For many years, I would have considered myself to be an ICT evangelist – I’ve loved the idea of harnessing technology to engage learners, to make the content of what I am delivering more interesting, and certainly more relevant in the modern world of our students. As a teacher of MFL, and certainly one growing up in the 1980s, my teachers used to tell me to listen to long wave radio, or buy a two day old copy of ‘Le Monde’ in order to access authentic language. These days, it couldn’t be more different. The Internet allows access instantly to fantastic resources and information. So how has that been impacted in my teaching, and more so now when we are forced to teach remotely – here are a couple of the ‘game-changers’ that I have used in face to face teaching, but which are now becoming really useful tools in the virtual class – please feel free to comment on which tools you’ve been using!
Show Me
This iPad app has been really useful in allowing me to teach as I would be if I was at my whiteboard. I’ve been able to create a lesson, talk over it, and record it, and then upload the presentation to YouTube, and then subsequently embed it into a Google Slides presentation. I’ve used it to try and explain grammatical concepts and it’s given my students the opportunity to watch and rewatch the presentation – they can then use the Google Classroom platform to ask me questions or seek clarification.
Available for Apple devices, free, and a paid premium version, which is 50% off whilst schools are closed
Socrative
Whilst this has taken some planning, it’s been useful for me to conduct assessments with my students online – I have been able to set up quizzes, and then send students a code so they can complete it on their mobile devices or on a computer in real time. Most of my students tend to complete the lesson at the time that the lesson would ordinarily be on their timetable, so it has been fun to see students competing with each other to get the most points.
You can see an example of how it works here;
Russell Stannard @russell1955 also demonstrates it here:
Free for individual teachers, with Apple & Android apps and web based access
