Technology Based Tools for the Classroom

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By providing different methods of delivering instruction to students, instructors and facilitators are able to reach more students who learn at different paces in order to provide the best and most effective educational experience to them. One of the best methods of doing this is by utilizing modern technology (Web 2.0 tools) in order to offer options to deliver classroom instructions. Some of the most popular and effective tools available include:

Go Soapbox
Go Soapbox is an online engagement tool that allows teachers the ability to create quizzes and polls, update new information in real time, and export data onto spread sheets. Information can easily be accessed from most devices including phones, laptops, and computers which make the ease-of-use even more appealing. Teachers can also monitor class progress during instruction through a unique tracking system called a "confusion barometer" that tracks how many students have acknowledged they are confused at any time during the lesson. This is a valuable tool especially teaching at a distance where teachers cannot see the students' facial expressions or body language during collaboration. He or she can therefore adjust lesson plans or plan additional review if the situation warrants it. Teachers can also post discussion questions to the forum where students are allowed to reply and comment on instructor and peer postings. During instruction, students can post questions, and then the class can vote on the ones they feel are most important. This gives the instructor time to address the major questions during limited sessions and perhaps choose to address the others in a blog posting or via email. This tool can easily be used as an online class forum or even as a part of in-class instruction making it usable in both synchronous and asynchronous learning environments.

VoiceThread
VoiceThread is an online collaboration tool that provides the technology to hold chat sessions between students and instructors to communicate in real time and share media. This tool can also be used to assess how well students can articulate learned material and serve as a presentation tool for students to provide live audio to media presentations. The thread can be set up for the class or for a group and allow students to talk to each other, the instructor, or to the whole class depending on how the thread is set up by the instructor. In an effort to increase accessibility, students will need to have a universal thread that adds video and text to threads. This, in turn, will make the use of the product a complete experience for those with video or audio disabilities. This is a synchronous tool that is structured to mimic a classroom setting for distance learners.

Collaborize
Collaborize is a classroom-online instructional forum that also organizes information for the instructor. The instructor has the option of starting forum threads by posting a question, and the software will create charts based on the information received. It also keeps track of student participation and has analysis tools that ...