What digital learning tools will your student be exposed to as a part of this initiative?
Part of our parent education on this topic will include how devices are utilized. Teachers will be using websites that support their learning objectives, and these largely depend on the content they teach. Many teachers will utilize game-based learning through sites like Quia and Kahoot. The goal is to make learning fun and engaging while focusing on student mastery of learning objectives.
Google Classroom: This tool helps to provide each teacher with a dashboard for distributing documents, assignments, links, and other resources to students. It also helps students be more organized and aware of assignments and due dates, as they are easily accessible from any computer or tablet with an internet connection. This tool also helps students to collaborate on assignments, communicate with their teacher to receive feedback or ask questions and stay organized with all materials for each class in one location. Coming this fall, parents and guardians will be able to sign-up to receive daily or weekly email digests of their student’s progress, upcoming work and class announcements! I will have more information for you on this feature when it rolls out.
Quia: This tool helps teachers to provide exciting review opportunities for students. Teachers can create games in the style of “Battleship”, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, and “Jeopardy” among others. This helps students learn and remember key concepts through game-based learning. They can also take digital assessments which allow for immediate and detailed feedback.
Google Apps for Education: In the past, students have been utilizing the Microsoft Office Suite of tools for typing papers, creating slideshows, or analyzing data in spreadsheets. Google allows for these types of documents to be created from any device with an internet connection, eliminating the need for expensive software. This allows students to be able to work on homework more easily from a variety of locations either at home or at school. Students will have the opportunity to create documents, slide decks, spreadsheets, drawings, and maps through the Google Apps suite. They also will be able to save their work automatically to Google Drive. This allows them to access their work from anywhere with internet access. By storing student work in the cloud, students no longer need to purchase or carry flash drives for bringing work home.