Technology is vitally important in today’s classroom as we need to keep up with the knowledge and interests of our tech savy students. Kids today use twitter and facebook like we used email and home phones. Their cell phones are 10x more powerful then the computers we used in high school. In fact, I remember when cell phones were just starting to make their way in the world, I was in grade 12. Today as educators we need to be on the cutting edge to keep our students engaged and interested. Therefore, I am starting a technology in the classroom series where I will be exploring various uses of tech in the world of academics.
Part 1 – Online simulations.
Some labs are simply not practical or possible to do in the classroom but you still want to get your kids some hands-on experience, what can you do? Well as the name of this segment would suggest, you can employ online simulations were you provide your students with a task and worksheet which walks them through various aspects of the simulation. Two such simulation websites I have used extensively over the years are 1) Explore Learning and 2) PhET which is run by the University of Colorado. Both sites offer a range of interactive activities to really get your students involved and engaged. Furthermore, these simulations can act as excellent teacher demonstrations for things that would otherwise be impossible to show like the number of hydrogen ions in an acid – click here for an example of an excellent teacher demonstration.
Well there you have it, get your students involved in tech by providing them with online simulations to give them the hands-on experience they require to reach their full potential.
If you have anything to add please feel free to post a comment or send me a message inside the Contact Me section. If you enjoyed this piece please subscribe to receive future post notifications or add me on Twitter as I’ll be posting Part 2 on the use of technology in the Flipped Classroom shortly.