Technology Tips for New (and Experienced) Teachers

When it comes to the education field, there are many little gadgets and advances in the technology world that can make your life so much easier. Some of these can be implemented into your daily routine, used on an occasional basis, added to a reward system, or some just help you track your students. For any new teachers, and a lot of the more experienced ones, there are some things that can make your life easier while helping your students to get ahead. This is a short list of examples, but you should not stop here. Almost any device can be used for your students' gain in the classroom. You can even put your Xbox to work in helping your students learn.

Power Point and the "One Gun"

When it comes to lectures and presentations, one of the best tools out there for teachers is the "one gun", or digital projector. These can be a great boon, not only for you, but for teachers across the country. This is a very easy way to share information, statistics, and presentations. You can create a power point presentation and share these with other members of your profession. One power point presentation can be easily shared and adapted to fit your curriculum. If the statistics change, you no longer have to change the entire presentation, just update the current one. You can add and delete from these with ease and they provide animations and graphic capabilities that will keep your students involved. They are very easy to set up and you can use your laptop or even a flash drive to work with these. This will also allow you to take the presentations home and tweak them whenever you need to.

Database Software

When it comes to tracking trends and flows, the big named Fortune 500 companies use robust database software. This should be no different for teachers. Since you are handling much more valuable merchandise than these companies are, you should use only the best methods to track and monitor their progression. A statistical database software suite can easily help you to track learning curves, attendance, students weak and strong points, or any other aspect of their educational lives. These can create some very intricate graphs and charts so that you can tailor your lesson plan to suit what your students need. If most of the class is light years ahead in fractions but lacking in decimals, you can easily identify the problem and shift your lessons to be more intense in the weaker areas. If you have one student that can not grasp a concept, but is ahead in other areas, you can identify the problems. This will help you to make sure that everyone in your classroom succeeds.

Xbox Games

Through the use of XDNA, you can now create a custom game or program that can run on the Xbox. You can offer this to any of your students that have one. Whether it is an assignment tracker linked to the above mentioned database, or extra study materials they can use for upcoming tests, you can easily create an Xbox "game" that can help your students at home. Their parents can also get involved in this manner as well. You can create a trivia or Jeopardy style game that they can play at home with friends and family or have a database that their parents can monitor. The possibilities are endless. You can also offer this as a reward for students that are excelling at the current course work. You can give people that get an A on a weekly test a certain amount of time to play your Xbox game in class. This will help to increase the effort they put into studying for tests as well.

Mobile and Web Apps

These days, everyone above the age of ten has a cell phone. Use these to your advantage. You can easily create a web app for any mobile device. Allow your students to download them for free and you can offer several study aides to your kids via the internet or mobile phone. There are also several free web hosting sites you can use to create a small web page for your students. You can use Word Press to create a forum for your students to help each other with their homework or any problems that they may have. These discussion groups can not only make your classroom stronger, but they will also help the students that are too shy or macho to talk to the teacher. It is a way to let them ask for help anonymously. You will want to make sure there are no mobile devices during tests though. Even if there are, you can monitor the discussion boards and easily catch the offenders.

CD or DVD Burners

With just about everyone owning a computer, and everyone having access to them via the libraries or computer lab, you can easily make all of your work digital. Not only will this help you in grading the assignments, but it will help to save paper. You will still want some of the work on paper to keep the cheating factor down, but if you put the syllabus and a majority of the work on a disk for them to take home, your students will have less to carry and can easily complete their work from any computer. You can collect the disks on one day of the week, grade them, and then get them back to the students before the weekend. This will also allow your students to work ahead a little if they need to. You will want to make sure you only use re-writable disks, otherwise, they will not be able to save their work to the disk. You can also customize the lesson for each student. If you see a student that is ahead in one area, and behind in another, you can put more work on their disk in the areas they need it, and less in the areas they don't.

There are many different ways that you can use technology for the good of your classroom. Many teachers are irked by the use of cell phones and other devices. You should embrace these and use them for the good of your students. By putting the work in a media that they can easily use, you will find that the students learn more and perform better. As I stated in the beginning of this article, do not stop at this list. If you are teaching technology, use qBasic to aid in the learning. There are programs and devices that you can use, no matter what course you are teaching. Use the school funds or other grants to get scientific calculators, iPhones, or Nooks for your entire class. Not only will they love you for it, it will help them learn better and retain that knowledge.