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Can Grid Puzzles Enhance Critical Thinking Skills?
Critical thinking skill is one of the 21st century skills that students need to acquire. In the classroom, in order to foster this skill, we generally plan a reading lesson, prepare questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy (HOts) and generally we get the students to answer inference questions… way too many inference questions. And, at some point we feel the students lose their concentration, thus motivation eventually. We monitor our students thinking that they are actively involved in the tasks. However, they become restless after answering two or three questions and start talking to their friends.
Is there another way, a more fun way to bring students’ critical and analytical skills to light? And foster more communication in the class? Yes. Using grid puzzles might enable you to reach your learning goal in a very enjoyable way.
So what’s a grid puzzle? Students are provided with a set of clues and they are supposed to complete a grid by making deductions about the clues. They have to make logical connections and deductions to fill in the correct information on the grid. When it is finished, they might present it to the class. And it can be turned into a competitive game. Because students need to use their logic, this activity might boost their critical thinking skill in a fun way. Preparing Logic Grid Puzzles are easy and fun, and ready-made ones might not serve your objectives. But, there are some websites I would like to recommend that contain ready-made grid puzzles. Here are the two of them I trust and use in my classes:
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From Theory to Reality: The Mistakes That Can Hinder the Integration of Technology in Education
Integrating technology in education is a huge step that could either make or break the future of students. While there are so many factors to consider when taking this step, I will focus on the most common mistakes that people make when integrating technology in education. Here are what I have found during my experience with both students and teachers:
- A Lack of Clear Goals and Objectives
It starts with a lack of clear goals and objectives. Without a specific plan in place, it’s difficult to measure the success or failure of any technology integration initiative. This is where many schools and districts fall short, and it’s one of the main reasons why so many technology initiatives fail.
It’s not enough to just purchase new technology and expect it to magically improve student learning. There needs to be a plan in place that outlines how the technology will be used, and it needs to be aligned with the overall educational goals and objectives of the school or district. Technology can be an amazing tool for learning when used correctly, but it can also be a huge waste of time and money when used incorrectly.
- Ignoring User Needs Affects Students’ Attitudes Towards Using Technology
It’s not enough to just introduce new technology into the classroom—you need to make sure it meets the needs of your students.
Many schools make the mistake of introducing technology without considering how it will be used or how it will benefit the students. They might focus on the cool factor of new gadgets, rather than how they can help students learn and engage with their coursework. Or they’ll purchase technology that’s difficult to use or doesn’t serve a specific purpose. This can lead to frustration on the part of both teachers and students, and ultimately, a failure to integrate technology into education successfully.
- Poorly Designed Technology Solutions Affect Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Using Technology
You might be surprised to know that one of the biggest reasons technology integration fails is because of poorly designed solutions. Teachers are not given enough time to familiarize themselves with the technology, and as a result, they are not able to use it in a way that benefits their students.
In addition, the technology is often not compatible with the existing systems in the school, which creates more chaos and confusion. Sometimes, the technology is not reliable and constantly crashes, or it’s difficult to operate. Worst of all, the software is often generic and does not meet the specific needs of the teachers and students.
All of these factors can prevent teachers from using technology in their classrooms, which defeats the whole purpose of integrating it in the first place. It’s important to take into account the specific needs of your school and design solutions that are user-friendly and compatible with your systems.
- Insufficient Support by the Administration
If you’re not providing adequate support for teachers, then chances are the integration of technology will fail. Teachers need to be properly trained on how to use the technology, and they need to feel confident that they can troubleshoot any issues that might come up.
If you’re not providing this support, you’re basically setting yourself up for failure. Teachers will feel overwhelmed and frustrated, and they’ll be less likely to use the technology in their classrooms.
So what kind of support do teachers need? They need ongoing professional development, they need technical support, and they need access to resources that will help them integrate technology into their classrooms.
- Poor Assessment Strategies in Schools
When you’re integrating technology into your classroom, it’s important to have a good assessment strategy in place. Otherwise, you’ll never really know if your students are learning anything.
There are a few different ways to assess students when using technology. One is to have them complete regular assignments, such as essays or projects, using technology. Another is to give them periodic quizzes or tests on the material covered.
Yet another way to assess students is through their participation in online discussions. This can be done in a number of ways, but one popular method is to have students post their thoughts on a certain topic in an online forum and then respond to their classmates’ posts.
No matter which method you choose, it’s important that you’re clear about your expectations and that you provide feedback regularly. Otherwise, your students will quickly become frustrated and disengaged.
- Inadequate Training and Acclimation to New Technologies
The most important factor, for me, that affect the quality of teaching with technology in the classroom is the adequate training you have. You might run into problems if you try to implement new technology in the classroom without first adequately training yourself and your students on how to use it. Just because you’re familiar with a certain piece of technology doesn’t mean your students will be, and it’s important to take the time to learn how to use it effectively before trying to integrate it into your lessons.
The same goes for any new software or applications you might want to use. Make sure you have a firm understanding of how they work and can troubleshoot any potential problems before incorporating them into your teaching. Otherwise, you risk frustrating both yourself and your students when things inevitably go wrong.
It is clear that in order to successfully integrate technology in education, we must avoid making the same mistakes. We must ensure that the technology we are using is purposeful and relevant, that we are training our teachers how to use it, and that we are creating a culture of innovation. By doing so, we can create a more connected and collaborative world for our students.
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Unlocking Potential & Evaluation: Using Technology to Assess Students’ Performance
Imagine you are a teacher, and one day a new student joins your class. How do you go about evaluating this student’s potential and ability? Do you just start throwing them into the curriculum and hope for the best?
Of course not! You would need to take a more measured and systematic approach. You would need to use technology to assess the student’s level of understanding and ability. This would allow you to tailor the curriculum specifically to their needs, ensuring that they get the most out of their education.
This is exactly what schools are doing nowadays with the help of programs like Pearson’s myWorld Student Edition. With this program, students can take quizzes, tests, and assessments that measure their understanding of the material. This not only helps teachers evaluate their students’ progress, but also helps students track their own progress and see where they need improvement.
It’s the 21st century and technology has become an integral part of our lives. So it’s no wonder that more and more schools are using technology to assess students’ performance.
But with so many assessment tools available, it can be challenging to know which one is right for your school. Not to worry, though! This article is here to help.
We’ll start by introducing you to the basics of assessment technology. Then we’ll give you a rundown of some of the most popular assessment tools on the market. Finally, we’ll help you decide which tool is right for you and your students. Here are the most benefical methods to assess students’ performance using technology:
Using E-Portfolios in the Classroom
There are many benefits of using e-portfolios in the classroom. First and foremost, e-portfolios can help unlock a student’s potential.
Through the use of e-portfolios, teachers can get a better understanding of a student’s strengths and weaknesses. This information can then be used to help the student focus on studies that will be more beneficial for them.
Additionally, e-portfolios can be a valuable tool for assessment. They can help to gage how well a student is doing and whether they are meeting the required standards. Teachers can also use portfolios to track a student’s progress over time.
Utilizing Discussion and Surveys to Increase Engagement
Technology has revolutionized the way in which educators assess students’ performances. With just a few taps on a screen, educators can now quickly and easily gather insights into how students are performing.
There are a number of ways in which educators can use technology to assess students’ performances. One way is to use discussion boards and surveys to increase engagement. Discussion boards can be used to get students to discuss topics or concepts they are struggling with, while surveys can be used to get feedback on students’ likes and dislikes.
With the right tools, educators can gather valuable insights that can help unlock students’ potential and help them achieve their academic goals.
Quizzes and Adaptive Tests
Quizzes and adaptive tests can be a great way to measure student performance with technology. By using these tools, you can quickly and easily assess what your students know and identify areas where they may need more help.
Quizzes are a great way to check for understanding and can be used as formative assessment tools. Adaptive tests, on the other hand, are more comprehensive and can give you a more complete picture of student performance.
Both quizzes and adaptive tests can be administered online, making them convenient and easy to use. And because they’re administered electronically, you can easily track student progress and monitor their performance over time.
Data Driven Assessment
When it comes to using technology to assess students’ performance, there are a few key things to keep in mind. First and foremost, technology-based assessment should be seen as an opportunity to improve learning outcomes. By leveraging the power of technology, educators can gather data more efficiently and accurately than ever before.
This data can then be used to inform instructional decisions, identify areas of need, and track progress over time. Perhaps most importantly, technology-based assessment can help educators customize their instruction to better meet the needs of their students.
So, if you’re looking to use technology to assess students’ performance, be sure to keep these things in mind!
Best Practices for Leveraging Technology in the Classroom
Now that we know what technology can do to assess students’ performance, let’s talk about how to best leverage it in the classroom! Here are a few tips:
-Create clear and concise rubrics that align with your goals and objectives.
-Use a variety of assessment types to get a well-rounded picture of each student’s progress.
-Make sure your assessments are accessible to all students, including those with special needs.
-Use technology to automate grading and feedback where possible.
By following these best practices, you can make sure that you’re using technology in the most effective way to assess your students’ performance and help them reach their potential!
So, how can you use technology to assess students’ performance? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
1. Use adaptive tests to measure students’ mastery of specific skills or concepts.
2. Create online quizzes to help students review key concepts.
3. Use e-portfolios to track students’ progress over time.
4. Use technology to create personalized learning pathways for students.
5. Use collaborative tools to help students work together on projects.
6. Use analytics to track students’ engagement with digital content.
7. Use cloud-based tools to store and share assessment data.
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Collaboration… the Abyss 🙂
Collaboration, as defined in the dictionary simply means “working together in some endeavour”. However, in the educational context, is it that simple? Most of us, the teachers, are thrilled to encourage our students to collaborate in the classroom without knowing that the tasks we give are cooperative, not collaborative. Here is my chart comparing cooperation and collaboration among students in the class.
Cooperation is a short-term work, in which the only outcome is achieving a task. Therefore, it is not meaningful. Students do not need to create meaning in the given tasks. However, collaboration is a long-term process which needs a lot of scaffolding. You cannot expect your students to achieve a collaborative task in a class time. They need a lot of training. The vital part of collaboration is giving and responding to feedback. This is a delicate issue in this process. Students should be taught how to give feedback without causing any offence. Collaborative tasks become meaningful when the students are given roles in their groups, like a searcher, a writer, and an editor. Their identities should be able to make the other group members believe what they have done is right. So, it needs a lot of study time to persuade their friends. Finally, if they negotiate the meaning, then they have the task achievement.
I use Google docs when I want my students to work collaboratively. It is easy for my students to use Google docs because they can give, get and respond to feedback using the “track changes” option. Also, Google has amazing add-ons. On Google docs I use Kaizena, a feedback tool. What is good with Kaizena is that you can create and upload your rubrik.
At the beginning of every term, related to my writing lesson objectives, I follow the steps in the chart above and I spend 2 or 3 weeks to teach my students to collaborate. Since in the school I work has 8- week terms, collaborative tasks last for 8 weeks, which then students add their products to their e-portfolios.
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How and Why to Use Webquests in Language Teaching
Let’s not use technology in our classes just for fun!
A webquest is a type of online teaching tool. It’s a way to teach and learn foreign languages through interactive web content. Webquests are especially helpful for language learners who struggle with motivation. Thanks to easy access on mobile phones, tablets and computers, anyone can learn a new language with the help of webquests.
Webquests are a way for people to learn languages online. These are designed for people aged 8 and up and can be accessed from mobile phones, tablets and computers. Each webquest provides step-by-step instructions for completing an activity related to the target language. This makes it easy for anyone to learn foreign languages. Plus, most webquests offer instant teacher feedback so you know whether you’re doing well or badly. This makes it easy to complete your tasks and become fluent in a new language!
It can be challenging to find good webquests for your language learning goals. It’s best to choose options that interest you and will help you learn effectively. For example, if you’re interested in cooking, you might find an English cooking webquest that gives you step-by-step instructions on how to cook specific dishes. Following these tips will make it easy to complete your tasks and become fluent in a new language!
Once you’ve found a good webquest, it’s time to start completing tasks! You’ll need a smartphone, tablet or computer with Internet access to access these learning tools. From there, follow the instructions on each webquest and learn new things about your target foreign language! Working through these tasks daily will help you learn new vocabulary, grammar rules and speaking techniques for your target language. Completing these easy lessons will help you become a more effective language learner!
Webquests are a great tool for anyone wanting to improve their foreign language skills. They are a great tool for teachers since they reinforce and motivate students to use functional language. In this way, the classroom teaching becomes a real-life experience for learners, so this enables using technology for meaningful purposes, not just for entertainment.
There is a website which I frequently visit and download webquest activities for my classes. There is a great variety of tasks and of course, you can adapt them to your own learning goals. You can check out the tasks at:
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My Top 5 Tools
The tools we use in education are getting better day by day and their contribution to education are indisputable. In foreign language education, if these tools are used in the right place and for appropriate purposes, they make a great contribution to the language acquisition of students. Here are the top 5 tools that I frequently use in my classes these days:
1. Padlet is a collaboration tool for educators to create, share, and embed interactive whiteboards in any web-enabled device. With Padlet, teachers can create interactive whiteboards for students and embed them in their websites for easy access. I use this tool when I want my students do collaborative writing activities.
2. KAHOOT is a fun quiz app that allows people to share and compete with friends on trivia. The app is designed to be a social community of friends and family, where people can learn new things and have fun. It is good when we have extra time at the end of the lesson, especially in the last teaching hour of the day. It is also very good for recapping of the day.
3. Anki is a tool for remembering words easily. It’s a physical flash card game that makes remembering words easy and fun. Since most of my student are visual learners, I use it frequently to help them recall academic vocabulary.
4. Pixton is a free, easy to use tool that helps people create comics. Pixton is also great for language learning, as you can type in what you want to learn and it will show you how to draw it. I use this tool for homework. My students love spending more time creating content with what they have already learnt than doing mechanical workbook exercises. It is good for production.
5. FlexiQuiz is a platform that allows teachers to create, share and assess interactive quizzes. With an intuitive interface, teachers have the tools to create, share and assess interactive quizzes. Sometimes I use it for diagnosis to learn what my student know and have learnt. It supports different types of questions ,so it is handy. -
What you might encounter when teaching online: a personal experience.
Pandemic period has changed the way we teach. Classroom teaching has shifted to online teaching. Teaching online has become a great option for many teachers looking for a flexible, low-commitment way to make money. However, a great number of teachers have been forced to teach online since the schools closed down because of the pandemic.
Online teaching, as many teachers agree, has advantages since all the technology you need is at your fingertips. Nevertheless, there is the dark side of the moon. Here are 10 things you might encounter when teaching online.
1) You might have to deal with questions from students that you can’t answer in the time allotted in the lesson.
2) You might have to be creative with your lesson plans and teach from a variety of sources.
3) You might not have to worry about office hours or grading, but you will have to put in more time planning your lessons and making sure that you are meeting your students’ needs.
4) You might have to deal with students who are struggling and need more help.
5) You will have less freedom with what you teach, but it will allow you to be more consistent with your lessons.
6) You will have less flexibility with scheduling your lessons, but they will always be available.
7) Your students might not be as motivated as they would be if you were teaching in-person.
8) You might have to deal with students who don’t take your lessons seriously and may try to scam you or ask for handouts for free.
9) Students may not come back for future lessons, so it might be a frustration for you.
10) You might have a technological break down during the lesson and you might lose too much classtime when trying to fix the problem. -
Technology in Education: Connecting Students To Learning.
Technology has changed the way students learn in the past decade. From electronic textbooks to online video lectures, technology has made education more accessible than ever. The idea of integrating technology into the classroom is making it easier for students to learn. This is where technology in education comes in. The idea of technology in education comes from the idea that technology can be used to help students learn and teach. This is a great way to improve the quality of education. With technology in education, students have access to resources they wouldn’t normally have. One thing to keep in mind is that technology in education is not just about using technology in the classroom. It is also about using technology to create better educational opportunities for students. Here are the first three questions that we ask when we think about technology and education:
1. What is Technology in Education?
Technology in education refers to the use of technology in education, which can also be called technology integration in education. Technology in education is a concept that has been around for a long time. Technology in education can be defined as the use of technology to enhance learning. Technology in education can be used in a variety of ways, such as: – Providing access to resources and content – Facilitating learning in different ways – Connecting classrooms to the internet – Promoting collaboration – Supporting differentiated instruction
2. What is the difference between Technology in Education and Technology in the Classroom?
Technology in education is used to connect students to learning. It is used to help students learn more effectively and efficiently. Technology in the classroom is used to help students learn in the classroom. It is used to make classrooms more interactive. Technology in education and technology in the classroom both play a big part in teaching students. However, technology in education is used to help students learn more effectively by connecting them to learning. Technology in the classroom is used to make the classroom more interactive, so that students learn in the classroom.
3. How Technology in Education is changing education?
The way that schools are teaching students is changing drastically. Schools are now using technology to help students learn in new ways. Teachers are finding that they can use technology to connect students to learning in innovative ways. By using technology and connecting students to learning, schools are able to have a more interactive and engaging classroom. Technology is also helping students learn more efficiently and effectively. Students are able to learn at their own pace and they don’t have to sit in a classroom all day. This is a great way for students to learn and teachers can focus on the more important aspects of teaching. Schools are now taking advantage of the technology that is available in classrooms and are using it to their advantage.
Technology has changed the way students learn. With the help of technology, students have access to an unlimited amount of information and resources. But to fully benefit from these resources, students need to be able to interact with them. When students are learning, they need to be engaged. And the best way for students to be engaged is to have a meaningful experience. With technology, students are able to have meaningful experiences that would otherwise be impossible.
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