3 Inventive Technology Tools for the Online Learning Environment
To stay up-to-date, educators must always come up with innovative methods to integrate technology. This may be achieved by taking into account resources and programs that will both support and improve teaching and learning for students. Here, we provide three resources and applications that bolster this idea:
Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is a mobile and online application that lets users create visual content for web pages, movies, and posts. The three parts of Adobe Spark are the spark post, spark video, and spark page. A visual storyboard that embodies the user’s desired message is produced by Spark Post. The user of Spark Video may construct a unique learning tool by combining symbols, graphics, and video clips. The most noteworthy, and last, is the spark page. Not a programmer? No worries; the user may add text, images, and videos to a Spark page to create material that expresses their own viewpoint. The Adobe Spark toolkit as a whole is not limited to use by students. Teachers can utilize them to make their own learning artifacts.
2. In the Virtual Classroom, Quizlet
Students may easily set up and use Quizlet, an easy-to-use test-taking application. It costs nothing to sign up. Once you have an account, create a quiz by clicking on the Create button on the dashboard. The quiz may then be submitted to a course in your LMS. The learner can choose from five different modes on the quiz: learn, flashcards, write, match, and test.
The fact that Quizlet encourages retrieval practice is perhaps its greatest feature. When students are required to recall material for an exam or quiz, they are engaging in retrieval practice. Retrieval exercise, made popular by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel’s (2014) book Make it Stick, improves student retention more than equal study time.
Quizlet is easily available on smartphones, so students aren’t just confined to utilizing computers for their studies (Rowe, 2018). Downloading the app is simple and comes with instructions in the website’s Help section. With their iPhones, students may practice retrieval, raise their grades, and do well in the classroom. They can do this whenever they want, whether they’re at home, at school, or shopping.
3. Remind
In 2018, research on the impacts of texting on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students at Ohio and West Virginia Community Colleges was investigated (Kelly, 2018). Research revealed that the group of students who did not get text message nudges from their instructors performed worse than the group who did (Kelly, 2018). Remind is one program or tool that enables teachers to text students (formerly known as Remind 101). Students may enroll in a course, send and receive messages by SMS, app, online, and email, and modify the course settings at any time (Remind, 2019). This straightforward and free messaging tool’s ability to protect students and instructors’ private information, including phone numbers, is one of its strongest features (Remind, 2019).
Here are several justifications for thinking about communicating with kids via text messaging, whether it be through Remind or another app.
It is a highly effective method of maintaining student focus, even in the presence of a learning management system (LMS) like Desire2Learn, Blackboard, or Canvas.
It gives the teacher a method to get in touch with the pupils for any reason, such as having to follow up or being late for class.
Additionally, it gives you and the pupils a way to communicate in the event of illness, death, auto accidents, etc.
Apart from learning management systems (LMS) like Blackboard, Canvas, or Desire2Learn, this app is an excellent method for politely reminding students of their assignments, quizzes, final examinations, etc.
It creates a positive learning environment between students and teachers, whether the course is fully online or meets in person like a traditional course.
