Technology skills are essential in today’s classroom. Here are some handy methods you can use to expand your digital repertoire immediately.

A Guest in Your Classroom

Build excitement—invite a virtual guest speaker once or twice a month. Skype and Google Hangouts make it easy for students to interact with established experts, and you’ll be able to expand on key concepts while capitalizing on authentic listening-speaking experiences.

Learning Strategies Go Digital

Explore key learning strategies for your class—which strategies can you take to the next level by going digital?
Taking close reading notes is a chore for many students; consider online practice for this fundamental skill, where students collaborate as they work on an assignment. Acquire e-books with this functionality built in (get a FREE trial subscription to BEC’s extensive interactive e-book library here), or use a tool like iAnnotate^®.

Technology Tuesdays

Utilize a tech tool in a different way—try something new or use a current favorite for a new purpose. Let kids know your plan—they’ll look forward to Tech Tuesdays! For example, boost grammar practice with NoRedInk.com.
Launch Technology Tuesday Lunch to share the best strategies with colleagues.

Create Relevant Content

The power of video in the classroom is undeniable: it provides background knowledge for students who struggle, enables cross-text or cross-media analysis, challenges gifted students, and makes your content more relevant.

Embed videos instructionally in whole-group lessons to customize learning, in small groups to differentiate, or for independent practice. If extreme weather is your topic, a video with a storm chaser in hot pursuit scores major instructional points with highly relevant content.

Expand Global Reach

Project-based learning engages students and creates rich opportunities for students to expand beyond classroom walls. To foster global reach, have students create podcasts or videos, and publish them via school websites or project-based learning sites—try YouTube!

Gather student work in e-portfolios—you’ll find your students blogging and Tweeting about your projects and posting their work in no time (Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge: studentchallenge.edublogs.org; Tweet: #teach2blog).