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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented. 

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration and be more productive. It is free to use and easy to try. Just ask and ChatGPT can help with writing, learning, brainstorming and more.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented.

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A conversational AI system that listens, learns, and challenges

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented. 

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented. 

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all technologies from the makerspace represented

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all technologies from the makerspace represented

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration and be more productive. It is free to use and easy to try. Just ask and ChatGPT can help with writing, learning, brainstorming and more.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration and be more productive. It is free to use and easy to try. Just ask and ChatGPT can help with writing, learning, brainstorming and more.

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Chat GPT Ideas using makerspace technologies.

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Chat GPT Ideas using makerspace technologies.

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration and be more productive. It is free to use and easy to try. Just ask and ChatGPT can help with writing, learning, brainstorming and more.

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Question

How and where do I find technology content for the history classroom?

Answer

Teaching history with technology can be a great way to engage students while also building bridges between the history classroom and the technology department at your school.

One good place to start is by exploring some of the technologies available to you in the classroom. The National History Education Clearinghouse, for instance, has an article on the use of digital whiteboards in the classroom, which you might find useful. " Wiki Wisdom," an article from Education Week, focuses on how teachers can use wikis in the classroom, emphasizing their ease of use, and listing considerations accompanying their integration into the classroom. Reel American History, a project at Lehigh University, is a site that encourages teachers and students to think about the ways movies help us construct understandings of history. The site includes a list of films dealing with history, as well as suggestions for how to use them. (Check back in the coming weeks and the National History Education Clearinghouse will also have new resources about using film to teach history.)

Teaching history with technology can be a great way to engage students while also building bridges between the history classroom and the technology department at your school.

In terms of blogs, the American Historical Association has an article on how blogs connect students outside the classroom that might be useful for your purposes. Social studies teachers, particularly those who focus on current events, may also be interested in digital storytelling. Edutopia has a great article about digital storytelling that will direct you to additional resources.

Technological Resources Specifically for History Classrooms

Another angle you can take in looking for resources is to pursue sites that specifically explore technology-related content for the history classroom. One great resource is National Council for the Social Studies Community Network which has a variety of resources for teaching with technology. You can also join their Teaching with Technology group to be connected with other teachers who are interested in integrating technology into history and social studies classrooms. Many other sites have resources to help you.The Center for History and New Media's Episodes page, for instance, has multimedia resources for a number of different historical periods. SCORE, the Schools of California Online Resources for Education webpage, also has some great materials that utilize technology in the history and social science classroom. The page has a virtual web museum, virtual interactive projects, and virtual field trips. Science, Technology, and the CIA, a project of the National Security Archive, provides 44 government documents that track the organizational and operational history of various CIA departments designed to coordinate science and technology research with intelligence operations.

Another way to approach your question is to look for models of projects merging technology and history. On the National History Education Clearinghouse site, there's a blog entry describing a project conducted at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in which students used a host of new technologies to explore the history of Harpers Ferry and John Brown-definitely worth checking out.

Good luck with your lesson planning!

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Question How and where do I find technology content for the history classroom? Answer Teaching history with technology can be a great way to engage students while also building bridges between the history classroom and the technology department at your school. One good place to start is by exploring some of the technologies available to you in the classroom.

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As Carl Sagan once said, "You have to know the past to understand the present." But great history teachers know that doesn't mean you need to rely on ancient teaching tools.

Fortunately, cutting-edge digital software-much of it free-can breathe new life into history lessons, allowing students to drop into historical venues, converse with long-dead presidents or kings, and inhabit eras in ways that can shift their perspective.

While it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, the best digital tools are ones that "support student engagement as they make rich and meaningful connections to people from the past," writes Matthew Farber, an associate professor of educational technology at the University of Northern Colorado.

We've compiled a list of seven teacher-tested tools, and we lay out how educators are using them both to enhance their lessons and to bring history closer to the present than ever.

AI-generated images spice up lessons

AI image generators are fun to mess around with-but they can also help drive critical thinking in the history classroom. Teachers can use them to generate fantastical images from before the dawn of photography, explained history educator and edtech expert James Beeghley in a presentation at ISTE 2023. For his U.S. history classes, Beeghley had the AI generate photograph-style images of scenes like the signing of the Constitution and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which he then added to his class presentations. World history teachers can go even further back in time, asking the AI what it looked like when visitors flocked to the Roman Colosseum, for instance. Teachers can use free image generators from Bing, Craiyon, or Canva to produce these images, then drop them into class presentations. (We recommend specifying "photograph-style" in your prompt for maximum realism.)

Beeghley warns that AI image outputs tend to be full of inaccuracies-but that can help create an engaging lesson. After generating a fake historical image based on your current unit of study-perhaps an intentionally deceptive one, such as of two famous figures who never met-challenge students to point out all the flaws and anachronisms they can find.
Courtesy of Canva
iCivics offers short games about governance

iCivics -a nonprofit founded by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor-aims to improve civics education in America through free games. And unlike many other educational websites, the games feel modern-not as if they're from the age of dial-up internet.

Thanks to iCivics' games, "when I taught social studies to middle school kids, I observed their engagement with content that might otherwise be boring to 12- and 13-year-olds," writes Matthew Farber. "For instance, to help students learn about the Bill of Rights, I had them play ' Do I Have a Right?,' a game where players learn experientially by running a civil rights law firm." Other games include Counties Work, where students see the ins and outs of local governance, and LawCraft, which challenges students to craft a bill and try to get it through Congress.

iCivics now has about 20 different games, each lasting from around 10 to 30 minutes. After students play the games, "the next step for the teacher is to create a great performance assessment-although iCivics provides great reflective activities to use after the game has been played," notes social studies director Andrew Miller.

AI history chatbots are fun fodder for critical analysis
Courtesy of Hello History
While history teachers can't get Napoleon or Eleanor Roosevelt in class as a guest speaker, AI can help students "interact" with historical figures. In a presentation at ISTE 2023, edtech professor Maureen Yoder suggested that teachers check out Hello History -a ChatGPT-powered app that can let students carry out conversations with dozens of figures from around the world, from Cleopatra to Mahatma Gandhi.

The app is free until users hit a 20-message daily limit-so another option is to go directly to ChatGPT and prompt it, "Please roleplay as Thomas Edison for the rest of our conversation." When we tried it, the AI did a fairly good job of staying in character-refuting the notion that he stole ideas from Nikola Tesla by saying, "In the world of invention, it is not uncommon for individuals to draw inspiration from one another's work and build upon existing ideas." Though it misrepresented Edison's childhood hearing loss, suggesting it wasn't until his elder years that he developed partial deafness.

But that, too, presents an opportunity, as the dubious quality of AI-generated information can be made part of the assignment. Before his students write biographical essays, historian and history educator Jonathan S. Jones has students closely inspect history-related output from ChatGPT to identify "factual errors and information that was missing crucial context," then spend some time editing the AI's output to correct the errors and inaccuracies.

Minecraft gives a hands-on understanding of ancient buildings

When ancient structures or famous buildings come up in class, students can benefit from a deeper understanding of how those structures were built. To that end, some teachers are using Minecraft -the popular game that lets players gather resources and build blocky structures out of wood, stone, and more.

In a lesson on ancient Egypt, for example, students can dive into a digital Minecraft world "in groups of two or three" and gather resources to "create structures that show where Egyptians ate and lived," suggests Meenoo Rami, a former English teacher affiliated with Minecraft's Mentor Program. Or, instead of a blank world, teachers can help students load up one of Minecraft Education's prefabricated lessons. There's one that teaches about the construction of the pyramids; another that has students reconstruct UNESCO-recognized monuments in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan; and another that has students rebuild the inside of the Titanic. Minecraft Education isn't free (unlike the other tools on this list), but administrators can buy schoolwide subscriptions at a discount.
Courtesy of Minecraft Education
Google Arts & Culture's games make art history fun

If your history class covers art movements, cultural eras, or ancient artifacts and monuments, then Google Arts & Culture is quite possibly the site you've been dreaming of. The free-to-use website has incredibly diverse resources: thousands of digitized works of art, 3D models of famous buildings and sculptures, and 360-degree virtual walkabouts of museums like New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Google Arts & Culture also offers a wide variety of educational games. Here are two of them:

Odd One Out - Players must try to identify the AI-generated "imposters" hidden next to three actual artifacts or works of art. (For example, "Find the AI Generated Throne.") Students click any of the real works of art to learn more about them. There's also a media literacy aspect: The more kids play, the better they may get at identifying AI-generated imagery based on telltale signs like a lack of concrete detail and some fuzziness around the edges. (Still, it's quite hard, even on your 20th try.)

3D Pottery - Another challenging game, this one asks players to manipulate a spinning ball of clay and re-create ancient works of pottery from around the world. Students get a hands-on understanding of this ancient art form-without the mess of real clay.

Recording podcasts turns students into historians

Podcasts are all the rage. But rather than having students listen to podcasts, some history teachers are encouraging students to produce their own.

In her ISTE presentation, Maureen Yoder proposed having small groups of students script podcasts with conversations between figures who never actually met in real life-like Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton, or Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. Students must decide, based on what they've learned, what these figures would likely say to each other. Then, members of each group can record the lines in character or input the script into text-to-speech software. Groups can edit the podcasts together using free audio editing software like Audacity.

Besides historical fiction podcasts, students can become genuine historians by recording and archiving conversations with elders in their communities. Inspired by StoryCorps, a nonprofit that aims to preserve stories from Americans of all backgrounds, Director of Technology and Innovation Kevin Brookhouser has his students prepare a list of questions and record conversations with their grandparents. "This is not just about sharing family stories; it's the academic work of a historian, creating primary sources for future scholars as we piece together our past," he writes. Recording is easy, Brookhouser explains; students can use their phone or tablet or a free online voice recorder on their Chromebook.

Mission US offers free games about American history

Many U.S. history teachers appreciate the story-driven games from Mission US. The games-complete with voice acting and animated cutscenes-have students play as a fictional child from a real era of American history and make difficult moral and strategic decisions. In one such game, For Crown or Colony?, "students are put in the shoes of a printer's apprentice in 1770 Boston and encounter both Patriots and Loyalists around the time of the Boston Massacre," writes Rebecca Rufo-Tepper, a director of digital learning and former public school teacher. "The goal is for students to choose where their loyalties lie. Along the way, they engage in empathy and explore issues of liberty, equality, and perspective." Rufo-Tepper recommends playing the game collectively at the whiteboard, having the class discuss what choices to make, before letting students break out to play it individually.

Other games on the site include 1866, Westward Expansion: A Cheyenne Odyssey; 1907, The Immigrant Experience: City of Immigrants; and 1960, The Civil Rights Movement: No Turning Back. It's worth noting that each game takes one to two and a half hours to finish, so they're not feasible to complete in one sitting. However, the site does save progress with a free account, so history teachers could spread out the gameplay over multiple class periods or assign it as homework.

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7 Digital Tools That Help Bring History to Life

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Challenging games, fun projects, and a healthy dose of AI tools round out our top picks for breathing new life into history lessons.

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Integrating Technology With Social Studies | Learning A-Z

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See how technology can enhance social studies instruction by increasing student engagement, building background knowledge, and improving academic outcomes.

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Ensuring that the technology we bring into math classes fosters active engagement is key.

Incorporating technology in mathematics classrooms enables educators to craft powerful collaborative learning experiences that support problem solving and flexible thinking. With strategic integration of both content-specific and content-neutral technology, students and teachers can construct their learning together in authentic ways that elevate mathematics learning.

Until recently, one of educators' primary concerns around educational technology was the lack of access that existed in many American schools. That gap has decreased, but a new digital divide has emerged: The updated 2017 National Education Technology Plan explains that in today's classrooms many students are using technology as a tool for passive learning rather than engaging in active learning experiences that promote student agency.

The Importance of Content-Specific Pedagogy

In order to create technology-infused experiences that support active mathematics learning, educators must of course have pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)-an understanding of best practices specific to mathematics.

One method a teacher can use to analyze the effectiveness of technology integration is the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. This tool supports careful educator reflection on pedagogy, content, and technology not only as separate entities but as overlapping and intersecting domains.
Reproduced by permission of the publisher, ©2012 by tpack.org
For example, when planning to integrate technology into a lesson, educators can take into account the technology knowledge the students will need, the mathematics content knowledge they'll need, and the best practices for teaching both the technology and the math. This process is extremely important because without it, the technology may be integrated in a way that is pedagogically inappropriate for mathematics instruction.

Using PCK to Spot Unhealthy Apps and Websites

Teachers start from their understanding of PCK, or best practices for mathematics instruction, in choosing effective technology tools for the mathematics classroom. We know that mathematics should not be focused on speed or quick answer finding. And timed fact testing is a known trigger of math anxiety, which can lead to low mathematics achievement and mathematics avoidance. Yet math apps and websites that focus on speed and rote memorization are readily available and widely used.

This use of technology can promote fear and stress, and it also sends inaccurate messages about the purpose of mathematics. Math is about thinking deeply, discovering patterns, and making connections. Automaticity with math facts and math skills is critical, but how we get students to automaticity matters. A focus on memorization without understanding promotes a joyless, nonsensical form of mathematics that requires remembering a large amount of seemingly disconnected information.

In addition, technology that simply transfers a gradual release-the "I do, we do, you do" structure-to an online format is a form of passive learning that strips math of student agency and rigor. Although gradually releasing responsibility is an effective model in other content areas, in mathematics this model is best flipped to give students the agency to decide what strategies they want to use and how they might solve a problem.

That's because students should productively struggle with math. We need them to problem solve rather than learn to repeat a specific list of procedures given by the teacher. Problem solving skills are more valuable than memorization, and they're the true work of mathematicians. If we're integrating technology into our classrooms to engage students in real-world experiences, our students must be given opportunities to do real mathematics.

Technology That Fosters Deep Mathematical Thinking

When used appropriately, both content-specific and content-neutral technology can be effective in the math classroom. Research indicates that content-specific apps and websites that focus on math learning with the use of virtual manipulatives are highly effective, and in some cases more efficient than physical manipulatives.

The Math Learning Center, for example, provides several manipulative options, such as rekenreks, geoboards, number lines, and number frames. Apps and websites that provide these types of virtual tools are easy to use, support students with conceptual understanding, and increase student access to math tools.

Content-neutral technology includes tools such as virtual whiteboards, handheld clickers, and student collaboration apps. Virtual whiteboard and websites, such as Explain Everything, promote self reflection, enable students to make their learning visible and share and connect ideas, and have been linked with high-level student thinking and teacher questioning.

But content-neutral technology that promotes fast answering, such as handheld clickers, is associated with decreased cognitive demand, most likely due to the likelihood of being used with minimal student discourse.

Being a Critical Consumer of Technology

The educational technology market is flooded with new apps, tech tools, and gadgets, and in some instances, teachers are commended for increased technology use whether it supports healthy math learning or not. Technology can have a truly positive impact on student learning, but it should not replace teaching or ignore research-based best practices for math instruction.

If we believe that students of mathematics need opportunities for discussing math, creating and connecting visuals, analyzing models, discovering patterns, and making generalizations, the technology that we introduce into our classrooms should match those values.

There was a time when simply getting technology into the hands of our students was a goal, but the time has come to slow down and plan for technology integration that truly supports healthy and productive mathematics learning.

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Ensuring that the technology we bring into math classes fosters active engagement is key.

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You might say math and tech go hand in hand. And these days, of course, kids and tech go literally hand in hand. So it makes sense that using digital tools in the math classroom can help teachers reach students, and teach the math content they need to learn. But truly integrating technology into math instruction is not just a matter of adding random gadgets and gizmos. We need to do more-especially if we want to leverage the power of math technology to engage all students.

Why integrate technology into the math classroom

Integrating technology into instruction delivers numerous benefits in the classroom-perhaps especially in the math classroom.

Numerous studies suggest that technology can support student learning in the math classroom. This tech might take the form of graphic calculators, digital manipulatives, or learning software. In general, such tools have been shown to help students improve both their understanding of math concepts and their performance on tests.

Thoughtful tech has these effects in part because it can make math more engaging. Students are generally more excited to dive into a visually appealing and interactive program than a black-and-white math textbook.

Integrating technology into a math classroom also means:

Personalized learning: Students can work at their own pace and get tailored guidance and feedback.

Collaboration: Students can work together regardless of their physical location.

Real-world applications: Technology can simulate real-world scenarios that require mathematical reasoning and critical thinking skills.

Saving teachers time: Technology helps teachers assess learning more effectively, providing real-time feedback and helping them identify where students need support.

Preparing students for the future: After all, most jobs require the use of technology!

How to integrate technology into the math classroom

The most effective technology approaches in the math classroom are active, not passive. They also invite deep thinking and productive struggle rather than speed and rote memorization.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) includes this guidance in its Principles to Action:

"An excellent mathematics program integrates the use of mathematical tools and technology as essential resources to help students learn and make sense of mathematical ideas, reason mathematically, and communicate their mathematical thinking."

The NCTM recommends that teachers: "incorporate mathematical tools and technology as an everyday part of the mathematics classroom, recognizing that students should experience 'mathematical action technologies' and physical or virtual manipulatives to explore important mathematics."

Here are just a few approaches that enhance engagement:

1. Use interactive whiteboards or projectors: You can display math problems and solutions, diagrams, graphs, and simulations, allowing students to interact with and manipulate visual representations of math concepts.

2. Use graphing calculators and virtual manipulatives: They can help students visualize and solve complex math problems, and prepare them for more advanced mathematical concepts.

3. Use gamification techniques: Can make math more engaging and fun for students.

4. Use online collaboration tools: These tools can help students work together on math problems and projects, even when they are not in the same physical location.

5. Use select social media and other online platforms: To create math communities where students can collaborate, share resources, and ask questions.

6. Use math software and apps: These programs can help students practice math, solve problems, and visualize math concepts in 3D or interactive models.

How Desmos Math 6-A1 delivers

Desmos Math 6-A1 is just that kind of program. It provides dynamic and interactive digital math learning experiences, alongside flexible and creative print activities. Its teacher dashboard is designed to encourage classroom discussion and collaboration. It invites students to explore a variety of approaches-and invites teachers to celebrate and develop interesting thinking in their classrooms.

The dashboard also shows teachers actionable formative assessment data for each student and the entire class, and allows them to leave written feedback for students in their lessons.

And we know it works. Teachers and students in our pilot program said that students learned more with Desmos Math 6-A1 than with their prior program. (See case studies in a large midwestern school district and in Naugatuck Public Schools.)

What's more, Desmos Math 6-8 has earned perfect scores and an all-green rating from EdReports. This is a powerful affirmation not only of our program, but also of high-quality instructional materials, student-centered instruction, and thoughtful technology in the math classroom.

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The power of technology in the math classroom

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Leverage the power of math technology and high-quality instructional materials with Desmos Math 6-A1 to engage all students in the math classroom.

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We spoke to hundreds of educators and sifted through more than 500 comments to hear about what math tools they found helpful and unhelpful during remote learning this spring, and which are making the cut to use in the new school year.

Math Skills Practice

A number of math apps and online tools can help students develop the necessary foundational understanding of arithmetic operations they'll need as a baseline for more challenging math problems later on, math teachers told us.

To help younger students practice skills like counting, addition, and subtraction, Ashley Blackwelder, an elementary STEAM coordinator in South Carolina, highly recommends Moose Math, a free app for iPhones and iPads. In Moose Math, students play math games that earn them points to help build a town. Blackwelder says the format is easy for kids to navigate and great for short attention spans.

Curriculum and instructional designer Cassie Tabrizi recommended Happy Numbers (pre-K-grade 5), a subscription-based website ($14.50 per student or $1,450 per site for first-time schools) that breaks down mathematical equations to help students build understanding of higher-order math concepts. To use it, students transform into a dinosaur character and solve math problems to hatch dinosaur eggs. Tabrizi said that the website is helpful, but she recommends using it in moderation: It can feel tedious for students if they practice longer than 10 minutes a day.

Students fight monsters in the persona of a wizard in Prodigy (grades 1-8), a free game-based website (also available as an app for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android). Prodigy is loved by kids, but less so by educators because it is more play based. Brittney Paige, a fifth-grade teacher in Seattle, says that even though it is more of a game, she likes that it automatically targets math concepts that students struggled with in its preassessment and tracks how much progress they make on target areas. Most teachers offer Prodigy as an option for students if they finish an assignment early.

Zearn (grades 1-5), a free, self-paced, web-based program aligned with Eureka Math-a free pre-K through 12 math curriculum-starts a typical lesson with fun warm-up activities, like adding up how many apples a cartoon fox eats, to engage students. As they work through the program, students complete timed arithmetic problems, watch instructional videos on new concepts, and solve practice problems. Shannon McGrath, an instructional coach in Western Springs, Illinois, says that Zearn is good "high-level, conceptual practice" and gives good feedback for both teachers and students, but can sometimes progress too slowly for kids who master concepts quickly.

Open Math Tasks

Open math tasks-problems that typically have more than one answer-help students develop a conceptual understanding of math rather than get hung up on memorizing facts, said math educators we talked to, who consistently mentioned three free websites to use for open math tasks.

Rich Math Tasks

For rich math tasks-tasks that lend themselves to rigor, collaboration, and conceptual thinking-math educators noted a couple of websites.

Visual Patterns (K-grade 12) shows the beginning of a pattern-like several boxes in a grid-then asks students to figure out the equation to fit the pattern. "Even though there is only one answer," says Manfre, "you can ask deeper questions with these kinds of tasks, and engage students with mathematics in its more natural, visual form."

Simulation Tools

According to math teachers, simulations, like manipulating an expression and seeing a change in a graph, are great tools to help students visualize math concepts.

Desmos (grades 6-12), a website with interactive math activities and a graphing calculator (also available as an app on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android), is another free tool and a favorite among teachers, we heard. While social and emotional learning (SEL) and math may not seem to go hand in hand, teachers integrated SEL into math lessons using Desmos. In the first week of distance learning, Ashley Taplin, a secondary math specialist in San Antonio, Texas, had her students graph how they were feeling, for example. Taplin says she particularly loves that teachers can make their own activities-like this one about parabolas and this card sort, where students match cards with the name, corresponding equation, and correct graphical representation of a function.

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11 Teacher-Recommended Math Apps and Online Tools

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We spoke to hundreds of educators and sifted through more than 500 comments to hear about what math tools they found helpful and unhelpful during remote learning this spring, and which are making the cut to use in the new school year.

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Digital learning experiences can be used to mirror the work of real scientists, boosting students' engagement and learning outcomes.

Juice Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Educators are increasingly encouraged to update the learning experiences in their classrooms. This includes more attention to STEM learning, such as promoting the integration of technology and science instruction into everyday classroom experiences, and implementing pedagogical frameworks like open-ended inquiry learning and problem-based learning that mirror the work real professionals engage in-frameworks that guide students to " play the whole game at the junior level."

These considerations are important for guiding students to be ready to take on a highly scientific and technological world. Merely implementing more open-ended science instruction or using applications on laptops or iPads doesn't necessarily improve student learning, though. It's how we design and use technology in schools that can truly improve students' learning outcomes.

Fortunately, the scaffolds and supports within technologies can act in the service of science learning.

Role-Playing as Scientists

Allowing students to get into the shoes of scientists and to mirror the work they do is a powerful technique to get students interested in a science field by offering them opportunities to practice the skills that scientists use on a daily basis. This can increase students' sense of identity in science, self-efficacy in science work, and general affect toward science.

Digital structures that enable students to step into the shoes of scientists include first-person narratives and role-playing scenarios like the digital learning environment EcoMUVE, which was developed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It is a curriculum for middle school students in which they enter a virtual world and must figure out why their local ecosystem is declining. In programs like this, students can play as an avatar and explore an engaging virtual world, talk to scientist non-player characters, use scientific tools, and conduct authentic experiments.

By working through these digital scenarios, students practice science-related skills and processes, ultimately contributing to the transfer of scientific understandings.

Problematizing Learning Tasks

Problematization is a pedagogical technique that makes parts of a learning task problematic in some way, with a goal of increasing students' problem-solving skills. Problematization is often used to invite students to puzzle over specific processes and ideas. In EcoXPT -a soon-to-be-released program from Harvard-new scientific information is dispensed as the program progresses, meaning that students must rethink their initial hypothesis.

Digital structures that provide this kind of just-in-time information include help buttons and tutorials. During digitally enabled open-ended and problem-based learning scenarios, reminding students about available automated help and tutorial buttons during a confusing part of the work allows them the opportunity to further their understanding at their own learning edge. Tutorials can help explain difficult concepts or tools that students use in these digital learning contexts, ultimately deepening their scientific understandings.

Illustrating Complex Processes

There are many complex processes that students have to reason through in science learning. Oftentimes, these processes are at the heart of the scientific understandings we hope students will gain. For example, consider genetic processes, which can be difficult for students to grasp. Teaching Genetics With Dragons from the Concord Consortium has three programs that offer middle and high school students an engaging way to learn about some of the complex intricacies of genetics in a playful digital learning platform.

This kind of experience aids students as they reason through highly complex and scientific processes.

The Value of Interactivity

A key beneficial aspect of digital learning is interactivity. Technology can also provide many opportunities for students and teachers to collaborate, such as when students are working in larger groups in online peer learning interactions. Numedeon's Whyville is a great example of an online community where preteen students can create a character, interact with friends online, and participate in science, math, and history activities. Teachers can aid students in thinking about their role in the online community, and how their learning is progressing throughout such online activities.

Teachers play an integral role in these interactions as mentors supporting students in their developing understandings by providing additional support and pushing students to deeper learning.

Aiding Teachers in Assessment

Assessing student understanding in science learning is important for teachers, who must determine where their students are and figure out how to design learning experiences to deepen their knowledge even more. Digital learning contexts allow teachers to build in different types of assessments to periodically assess student understanding. These assessments can be formative and diagnostic, or summative.

These assessments can include typical quizzes or multiple-choice questions that appear in order to assess students' understanding of scientific content. Digital quizzes allow for quick feedback to students, aiding them in assessing their own learning, which can be particularly helpful in learning complex scientific concepts and processes. Digital quiz results can also be visible to teachers, highlighting student progress and allowing them to see where each student is in their learning without the hassle of paper and pencil grading. Digital assessment may also take the form of a concept map, a medium that allows students to express their understanding visually.

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The Value of Digital Tools in Science Classes

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Digital learning experiences can be used to mirror the work of real scientists, boosting students' engagement and learning outcomes.

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As science educators our goal is to help students engage in and develop practices for understanding the natural world. But what about the built world, the human-made environment-the one that students spend much of their day-to-day lives in? We teach science for many reasons: to prepare students to develop thinking skills and understand the world around them, to engage as citizens in their communities, and to enter the workforce. We should teach about technology for the same reasons.

Our modern technological world is rapidly changing, and most people know little about the technological forces that are reshaping their work and home life. From a household smart thermostat to autonomous vehicles, from an Amazon Dash button to the "Internet of Behaviors," our world is sensed, interpreted, and algorithmically controlled by technologies we didn't create ourselves. Many technologies on the horizon (e.g., "deepfakes" and art generated by machine learning algorithms, gene editing with CRISPR, artificial general intelligence) will fundamentally change how we live and relate to one another. Yet school does little to prepare students to understand-let alone change-this increasingly technological world.

Moreover, nearly every future job is going to require unprecedented competence in working with technology. Workers will need a complex mix of creativity, knowledge, and specific competencies, such as interpreting data from sensor networks or training machine learning algorithms. Whether or not a student ultimately pursues a career in STEM, it is nonetheless empowering to be able to understand, adapt, and change the built world. And because science and technology are deeply entangled, science classrooms are an ideal place to look for opportunities for teaching with and about technology.

How do science and technology progress together?

Science education includes learning about how scientific knowledge is produced. Part of understanding "the nature of science" entails understanding the relationship between scientific and technological progress. One common belief is that science creates knowledge and technology applies it. But this is an oversimplification. Scholars who study scientific progress, both historically and philosophically, describe a much more complicated and nuanced story. Science itself is deeply technological.

If science transforms the built world to produce knowledge, technology begins with knowledge and produces material artifacts; it "realizes" ideas in the world. To create useful, reliable scientific insights, these two processes must happen simultaneously, in a back-and-forth dance. Andrew Pickering's The Mangle of Practice details how technical and design work in the laboratory are as necessary to scientific progress as developing scientific models.* As scientists improve their tools and techniques for creating phenomena or taking measurements, their understanding of technologies co-evolves with their understanding of the natural world.

In the mid-1800s, physicists Hippolyte Fizeau and Léon Foucault made a series of non-astronomical measurements of the speed of light. Their initial experimental design involved a light source and a faraway mirror, with a spinning toothed gear between them. One of the most difficult problems with the measurement-and a primary source of uncertainty in the results-was entirely technical: they needed a motor that could spin with a precisely known rotational speed. Foucault enlisted the help of Louis François Clément Breguet-a watchmaker turned physicist-to develop an improved fixed-speed motor. Later iterations of the motor apparatus allowed them to make increasingly accurate and precise measurements.

Indeed, many important contributions to science are technical rather than purely theoretical. For example, the Davenport Motor (the first DC electric motor built in the U.S.) was made by the blacksmith Thomas Davenport who, with little formal education, made use of a connection between electricity and magnetism that hadn't been theorized. Likewise, the helical model of DNA could not have been developed without Rosalind Franklin's work on X-ray crystallographic imaging techniques. And consider the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This massive technological undertaking involved thousands of scientists and engineers. A fraction of the team developed particle theory; many more built detectors, developed computational algorithms, or figured out how to cool the LHC's superconducting magnets. It's clear we need to broaden our view of science practice to include work with and development of technology.

Teaching science and technology together, at last

As standards have pushed to have science education reflect the authentic processes of science, they have incorporated "practices" as a way of learning about the world and developing scientific knowledge. But many science classroom practices emphasize talk-through discussions, argumentation, and literacy, including reading and writing about science. It is equally important to consider how students' engagement in science practice can develop their technical knowledge and technical skills.

So how should science education change as the modern world changes? We need a model of science education that can effectively respond to technological change as well as new demands for teaching about technology. We should look for opportunities to integrate science and technology education in ways that are complementary, where the use of technology is integrated into science practice in authentic ways, and where technical knowledge is valued as a product of scientific activity.

Integrating science and technology learning

Scientists often use specialized hardware and software to work with systems for data acquisition and control. The hardware consists of electronics that connect to and sample voltages or currents from connected sensors and turn those into numerical readings. The software (like the popular LabVIEW) controls the sampling, processing, and storage of these data, as well as the actuation of connected devices-for instance, to drive a piezoelectric crystal or a current through a heating or cooling device. These systems can be used to collect experimental data, create experimental conditions, or control an experiment.

Our InSPECT research project, funded by the National Science Foundation, focuses on integrating science and technology learning by creating tools for data acquisition and control. The project engages students in using these technologies to do more authentic experiments involving data collection and analysis. InSPECT makes use of custom-made sensor hardware for creating data, and a LabVIEW-like programming environment for data processing, visualization, and storage, and for the logical control of actuators. Students use these scientific tools to make measurements and analyze data, and learn about computing and sensor hardware at the same time.

InSPECT developed a three-week curriculum investigating the biological processes in plants and animals that produce or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Throughout the curriculum, students use our custom Dataflow data acquisition and control hardware and software to do several hands-on laboratory experiments to investigate photosynthesis and cellular respiration (Figure 1). They use sensors to measure CO ₂ levels in the atmosphere and in controlled environments, while programming LED lamps to turn off and on to stimulate photosynthesis (Figure 2).

The instructional sequence was designed such that students learn about science and technology in parallel. We wanted students to engage in authentic science practices to develop their understanding of biology, learn about modern sensor-based technologies including Internet of Things (IoT) sensor devices, and gain technical skills in programming for data collection and control. Four underlying design principles guided our work.

Using dual learning progressions. Each activity has two sets of learning goals, one about science practices and content and another about the technology. For instance, students are first introduced to the topic of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when they inspect graphs of CO ₂ levels from their classroom. They observe features of the graphs-when the Internet shut down, when the custodian was in the room, when students were in class. This helps them start to think not only about carbon dioxide and where it comes from and where it goes, but also about all the other things that sensors can "make visible" about the world around us.

Figure 1. A Dataflow hardware kit including (from top left): plastic wrap, a container of spinach leaves, a custom-built "IoT" sensor hub, carbon dioxide, light, and temperature/humidity sensors, an LED grow light, and an IoT relay.

Introducing sensors as technology. After seeing graphs of the classroom CO ₂ levels, students make their own measurements. They notice that their sensors all have different CO ₂ readings of the classroom, which creates an opportunity to discuss sources of variation in measurement and issues of accuracy and precision. When learning to control actuators, they use the technology to create automatic alarms that turn on when the CO ₂ in the classroom reaches unhealthy levels. When experimenting with the hardware during free time, many students built their own "smart devices," such as an automatic nightlight or a "clapper."

Redesigning hands-on labs to problematize measurement. In contrast to most sensor-based labs, InSPECT labs give students opportunities to learn about the technology they're using to produce their data. For example, the sensors-and their limitations-become central to a redesigned respiration lab, in which students devise ways to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in their breath both before and after exercise. However, the concentration of CO ₂ in undiluted breath is much higher than the sensors can measure directly. Students learn more about what the sensors actually measure and how, then design their measurements around these limitations. For instance, some popped small balloons of exhaled breath into a larger bag of air, while others blew through a straw above the surface of the sensor.

This variation in methods is an indication that students are engaged in scientific thinking about experimental design themselves. And when they then use the sensors to create their own data, they begin to wonder more about them: How do the sensors work inside? How fast can they make measurements? What else might affect the values I see?

Modifying hands-on labs to include programming and control. After a series of activities in which students come to understand photosynthesis and respiration in plants and animals as processes that produce or consume carbon dioxide, they create a final project that puts both their scientific and technical knowledge to use. Students design a way to stabilize the carbon dioxide levels in a closed "ecosphere" container. Some students programmed a light to turn on when the CO ₂ levels in the ecosphere are too high; the plant matter inside then photosynthesizes and the CO ₂ levels dropped. In this way, students are introduced to scientific practices of using technology to control experimental variables. Depending on how they set up their system and their program, they saw different behaviors of their CO ₂ control system.

Figure 2. A Dataflow program created by a ninth grade biology student. The program actuates a red-blue LED lamp connected to a relay, and stores and graphs CO₂ and light data during the experiment. When CO₂ levels in the container reached above 1,000 PPM, the student's lamp turned on, initiating photosyn-thesis in the spinach leaves, which then caused the CO₂ levels to decrease.

Conclusion

During classroom observations, we have witnessed students get inspired by the technology. This shouldn't surprise us-just like the natural world, technology in the built world can be fascinating. While technology education has its own purpose and goals, learning with and about technology can also serve as an onramp to science practice.

For science and technology integration to work, students must be able to learn about the technologies they use to create scientific knowledge. To ensure that these technologies are relevant to modern work and life, we should leverage connections between scientific tools and the "everyday" technologies in our modern world. The InSPECT project builds on the synergy between the tools used for data acquisition and control and the technologies underlying modern IoT devices (systems of sensors, computers, and actuators). We are excited by the potential of technology integration in the science classroom to foster creativity and competencies, along with both scientific and technical knowledge.
* Pickering, A. (2010). The mangle of practice: Time, agency, and science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lisa Hardy ( lhardy@concord.org) is a research associate.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant DRL-1640054. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Integrating Technology and Science: Preparing Students for the World They Live In

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As science educators our goal is to help students engage in and develop practices for understanding the natural world. But what about the built world, the human-made environment-the one that students spend much of their day-to-day lives in? We teach science for many reasons: to prepare students to d

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The new question-of-the-week is:
What are effective ways to use tech in English classes?
There are lots of English classes in schools and there are sure a lot of ed-tech possibilities out there.

This series will explore if there are any useful connections that can be made between them.

This is part of a series considering tech tools for different content classes (you can see posts on tech in math classes here and on tech in social studies classes here).

Today's column features responses from Jennifer Casa-Todd, Jenny Vo, Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry, Ingrid Nelson, and Stephanie Affinito. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jennifer, Jenny, and Maggie on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

You might also be interested in The "All-Time" Best Web Tools For English Language Learners and The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An "Authentic Audience."
Response From Jennifer Casa-Todd The temptation to have students use a Chromebook or tablet to write and peer edit papers is great, but there is so much more to using tech in English. Don't get me wrong; using collaborative tools to get feedback on a student's writing (text or audio) can be very powerful, but technology and social media allow for powerful storytelling and transformational learning experiences in English classes. Here are a few examples: and have your kids reach out to the authors with their questions or comments. -Use your own social-media connections to find another class reading the same book and connect with them by sharing questions and feelings about the book on Google Hangouts or Webroom (if in the same time zone), or Padlet or Flipgrid (if synchronous meetings are not possible). -Have students join the Global Read Aloud, created by Pernille Ripp, and use the Twitter hashtags to talk about what resonates. OR create a slow chat (from a class account if students are under 13) and invite others to respond to your students' questions. with resources to get started. for students to synthesize what they know about a story or create an alternative ending. ) to create scavenger hunts or BreakoutEDU style challenges for vocabulary or content sharing. -Have kids post a review on Amazon or Goodreads for the book they are reading in class or Rotten Tomatoes for a film they are watching (class account for younger kids). Help them to construct a review and teach them how to respond positively and critically to other reviews with which they either agree or disagree. This not only provides an authentic audience, but it also teaches students how to comment appropriately to others. -Create a Twitter poem using a maximum of 280 characters. and the power of Google Earth to create an interactive map of the setting and moments that resonate from the novel or story they are reading. for novels, stories, and nonfiction units. Hyperdocs reinforce the 4Cs, are multimodal and therefore allow for a variety of entry points, and provide students with the opportunity to work at their own pace. Most importantly, ask your students-what are they writing, reading, creating? Students lead rich digital lives outside the classroom. Use these ideas flexibly to meet your curriculum needs; this will reinforce their own literate behaviors and help them to feel valued in the classroom. Response From Jenny Vo
Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has been teaching for 22 years and is currently an ESL ISST in the Katy Independent school district in Katy, Texas:
In this digital age where technology is everywhere, it behooves us as educators to embrace it and use it to our benefit and for the benefit of our students. Why not integrate technology into your instruction to enhance the learning experiences of your students? The goal is not to substitute technology for quality teacher instruction but to integrate it seamlessly so that it supports your teaching and provides the students with interactive, meaningful lessons that will engage both their attention and their brains. With so many programs and Apps available, however, teachers need to make wise choices about which ones to use and how to use them. What are some effective ways you can use technology in the classroom?

1. Use technology to develop the language skills of your students, especially your English-language learners
. There are great programs and Apps that help the students with their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Flipgrid is a great online discussion tool where students can record themselves responding to questions posted by the teacher and then listen and respond to other students' replies. Use this to activate background knowledge, share experiences, book discussions, etc. Poplet is a powerful mind-mapping tool that allows students to think and learn visually. They use words and pictures to show relationships between ideas. Use this to teach vocabulary, main idea/details, plan for writing, plan out presentations, etc. EPIC and ReadWorks are online libraries of books and nonfiction and literary articles. Teachers can assign students books to read during independent reading time or at home. Students may also choose books themselves. They both have quizzes and assessments that teachers can use to track their students' reading progress.

2. Use technology to give your students opportunities to share their learning and show off their work.
Have students create presentations using PowerPoint or Google Slides. With TeleStory, students can create their own movies. Students can write stories using StoryJumper. These are great to use at the end of the unit when you want students to summarize what they have learned. Not only will the students feel great about sharing their work, you can also use the finished products as an assessment tool and to share with parents what their children have learned.

3. Use technology to enhance your lessons and for assessments. Teachers can use technology to create and deliver lessons and to assess student learning. My school started using Nearpod last year. Nearpod has been a game changer in helping to create engaging and interactive lessons for our students. You can create your own lessons or import lessons from the lesson bank and customize them to your needs. You can add interactive features such as 3D objects, polls, open-ended questions where students can type in answers or draw their answers, virtual field trips, quizzes, etc. It is a great tool for formative assessment during your lesson. Reports can be printed out and used to determine which students mastered the concepts and who needs reteaching. Kahoot! is a game-based technology tool that can be used for pre- and formative assessment. Use it to check for background knowledge, check for understanding midunit, or as a review before an assessment. Teachers can add questions and polls, along with images and videos to their quizzes. Like Nearpod, Kahoot! also has a bank of quizzes that teachers can access and customize.

Technology will only get more advanced as time goes by. Why not embrace it and allow it to support our instruction? Our students will benefit from the fun, interactive lessons and will think we are so cool because we know how to use technology. It's a win-win situation! Response From Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry & Ingrid Nelson

Maggie Verdoia and Sarah Acosta Landry are teachers at Raymond J. Fisher Middle School in the Los Gatos Union school district in Los Gatos, Calif. Ingrid Nelson is a teacher at John Sloat Elementary School in the Sacramento City Unified school district. They are members of the Instructional Leadership Corps, a collaboration among the California Teachers Association, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, and the National Board Resource Center at Stanford:
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the tech tools available for the English classroom. As teachers, even though tech is engaging for students, we know that arbitrarily choosing a tool is not going to raise content mastery-it has to be the right tool, for the right purpose, at the right time. In designing 21st-century instruction for an English class, we seek tech tools that promote three key areas: inquiry, reasoning (or critical thinking), and authenticity. When tech allows students to inquire effectively and safely, think critically about the world around them, and do so in authentic ways, we know it's a good integration. (reliability-authenticity-purpose) works well to help them evaluate websites and determine credibility. . , a virtual bulletin board that can be used in a multitude of ways. For inquiry, students use Padlet to post questions (for example, either as part of a K-W-L activity or in response to student presentations), or to post answers to other students' questions. When it comes to authenticity, we want students sharing their work with real audiences, and Padlet works well as a place where students can share their writing (via the Google Doc link) and then comment on each other's pieces using Padlet's comment feature.
A cool tool to get those brains thinking critically is EdPuzzle to publish their thinking in small groups (think Literature Circles) by posting thoughts and commenting on the thoughts of others. And if we want to share with a wider audience (the entire school or beyond), we use Google Sites We challenge you to choose a tool and implement it with your students! They'll thank you! Response From Stephanie Affinito to publish student work. We use Google Sites for literature circles, reciprocal lessons, book reviews, and student portfolios. Our conceptualization of literacy is ever evolving. It includes attention to new, digital, and multimodal literacies and acknowledges that these literacies change our habits as readers. Therefore, literacy teachers must reimagine instruction to ensure students authentically create, communicate, collaborate, and learn together through technology. Based on my work in teacher learning communities, I have found technology can be particularly effective to build connected literacy communities, engage teachers during professional development, and support personalized learning, lessons easily transferred to the English classroom: Build a connected literacy community. Engage students during literacy instruction. Support personalized learning. Above all, pedagogy must lead technology. We must intentionally choose digital tools for the classroom using our knowledge of the learners in front of us. If we focus on how technology can amplify student voice and provide authentic audiences for student work, we harness the power of literacy, empowering students to share their voices with the world and leave their mark on it. Flip your classroom with technology! Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach where individual reflection precedes group collaboration and discussion to create an active and engaged learning space. Create resources for students to guide their own learning: collections of texts and videos, tutorials for skills and strategies, and options for student choice. Connect individually with students to support their journeys and share their voice with others. Innovate your literacy teaching by using technology to spice up lessons and increase student engagement. Survey students before a new unit of study using Google Forms to inform your planning and instruction. Create attractive slides and memes to spark thinking using Canva or Adobe Spark during lessons. Encourage interaction through QR Codes and ThingLink. Engage students by creating backchannels for discussion through Recap or Today's Meet. Technology has the potential to connect readers and writers together. Students can use digital tools such as Padlet and Flipgrid to share books they are reading and begin literate conversations. Students can use Google Docs to easily share their writing with others for feedback and celebration. While these connections might begin in the classroom, they can be continued outside of them, blurring the boundaries of learning. Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first seven years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. Look for Part Two in a few days.
. There's no denying kids love watching videos online. With EdPuzzle, you can take YouTube videos and make them interactive for students. Teachers import the YouTube video, either use the audio given or record your own, and embed critical-thinking questions for students to answer. Students can also create EdPuzzle videos to demonstrate their own thinking about a text (digital or traditional) and teach others!

Stephanie Affinito, a former classroom teacher and literacy specialist, is a literacy teacher educator at the University of Albany. She has a deep love for literacy coaching and supporting teachers' learning through technology and presents nationally on this topic. You can find her online at stephanieaffinito.com and on Twitter at @AffinitoLit:

Thanks to Jennifer, Jenny, Maggie, Sarah, and Stephanie for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

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Response: Ways to Use Tech Effectively in English Classes (Opinion)

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Jennifer Casa-Todd, Jenny Vo, Maggie Verdoia, Sarah Acosta Landry, Ingrid Nelson, and Stephanie Affinito share suggestions on how to use tech in English classes.

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Appropriate Use of Technology in Physical Education

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SHAPE America believes that technology can be an effective tool for supplementing instruction in physical education when used appropriately. This guidance document provides guidelines for using technology to help students achieve SHAPE America’s National Physical Education Standards.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented. 

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented. 

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration and be more productive. It is free to use and easy to try. Just ask and ChatGPT can help with writing, learning, brainstorming and more.

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Code! .. Draw! .. Stitch! / TurtleStitch - Coded Embroidery

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Code! .. Draw! .. Stitch! / TurtleStitch - Coded Embroidery

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Turtlestitch is based on a browser-based educational programming language (Snap!) to generate patterns for embroidery machines. It is easy to use, requiring no prior knowledge in programming, yet powerful in creating nowels patterns for embroidery. It is usefull for designers to experiment with generative aesthetics and precision embroidery as well as tool for innovative workshops combining an introduction to programing with haptic output.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented.

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration and be more productive. It is free to use and easy to try. Just ask and ChatGPT can help with writing, learning, brainstorming and more.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented.

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration and be more productive. It is free to use and easy to try. Just ask and ChatGPT can help with writing, learning, brainstorming and more.

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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Supporting Students' Paths to 'New Collar' Careers

IBM President, Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty coined the term "new collar" to describe emerging career paths in IT that require substantial skill but aren't defined by traditional white- or blue-collar expectations. This speaks to a broader shift in skill sets. Employers say they struggle to find workers with soft skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, adaptability and communication.

Makerspaces in K-12 schools can help bridge this gap by equipping students with the tools and technology they need to hone those skills, such as independent problem-solving, while also seeing the real-world impact of their work.

There's not one right way to leverage the benefit of makerspaces. Administrators need to find the combination of teaching and technology that works best for students and staff.
MORE FROM EDTECH: Learn how modern learning environments remove barriers to learning.
Some examples of innovative makerspace implementations include:

Robot Revolutions: Kid-sized robots and coding tools such as Sphero and littleBits are popular options for STEAM classrooms. How popular? Sphero's education division has "grown significantly over the past four years, now serving more than 20,000 teachers and 1.5 million kids worldwide," says Michelle Acaley, senior director of Edu Program Management at Sphero.

The company's line of littleBits electronic building blocks let students create prototypes without the need for screens. Teachers can leverage Sphero Edu software for lesson plans and access to both self-service professional development and Xoom meetings.

The popular Sphero Bolt and SPRK+ robots offer K-12 classroom integration. Younger students can use draw programming to direct their bots, while older kids can design mazes and other challenges. And with built-in Bluetooth connections, all created programs are streamed rather than downloaded, meaning no internet connection is required.

"The goal is computational thinking, solving problems. Developing this 21st-century skill is the best way to prepare students," Acaley says.

Minecraft Mandate: In Pennsylvania, Montour School District is seeing success with their Minecraft Education Lab, one of the district's makerspaces. Justin Aglio, Montour's director of academic achievement and district innovation, says the space began with a simple question: What gets kids excited, and how can we capture that in the school building?

The world-building game Minecraft was a popular answer, so Montour equipped a classroom with desktop computers that had Minecraft installed to " let students create with something familiar." For example, after reading a story, students recreate the setting and characters in Minecraft, enabling them to make hands-on, real-world connections to what they read.

Low-Tech Learning: Montour also has a certified Brick Makerspace in partnership with Lego Education. Legos help students visualize concepts, such as area and perimeter, using only a few plastic blocks, Aglio says, offering a simple transition from theoretical concepts to practical instruction.

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Technology Helps Schools Answer the 'Why' of STEAM Learning

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IBM President, Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty coined the term "new collar" to describe emerging career paths in IT that require substantial skill but aren't defined by traditional white- or blue-collar expectations. This speaks to a broader shift in skill sets. Employers say they struggle to find workers with soft skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, adaptability and communication.

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Technology has seeped into every part of our lives. It has created entire industries and improved the efficiency of pre-existing professions. Manufacturing jobs are increasingly automated. Medical devices and technology are saving more lives. More people are leaving the office in favor of remote or freelancing work. Technology is here, and it isn't going anywhere. In truth, it will only advance, further changing the structure of our work and lives. This begs the question: how does technology prepare students for the future?

Technology is often seen as a part of the adult world. When technology is in the hands of children, the association is often social media or gaming. But now more than ever, children need technology to assist their education. We say "need" because as valuable as textbooks and traditional learning are, they don't do enough. In a world that relies on technology, analog learning alone cannot prepare students for what they will face as adults, no matter their profession.

It's difficult to imagine the leap. Just two decades ago, computers in school were only found in computer labs. Now they are in every classroom. The value was slowly recognized, and even today, we cannot grasp what will come tomorrow. With that in mind, let's take a look at how technology prepares students for the future.

Benefits of technology in the classroom

We already know it's possible to become addicted to our phones, no matter our age. We know the harmful effects of social media and cyberbullying. With the amount of technology around us, concern about the use of it in the classroom is only natural. The trepidation is also greater for adults who did not see the rise of computers and phones in schools. Those that learned solely from lecture and textbook may have difficulty accepting tech in the classroom. We often hold onto what worked in the past without considering the future.

The argument is this: In the past, there was no other option. Then, we did not understand different styles of learning as well as we do today. Today, technology is increasingly used for educational purposes. With balance, there are several benefits to using technology in the classroom:

Gamifying lessons - Static lessons are less likely to engage students. Using games, especially for younger students, helps to keep them engaged.

Self-directed learning - Students are now learning at their own speed. If they need to study one subject longer, they can. If they're ready to move on, they're able to.

Collaboration - Both teachers and students can work with others around the world.

Differentiated instruction - Not every student can learn from lectures or reading. Some concepts are difficult to grasp without interaction. Technology allows students to learn in a variety of ways and find what best suits their needs.

Distance learning - Technology can now be used to supplement virtual instruction.

The future of technology in the classroom isn't easy to envision. But today, it is about increasing learning potential. It's about preparing students for their technological future. Creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, and creative thinking are all necessary skills for the future. Technology is just one part of that equation.

How does technology help students?

Asking "How does technology help students?" is like asking "Does school prepare you for life?" or "Does college prepare students for the workforce?" Education, no matter what form it takes, capitalizes on a child's natural need to develop skills. At a young age, our brains are developing thousands of connections that help to inform our world. These connections relate to our ability to solve problems, communicate, and collaborate. Obtaining these skills is necessary for use over the course of our lives. Technology is just one tool to help students acquire these skills and more.

Preparing students for the future isn't easy. It takes balance and proper utilization. But when tech is balanced with other forms of learning, it prepares students by:

Teaching new technology skills

Technology is constantly advancing. This gives rise to new jobs and industries, such as coding and artificial intelligence. Technology provides a makers education in AI, IT, design, and many STEM fields. It does this through specialized programs that allow students to explore these interests.

Several schools are now teaching coding to students as young as age eight. Schools are also offering courses in AI. MIT created an App Inventor to help students learn how to develop new apps with coding. They also developed Shadowspect, which allows students to learn geometry with 3D puzzles.

Entrepreneurial courses and skills

Technology gives students the chance to learn subjects outside the classroom as well. It also allows for enhanced understanding of the subjects they are already learning. For instance, if they are taking a business course, they may create a mockup of their own new business. They'll learn to create websites, manage accounts, and maintain a social media presence that leads to sales.

Students of today need to know how to leverage technology for their future. Thinking like entrepreneurs helps them maintain advanced careers in the future. They become the innovators, inventors, and business owners. Because companies are using more technology with fewer employees, these skills are essential.

But what options currently exist? There are sources like Stukent, which simulates business operation, marketing, and networking. There is also Ever-Fi, which exposes students to STEM careers and business planning.

Career learning

Students today are better equipped to learn and explore future career options. But that's not what we're talking about here. Instead, we're talking about the installation of learning as a skill for life. Using technology to engage students also helps them to embrace learning. It may even inspire them to enjoy learning and encourage them to explore topics that interest them.

Teaching workplace skills

Active learning is the most effective tool in preparing students for the workplace. Active learning involves activities such as reading, writing, discussion, and projects. Project-based learning also achieves "cognitive activation." This is a focus on how they reached their answer rather than the answer itself. Technology is another tool in active learning and cognitive activation via personalized learning. Each student has their own unique way of learning.

Teamwork

Technology helps to tap into students' individual learning styles. Tech can also encourage teamwork by working on team or class projects. By working together, they must share, listen, support, and help each other.

Critical thinking

Technology connects students to tools and resources. But they must sort through and understand how best to use them. This helps them develop the habits of working through tasks in different manners. They're better equipped to find alternate solutions and ways of doing things.

Learning responsibility

Much of the technology allotted to students is school-owned, so they must know how to take care of the devices. They may be handed a code of conduct and a list of consequences for losing their device. The use of technology in schools also provides the opportunity to learn about ethics. Learning digital citizenship is now an important part of education that will give them the tools and understanding needed for life and work online.

Adaptation

The adult world is fast-paced. Technology is rapidly changing. Information is rapidly streaming. Awareness of different technologies and how to use them is essential. When students are comfortable with learning new technologies, they are better at adapting to technological change.

Collaboration

There are so many professions that require collaboration, whether it be on a small scale or large. This could mean communicating with a local team of five or small teams across the globe. Either way, technology promotes collaboration and creative thinking.

For instance, students in a Spanish class are able to talk with students in Spain or Latin America. They can ask each other questions on forums or over video chat. They can share interests and learn about each other's cultures. They'll learn about life beyond their home and become more empathetic. Possibly, they'll even become more curious.

Empathy and positive change

Collaboration can also lead to empathy and positive change in students and communities. The previous example of students talking with classrooms in other countries is an excellent illustration.

The class may learn that the local area has issues with clean water. Maybe the difficulty is that students struggle to get to school due to a lack of transportation. Students might then come up with solutions. With tech, they are able to speak to the students, local government, businesses, community centers, and others. They can work as a team in the class or with those in the country they're learning about. They're learning to solve problems in a comprehensive way. They're also able to obtain information about the lives of others. This kind of collaboration is something that couldn't occur without technology.

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How will technology change education in the future? We can't know for certain. But as you can see, technology prepares students for the future in comprehensive ways. This improvement comes with a caveat, however. With greater use of technology comes greater exposure to threats. Students face cyberbullying, hackers, predators, and disturbing online content. To protect them, you need a comprehensive solution.

GoGuardian web filtering and monitoring is specifically designed for schools. Once implemented, it gives teachers, administrators, and parents the tools they need to keep students safe. Learn more about web filtering software, suicide prevention, and more from GoGuardian.

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Note: This article was originally posted on June 6, 2020 and has been updated as of July 10, 2023.

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How Does Technology Prepare Students for the Future? | GoGuardian

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How does technology prepare students for the future? Learn about using technology to engage students and prepare them for the workforce.

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The University of Texas Permian Basin | UTPB

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Technology use has become as standard in today's classrooms as it has throughout every other aspect of our lives: jobs, family life, personal finances, etc. While students used to carry a stack of textbooks to school, now they're carrying laptops-even at the elementary level. The paper notebook, in many cases, has been supplanted by the computer notebook.

Technology has always been designed to make the user's tasks easier to complete, whether it's an assignment for a class, a time-sensitive project for an employer, or annual tax documents. For students with developmental and learning disabilities, the need for technological assistance in education is even greater.

Special education is geared toward students living with a broad range of conditions, including blindness, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Down syndrome, motor impairments, and autism. Estimates show that more than 7 million students living with disabilities are attending public schools in the United States, and individuals with specific learning disabilities or speech or language impairments make up the majority of these students. Technology in special education can help these disabled students keep up with their peers to the extent possible and prepare for future success.

Types of Technology Used in Special Education

Various assistive technologies are being used for special education students today. These include:

Virtual reality environments can help autistic students in stressful situations where they deal with crowds, such as hallways, school assemblies, and the cafeteria. By encountering these scenarios in a nonthreatening virtual environment, these students can gradually become accustomed to them and will be better prepared to respond calmly and appropriately in real-life situations. Virtual reality also gives students with motor disabilities the ability to manipulate objects that they are unable to manipulate in the real world.

Tablets/Handheld Touchscreen Computers

These devices are useful for visual learning, reading, drawing, and watching videos. They can help students with motor impairments improve their coordination and those with reading disabilities comprehend written information via text-to-speech apps. Further, students with autism respond very well to using these devices to learn. Numerous apps have been created specifically for autistic students.

NOVA Chat is a dedicated speech generation device that, in conjunction with text-to-speech programs, provides assistance to students who have reading disabilities. It reads text aloud and also converts speech into text on the screen.

This software is designed for students who have reading disabilities. It enables users to customize a learning program for each individual student, giving those students fluency goals and tracking their progress as they continue to learn through the program.

Known as a handheld augmentative communication device, DynaVox xPress helps students develop greater reading fluency and natural speech patterns and pronunciation. The device uses a combination of text and images to express language to and increase the vocabulary of the user.

This software offers interactive lessons in reading and math that provide students with individualized attention and tailored education plans. In addition, it gives the parents of the students the ability to view their child's learning progress.

How Technology Helps

The central purpose of technology in special education is to enable students to learn in a way that accommodates their individual learning styles and limitations. Equally important is helping them experience:

Greater independence

Less anxiety

Improved connection with their classmates

Natural, more comfortable and effective communication

Increased academic performance

Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation, a Columbus, Indiana public school district with approximately 12,000 students, provides one example of how technology in the classroom can help students with special needs excel. According to a U.S. Department of Education report, students in that district who were hesitant to communicate face-to-face became engaged in class discussions in the online setting. After the school district implemented universal design for learning (UDL), an approach that incorporates digital books, specialized software and websites, screen readers with a text-to-speech feature, and other technology tools, graduation rates increased 22% for special education students.

Potential Limitations of Technology in Special Education

While much of the technology mentioned here is user friendly, these innovations aren't always easily implemented in the classroom. Tools and applications may have a learning curve for the teachers who will be tasked with using them and demonstrating their use to special education students. With internet-enabled devices, there's also a risk that students' attention will be drawn away by websites or other functions of the technology that aren't germane to their coursework.

Our Online Special Education Programs

The University of Texas Permian Basin offers online master's-level programs in special education that can prepare students to take on the challenges of technology and other aspects of special education as teachers. In their roles as educators, they'll be able to use technology to improve their students' learning abilities and, consequently, their lives. Each of these CAEP-accredited degree programs explores the use of technology and innovation in the classroom:

Master of Arts in Special Education

Master of Arts in Special Education with a track in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Master of Arts in Special Education with Educational Diagnostician track

Technology and School Change-a required course in these programs-was created to help students acquire a deeper understanding of the impact technology has on education, especially as it relates to students with disabilities. Course objectives are to understand that impact as it currently exists and what it may be in the future, as well as to examine how educators can use technology across all educational settings to positively influence the learning environment for all students, disabled or not.

Students in any UT Permian Basin special education program can complete Technology and School Change and all their other required courses in a 100% online classroom that allows self-paced learning from any location. The core degree program and autism track can be completed in as little as 12 months, and the educational diagnostician track can be completed in as little as 24 months.

Learn more about UT Permian Basin's online Master of Arts in Special Education now.

Sources:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgg.asp https://tech.ed.gov/files/2017/01/NETP17.pdf https://www.iste.org/explore/Innovator-solutions/How-special-education-technology-improves-learning https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/12/05/five-top-technology-trends-in-special-education.html https://www.bluerangetech.com/blog/use-tablets-special-education/#:~:text=Overcoming%20Motor%20Impairments&text=The%20tablets%20operate%20as%20a,seem%20to%20resonate%20exceptionally%20well

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The Use of Technology in Special Education | UT Permian Basin Online

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Technology use has become as standard in today's classrooms as it has throughout every other aspect of our lives: jobs, family life, personal finances, etc. While students used to carry a stack of textbooks to school, now they're carrying laptops-even at the elementary level.

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Introduction:

Storytelling has always been an essential part of childhood, fostering imagination, creativity, and learning. For children with special needs such as autism, dyslexia, and ADHD, engaging in stories can offer additional benefits, including cognitive and social development. StorySpark, an AI story generator for kids, is specifically designed to support children with special needs, making storytelling accessible, enjoyable, and empowering. In this blog post, we'll explore how StorySpark can positively impact children with autism, dyslexia, and ADHD, and how it's revolutionizing storytelling for kids with special needs.

1. StorySpark: An Inclusive AI Storytelling Platform

StorySpark is an AI-powered story generator that creates personalized stories for children based on their inputs. By harnessing the power of OpenAI APIs, StorySpark provides an inclusive storytelling platform tailored to the unique needs and preferences of each child, including those with special needs.

1. Supporting Children with Autism

a. Visual Imagery: StorySpark's AI-generated stories can be accompanied by engaging visuals, providing a multisensory experience that can help children with autism better comprehend and connect with the stories. b. Social Skills Development: Engaging with StorySpark's personalized stories can promote social skills development in children with autism by exposing them to various social situations and emotions. c. Routine and Predictability: The structured nature of StorySpark's stories provides a sense of routine and predictability, which can be comforting and beneficial for children with autism.

1. Empowering Children with Dyslexia

a. Readability: StorySpark's AI-generated stories are designed with readability in mind, using clear fonts and simple sentence structures to make reading easier for children with dyslexia. b. Vocabulary Building: StorySpark's stories introduce new words and concepts, helping children with dyslexia expand their vocabulary and improve their reading skills. c. Personalized Pacing: Children with dyslexia can engage with StorySpark's stories at their own pace, allowing for a more enjoyable and stress-free reading experience.

1. Engaging Children with ADHD

a. Captivating Stories: StorySpark's AI-generated stories are specifically designed to be engaging and captivating, holding the attention of children with ADHD. b. Interactive Experience: The interactive nature of StorySpark allows children with ADHD to actively participate in the storytelling process, promoting focus and engagement. c. Customizable Themes: StorySpark enables children with ADHD to choose themes and characters that interest them, making the stories more relatable and attention-grabbing. Conclusion: StorySpark's AI story generator offers an inclusive and empowering storytelling platform for children with special needs, including those with autism, dyslexia, and ADHD. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, StorySpark is revolutionizing storytelling for kids with special needs, fostering imagination, creativity, and learning. Experience the magic of StorySpark and unlock the potential of every child today!

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Welcome to Story Spark, your go-to platform for kid-friendly storytelling designed with heart, innovation, and inclusivity

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Magic School AI tools for student support

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Magic School AI tools for student support

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Download and 3D-Print 18,000 Artifacts from Art History through Scan the World — Colossal

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Scan the World might be one of the only institutions where visitors are encouraged to handle the most-valued sculptures and artifacts from art history. The open-source museum hosts an impressive archive of 18,000 digital scans—the eclectic collection spans artworks like the “Bust of Nefertiti,” the…

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Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool. Use it to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more.

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Cabaret Mechanical Theatre - Mechanical is our middle name

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Idea Curation (By former Ambassador Tracy Williamson)

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Idea Curation (By former Ambassador Tracy Williamson)

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented.

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Chat GPT Ideas for this specific content with all the technologies from the makerspace represented.

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ChatGPT helps you get answers, find inspiration and be more productive. It is free to use and easy to try. Just ask and ChatGPT can help with writing, learning, brainstorming and more.

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The Power of Green Screen Technology in Student Projects: Creating Movie Magic

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Green screen technology in student projects provides opportunities for creativity, realism, collaboration, and multi-disciplinary learning. Students can transport themselves to different locations or settings, producing professional-looking productions that enhance their projects. This technology fosters collaboration, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Green screen projects also offer interactive and engaging presentations, allowing students to express their personal voice and showcase their unique ideas. Additionally, this technology facilitates cross-curricular integration, enabling students to apply knowledge from various subjects. Overall, green screen technology empowers students to unleash their creativity and create visually captivating projects.

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I have to be honest: I've often dreaded teaching research papers in my high school English classes. When students would turn in their papers, they would have composition issues that needed to be addressed, and there were so many other problems: questionable sources, MLA formatting mistakes, instances of plagiarism. Often I wouldn't even know where to start assessing this work, even though these are all skills I consider essential in my classroom. Eventually I came to realize that they didn't all have to be taught at the same time.

I also needed to find ways to help motivate my students to take ownership of their research process because the biggest problem with the papers was their incredible blandness. Without proper guidance, students miss the point of research: to look into a question and develop new questions, insights, and ideas as they search. For too many of them, a research paper is just a bunch of facts with a list of works cited at the end. No wonder they, and I, have often been bored to tears by the process and the result.

Because my 11th-grade students had been listening to podcasts to expand their knowledge base about the world for the argument essay on the AP exam, and because I've been trying to embrace a more experimental spirit in my teaching, this past year I decided to have students create podcasts in their first research project instead of papers. It was successful for many reasons-among other things, it separated the research process and the writing process, making both teaching and assessing skills easier-and I will definitely do it again. Here's how I did it, and what I learned.

Choosing and Narrowing Topics

In the past, my students researched assigned topics. Because this year was a difficult one-our town was devastated by the Camp Fire in November-I decided that more choice was in order, to counteract the extraordinary and understandable lack of motivation for schoolwork that students were struggling with.

I had them form small groups and set them to work discussing topics they might work on. When they realized they really could research anything, they became excited, choosing topics like conspiracy theories, the rise of YouTubers, medical terminology, memes, cults, and how people become politicians.

Next the groups created research questions. These would evolve as they did the research, but they needed a starting place-I've learned that working out their own questions helps students focus their research. One group started with the question "What are conspiracy theories?" As they looked into the subject, that changed to "How do we know conspiracy theories aren't true?" and then to "Why do people believe conspiracy theories?" The group created a rather nuanced podcast about the psychology behind these theories.

During this project, I taught my students many skills in the research process, including how to determine that sources are credible and how to cite them correctly. The most effective strategy by far was using professional podcasts as mentor texts.

Using Mentor Texts

We listened to several podcasts before and during the research process. Some of the ones that most engaged students were Serial, Radiolab, Invisibilia, Hidden Brain, StoryCorps, The Moth, Revisionist History, This American Life, and The NPR Politics Podcast. We analyzed them by asking questions such as:

What parts of this are interesting? Boring? Why?

How is it structured? What do the creators do at the beginning, at the end, and during transitions? How do they build their story or argument?

What is the main idea or insight that this podcast is illuminating? How does it make its argument, if there is one? What rhetorical strategies does it use?

What sound effects, music, and other tools does it use, and for what effect?

What else do you notice?

As we listened, students took notes on the aspects of each podcast that they wanted to emulate, and ones they wanted to avoid. Each time we finished listening to a podcast, we compared notes, eventually coming to a consensus on what created the most effective structures and arguments. By the time students started researching their topics, the process and purpose of research was much clearer to them: They realized that they would need to come to some conclusions about the significance of the information they found, and structure their evidence and commentary to support those conclusions.

When it came time to record, I had some equipment-professional mics I had secured through a DonorsChoose.org project-but no idea how to use it. One student had some YouTubing experience, and he and his group were soon off and running, but the rest of us wrestled with the process until one of my resourceful girls discovered a very user-friendly app called Anchor. It was free, and with it my students were able to record, cut, mix, and publish their podcasts using just their phones. The results were surprisingly polished, and my students were justifiably proud of their final podcasts.

Why This Worked

Although I felt guilty at first about my lack of preparation for this project, I've learned that when trying new ideas in teaching, the best strategy is to fire, and then aim. I'm generally an overthinker, and if I wait until a lesson is perfect, it often never makes it into the classroom.

My students struggled with the technology of recording, but they were so engaged in solving the puzzle that they forgot to get bored. They were also quite anxious about creating a publishable product that would be listened to by their peers, rather than a paper that only I would see. They were deeply invested in creating an interesting, meaningful podcast. In the end they worked harder on the analysis and synthesis-and did far more thinking-than they would have done if I were the only audience.

This assignment introduced students to the purpose and structure of research, something that was reflected in our more traditional research paper later in the year. They learned from the feedback I gave them and from the work they did on formulating and structuring arguments, and they gained an understanding of why people do research in real life.

Now that I've tried this idea, I can make it even better next year. That's the joy of teaching experimentally: I can try just about anything because I don't have to be perfect-there's always a next time. And that makes teaching so much more engaging for everybody in my classroom, including me.

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Teaching the Research Process Through Podcasting

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I have to be honest: I've often dreaded teaching research papers in my high school English classes. When students would turn in their papers, they would have composition issues that needed to be addressed, and there were so many other problems: questionable sources, MLA formatting mistakes, instances of plagiarism.

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OK Go Sandbox is an online resource for educators that uses OK Go's music videos as starting points for integrated guided inquiry challenges allowing students to explore various STEAM concepts.