Technology Integration in K-5 Classrooms
Impact of technology on education and the role of teachers in creating immersive lessons to engage students in learning.
Ayesha Akhlaq
Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario
GRADEDUC 9491 650 - Capstone Course
Dr. Mi Song Kim
August 4th, 2022
Overview & Rationale
Technology is evolving every day and with it, the way humans interact with the environment. It has impacted every aspect of human life and education is no different. It is becoming inevitable for teachers to keep up with the changing trends in educational technology to cater to the needs of 21st-century learners. Recent years have seen significant trends in digital media and it is becoming increasingly important for teachers to engage in technological tools to engage learners, particularly in the early years.
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Being a science teacher myself, I have only used digital media and tools as an extension tool and have not seen it as an instructional medium until the last two years. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced me, like many other educators, to look for alternate means of instruction. Online video conferencing tools such as Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Classroom became a saving grace for many teachers struggling to deliver quality instructions.
With things going back to normal, I wanted to create a comprehensive list of tools for teachers to ease them into technology-intensive classrooms. The goal of technology integration must be to enhance the learning experience and improve student achievement. Technology integration just for the sake of technology integration must be strongly discouraged, in my opinion. Because by the end of the day the technology is only as good as the teacher who is using it.
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We must remember that, eventually, quality content and teaching will save the day, not technology. With this in mind, I have compiled a comprehensive list of technological resources and tools. I have categorized them according to grade level, and each table is equipped with a search bar so the teachers can look up the tools according to the subject as well.
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The tutorials are equipped with close captions (CC).
ICT Options & Tutorials
Articulate 360
Articulate 360 is a web-based authoring tool used to design interactive courses. It allows the users to easily add interactivity, quizzes, and other lean-forward moments that keep your learners engaged. I feel it has great utility in pedagogy in terms of interactivity. It had built-in and blank templates, allows the user to add different lesson blocks, and is super easy to use and create e-learning courses.
Storyline 360
Storyline 360 is a sister authoring tool of Articulate and is designed as a desktop PowerPoint-style app. Storyline 360 empowers you to create any interactive e-learning course you can imagine for any device imaginable, from desktop and laptop computers to tablets and smartphones. Storyline allows the user to add interactivity to any slide in the course by introducing drag and drop options and is very easy to use once you understand the triggers and states.
Mr. Nussbaum
MrNussbaum.com is a kids' website with over 10,000 online and printable activities including over 400 games, tutorials, simulations, videos, and interactive content. The site is highly interactive in nature and offers great resources for curious minds.
Nearpod
Nearpod specializes in multimedia displays to make discussions more engaging. One of their top tools for teachers is Nearpod VR, an affordable virtual reality headset that lets teachers explore different concepts in 3D. More than 450 VR tutorials are broken down by subject and grade level.
Screencast-o-Matic
Screencast-o-Matic allows users to create and share videos and tutorials with the audience. It has great applications in flipped or blended learning, driving student conversations, capturing lecture slides in a video, and turning any video into an interactive quiz by adding multiple-choice, true/false, or shower answer questions.
Buncee
Buncee understands how much more kids learn if they’re engaged, so their platform makes it easy to engage students from anywhere. Teachers have the flexibility to create activities that their class will enjoy with over 1000 templates, and students earn badges as they complete their work. Buncee also makes it easy for students to collaborate with sharing and discussion functionality.
Instructables Teachers
Instructable teachers is another tool that is committed to helping teachers inspire, engage, and prepare students through hands-on projects to make in the classroom. Always free, and always fun, explore projects for your next classroom lesson!
Funology
Funology is a website for parents and teachers who are looking for fun activities they can do with their kids in the “real” world, away from the computer and television screens.
Labster
Consider testing simulations with Labster. Students can run a variety of simulations on topics ranging from diabetes to herpetology. Teachers can grade participation in different parts of the simulation as they would with a full-fledged science lab. The tool is ideal for secondary students but has utility at the elementary level as well, and is compatible with AP, IB, and NGSS disciplines.
Storybird
STEAM educators who are looking to add reading and writing elements to their curriculum can try Storybird. Consider assigning an image to each student from the image library that houses millions of images, and asking them to write about it, or ask them to create a book using the lessons they learned in science or math class.
Let's Talk Science
Let’s Talk Science connects the world of science, technology, and innovation with education, bringing STEM to life in meaningful ways that build diversity and inclusion, and awareness of future opportunities. This helps to reduce barriers to STEM, and build interest and a sense of belonging. They also print a weekly e-newsletter with all the latest STEM resources.
TED Ed
Another great destination for more general learning is TED-Ed. Not only is TED-Ed an excellent site for the curious, but it also includes supplemental materials and quizzes on the videos. This makes the site extremely useful in formal education settings, as well as in entertaining ways to brush up on new discoveries and topics.
Ology
Oology is an amazing tool for the K - 5 science educators to keep their students engaged in interactive lessons. The website hosts an abundance of resources on a variety of topics such as Anthropology, Archeology, Earth Sciences, Biology, and Genetics. The website also offers games, stories, hands-on activities, and videos.
Project Noah
Project Noah was created to encourage citizen scientists to document the world around them. People can photograph organisms and share them online, helping scientists document the location and rarity of various species. Teachers can make this part of the classroom experience by turning students into citizen scientists sharing their discoveries.
Venngage
Venngage offers free infographic tools to help students visualize their data and present ideas. The infographics can be shared and saved online, so they can be used by students in real-time and future students can also benefit. It does not require the user to have any graphic design knowledge, the built-in templates provide great freedom of creativity to the teachers and students.
Tiny Tap
TinyTap is home to more than 100,000 learning activities for students and teachers to use. You can search for games for your kids to play to better help them understand concepts, or ask them to create games of their own. TinyTap Market encourages students to learn by teaching and provides the tools to help people develop their own games.