Reviewing 3 Tech Tools

Read&Write for Google

http://www.texthelp.com/uk/our-products/readwrite

This is a great tool that can benefit teachers and students is the Read&Write that can be found on the app store in Google Chrome. It is a great tool for assistive technology that all students can use to help them with their writing. I think students in a junior grades and higher can really utilize this tool as an independent resource. Since I would have all my students using Google drive to use for assignments or projects, I would have them add this extension so it can be used directly in any Google document they are creating.

What the app allows students to do is:

• Listen to their text aloud and hear how their writing sounds.
• Highlight their text in different colours that can perform different supports.
• Students can do speech to text • Use word prediction if they need help with writing
• They can create a vocabulary list that includes meaning and pictures associated with their words.

This tool is easy to use can be added right into the browser and students only need to click a few buttons if they want to get support with their writing.

The long term benefit of having my students’ use this tool is that I would want to develop their independence with using Read&Write to assist them with their skills and develop their confidence. Also students can feel comfortable using this form of assistive technology independently through their google drive. This is a great tool that I would recommend to any teacher to utilize.

Check out this video that gives you better visuals as to how the Read&Write tool looks.

Class Dojo

https://www.classdojo.com/en/about

This is s a unique tool that takes an interactive approach to behaviour management and student self-regulation techniques. The Classdojo platform is used online through through their website where teachers can create a classroom where their students sign up for. Students can create their own avatars and will use the Classdojo to follow the points they have earned for demonstrating proper behaviours.
This seems like a great tool for teachers to be able to reinforce great behaviour. Teachers can recognize specific behaviours such as respect, participation, or teamwork and show the class what that student did to demonstrate those behaviours. Then simply using an iPad, or mobile Classdojo app the teacher can give real time feedback and award that student dojo points for earning that behaviour. These points that students earn can also be access by parents at home and they can see how their students behaved on a daily basis. Communication with parents is essential and if they see their son/daughter is struggling with behaviour in class then they can work with them at home to improve that behaviour.

This is a tool seems like a great way to engage students in positive behaviour and keeps parents informed on a regular basis. Also I think this tool is great way to collaborate with your colleagues as students are still required to uphold their behaviours to earn points for other teachers in the school. 

Check out this video that gives you better visuals as to how Classdojo looks.

 

Planboard 

https://www.planboardapp.com/

This is a great tool for teachers to use to online through Google drive for planning their days, weeks, semesters and individual lessons. I find this tool to be better suited for the technological era of teaching and planning and organization and in the next few years using daybooks might be an obsolete practice.

The app can be downloaded on Google drive and after playing around with it, I recommend that teachers start getting used to developing and planning online. Since collaboration and blended learning is a major shift in education it only makes sense that planning will head down this path as well.

The interface of the tool is simple to use and teachers can toggle between day, week and month views to easily access their plans. You can colour coordinate your subjects and classes you teach. You are able to add detail descriptions of each day that anyone can follow. What is also awesome is that you can add the ministry expectations which some are already on Planboard. If you do not have the ministry expectation you are looking for you can add it easily and it can be used by other teachers. 

What I found great about Planboard is since it used through Google drive it can be easily shared to other staff members, administrators, or even supply teachers. I would not be surprised if teachers and entire schools and school boards start using a method like Planboard to use as a method for partner teaching with your colleagues.

To gain some better visuals of how how Planboard looks please view this video.