, ask students to write down ten words, expressions, or pieces of grammar they think they’ll hear. During the episode, students play bingo, crossing items off as they hear them. (At the start of the lesson you may provide a theme-specific list of items for students to choose between so they aren’t guessing cold.)

Podcasts are immensely popular worldwide. For language teachers, they represent a never-ending source of authentic materials to exploit in their classrooms to improve students’ listening comprehension, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Good luck as you start incorporating podcasts in your class! «

This article is from https://www.ef.com/wwen/blog/teacherzone/how-and-why-use-podcasts-class/

How (and why!) to use podcasts in class – EF TeacherZone Blog. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.ef.com/wwen/blog/teacherzone/how-and-why-use-podcasts-class/

Benefits of VR in classroom

Just a few years ago, virtual reality seemed to be a sci-fi concept for most people. It is believed that this technology is the future of education and that students will benefit from VR-enabled textbooks and virtual classrooms.

This article explores the impact of virtual reality on students and educators. You will learn about typical advantages of using virtual reality in the classroom.

VR Can Stop Classroom Smartphone Distraction

According to the study, results of which were published in the Journal of Medical Education, students spent a fifth of their time in the classroom using their mobile devices for non relevant activities to their school work.

If these smartphones were used for VR technology students would not be able to waste their time because they would use their devices to engage with VR software.

Eliminates Language Barriers

With virtual reality, language translation can be built into the software and there will be no language barrier that can prevent students from achieving their educational goals. VR visualizations can be experienced in any language.

Outstanding Visualizations

Wearing VR headset, students can experience high-quality educational visualizations that have a positive impact on the whole learning process. VR can help students easily understand complex concepts, theories, and subjects. They are able to retain complex information at a much higher rate.

Research has proven that immersion of students in the virtual world enables them to learn better. Such learning activities don’t feel like work and students enjoy the learning process that increases their motivation.

Social Integration of Students

Students achieve better results in a positive learning environment when they can connect with their peers. Virtual reality can enhance social integration of students with different learning needs and styles.

Students who commonly struggled to become a part of a group were accepted by their peers because they had strong technology skills. These are the findings of Dr. Connor Galvin who evaluated virtual reality learning program that involved 20 schools. This technology can ensure positive outcomes for children experiencing problems at home, with learning difficulties or from ethnical minorities.

VR is used in architectural design and allows students to view their own designs in real time.

Virtual reality is unlikely to replace old-school face-to-face teaching methods, but this technology will continue to be used to enhance learning experiences for students.

Benefits Of Using Virtual Reality In The Classroom – ReadWrite. (2018). Retrieved from https://readwrite.com/2018/03/20/benefits-using-virtual-reality-classroom/

Create your own ending

We encourage children to create their own ending to the book. For this matter, they will join in groups of 4. They will plan what they want to happen. Anything is possible!

For this matter, we will provide a series of Apps to let them create their own animate videos or comic-book as well as tutorials they can follow to help them:

• Storyjumper:

Story Jumper is a great website that offers students the chance to write, create and publish their own stories. This site offers simple creating tools that are ensured to engage children’s creativity skills and demonstrate their story book  writing abilities. Students are able to illustrate and write a book, whether it be imaginative, informational or a narrative. Storyjumper is a tool that makes writing fun for students and grabs their attention for successful and efficient learning.

• My Story School eBook Maker

My Story School eBook Maker is a digital storytelling and book-publishing app. Once teachers have set up user accounts (the app usefully supports multiple authors), kids can jump in and create a book. They’ll start with the title page, for which they choose a color, graphics, and a book title. Then they add pages, one by one, to continue the story. Kids have several drawing tools and an array of colors, plus a large library of graphics organized by category. If teachers allow access to the device’s camera, kids can also use photos. Once placed, graphics and photos can be easily sized, rotated, and flipped. To put the final touches on the page, kids can add text and or voice narration. Books can be exported as MP4, PDF, EPUB, or MYSTORY files, published to iBooks, or shared through various social media platforms including YouTube.

• Scribble: Kids Book Maker

Scribble Press – Creative Book Maker for Kids is a kid-friendly book-creation and -publication app that kids can use to write and illustrate stories, publish them online or in print, and view other kids’ books. The more than 500 writing and drawing tools allow kids to convey their stories and its messages via words, fonts, colors, images, and more. Kids can even put their own face on a character using the device camera. Or, for more structure, students can follow one of many story templates, such as «If I ran for President» or «My first day at my new school.» Students’ works can be published publicly or privately, or printed copies can be ordered directly from the app. Students can save their story as a movie that they can watch anytime.

• Vyond:

Vyond combines an intuitive, powerful video editing platform with training, support, and enterprise-level security to ensure that organizations of any size and individuals of any skill level can make media that moves. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

We created a video using this app to explore the possibilities it offers:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FZOVzXxG5UOOH74ZbSg-jUuj05Mv1DvI?usp=sharing

Interactive Whiteboard

» Interactive whiteboards have brought significant improvements in the education sector by simplifying the learning processes. The benefits of using interactive whiteboards in the classroom affect both the students and teachers positively. The article below explores some of the benefits of integrating interactive whiteboards in the learning curriculum.

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Main Benefits of Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom Are As Follows:

1. Makes Review or Revision of Lessons More Convenient

• It allows students to save lessons for later playback and/or review.  
• It offers the teacher an opportunity to share screen, text , audio and video files with students in real-time.
• Students can also record full lessons and share them with friends who weren’t able to attend classes.

That will result in better understanding, quicker learning and improved performance.

2. Makes It Easier for the Teacher to Structure Lessons

3. Makes the Learning Process More Fun

With this technology in class, every student will be anxious to try out how the board works. That can spur the students’enthusiasm to get involved in learning process using the interactive whiteboards. Students will find syllabus coverage more fun and most of them won’t miss school or skip classes.

4. Increases the Level of Engagement between Teachers and Students

Instead on making the often boring one-way presentation, a teacher can use interactive whiteboard to engage every student in class. A teacher can play an audio file to demonstrate the pronunciation of a word displayed on the board. Students will then be given a chance to pronounce other words to see whether they are correct. In the long run, lessons will be more vivid, more engaging and certainly more productive.

5. Allows Students with Various Disabilities to Learn Better

• While some students are good auditory learners, others are great visual learners. So including text, images, audio and video in a presentation allows everyone to enjoy the lesson.
• It helps students with hearing impairment to benefit from visual presentation. Those unable to see partially or completely can also learn more about a given topic using audio presentation.

6. Brings Convenience and Flexibility in Learning

With the increasing use of video conferencing systems, many schools have adopted e-learning options in their curriculum. With such a platform, a student can cover the entire syllabus for a given term or semester from the comfort of the home.

7. Saves on Teaching Costs

Both private and government sponsored schools incur a lot of costs each on dry markers, erasers, chalks and even blackboard painting each year. Also, students will spend less on writing materials and enjoy class presentations more.

Conclusion

The benefits of interactive whiteboards in the classroom are so many that any learning institution can’t afford to ignore. Apart from bringing convenience and flexibility in education, use of interactive whiteboards increases teacher-student engagement and boost performance in the long run. These whiteboards will not only stimulate learning but will also save on learning materials and inspire performance. »

Uses of Interactive Whiteboard in Education | ezTalks. (2019). Retrieved 28 November 2019, from https://www.eztalks.com/whiteboard/uses-of-interactive-whiteboard-in-education.html

Tablets

Tablets are the main tool that we are going to use in our didactic unit. Using them to read, make interactives activities, record sound or videos, search information…. Due to the huge importance of that tool, we are going to show you with an article the impact of tablets in the classroom .

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The broader picture
Pupils appear to have greater engagement with learning, collaboration with peers increases, and teachers can monitor individual progress effectively. There are some concerns about pupil distraction and managing time effectively. It is clear that schools need time to adjust to the introduction of one-to-one devices, and that the functions of the tablet need to be understood by teachers.

Strong leadership helps this process. Infrastructure, insurance or self-insuring, and protection for the devices need to be considered before introduction takes place, and access to appropriate content is key to using the devices effectively.

The Benefits. Tablets enhanced pedagogy by enabling teachers to adapt their teaching style to suit the needs of individual students, and allowed for innovative ways to learn. In addition, tablets were found to foster both independent learning, and collaboration with teachers and other students.

To avoid distraction the key is to have clear rules, effective classroom management, and educating students in using tablets responsibly.

The impact of tablets in the classroom. (2019). Retrieved 28 November 2019, from https://www.educationbusinessuk.net/features/impact-tablets-classroom