Technology in the classroom

One of the main differences occurring in education besides increased accountability is the way we implement technology in our classrooms. At a recent staff meeting we were told that test scores will need to reflect not only that all students are on grade level, but also that our GT population will have demonstrated growth. We as teachers must challenge all our learners. One way to differentiate instruction and reach all levels in one classroom is through technology. While one child is working on cvc words another is learning digraphs and yet another is implementing a comprehension strategy they learned in small group.

Recently I have found some great FREE technology resources that achieve this goal:

turtlediary.com: has games for different content areas and grade levels

literactive.com: this website reminds me of the lexia reading program and raz-kids.com except it is free. One you create an account you can read books or if you click on "activities" there are activities ranging from pre-k level on up. My students are currently working on cvc words and in January I will introduce digraph games followed by vowel pairs.

symbaloo.com is probably the neatest resource I have discovered this year. It is not a website with games but rather it is a simple way in which to house all the game/assignments you want your students to complete. You create webmixes of all the activities and your students can easily access them ask by clicking on the tiles. What is even better is you can share webmixes with other teachers. You can also search and browse other people's webmixes in the symbaloo gallery.

Here are the webmixes I've created using the resources mentioned above as well as some others. Feel free to use these in your own classroom or share with colleagues:

symbaloo.com/mix/computer center

symbaloo.com/mix/reading278

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