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This website presents free and easy-to-access digital tools that can be used in a variety of pedagogical ways for supporting student-centred learning. It includes tips from teachers to teachers on how to use the tools with students in a pedagogically meaningful ways.
The site is suitable for basic training in digital pedagogy. The aim is to encourage teachers to experiment with new ways of working, with a low entry threshold and a curiosity of testing new methods.
The site was created during the Caribbean Teacher Training and Mentoring programme in 2023-2024 period.
Templates and visualisations to inspire teachers' pedagogical planning
Templates and visualisations to inspire teachers' pedagogical planning
"Planning Template for Digitally Supported Student-Centered Lesson in a Classroom" is a structured tool designed to assist teachers in planning engaging and effective lessons that leverage digital tools in student-centered learning approaches. This template provides a framework for incorporating digital tools in learning objectives sharing, promoting active student participation, facilities planning and assessment.
Click to download (.doc): Planning Template for Digitally Supported Student-Centered Lesson in a Classroom
"Bloom's Taxonomy for Digitally Supported Learning" is a versatile template designed to assist teachers in designing learning activities that promote critical thinking, creativity, and digital literacy skills among students. By aligning digital resources and activities with specific cognitive objectives, teachers can ensure that students are actively engaged in meaningful learning experiences.
Click to download (pdf): Bloom's Taxonomy for Digitally Supported Learning
"Essential Student-Centered Learning Elements Checklist" is a comprehensive tool crafted to empower teachers in designing dynamic and inclusive learning activities. This checklist highlights key elements essential for fostering student-centered learning environments. By utilizing this checklist, teachers can systematically assess their lesson plans to ensure alignment with student-centered principles.
Click to download (pdf): Essential Student-Centered Learning Elements Checklist
Online Whiteboard Tools
Online Whiteboard Tools
An online whiteboard is an interactive tool that enables remote collaboration between teachers and students in real-time. It allows users to write, draw, and pin images, and is commonly used in virtual classrooms and online meetings.
Padlet is collaborative productivity software designed to be familiar and fun. It is a useful tool for collaborative work. It functions as a virtual bulletin board where students can brainstorm, share ideas, reflect, and more.
Google Jamboard is a digital whiteboard that lets you collaborate in real time. Using a Jamboard device, you can. e.g. write and draw with the included stylus, search Google and insert images or webpages and drag and resize text and images. Notice: Google Jamboard is available only until December 31, 2024.
Miro is an online collaborative platform that includes a digital whiteboard among its features. Miro's digital whiteboard is designed for remote collaboration, allowing teams or students to work together in real-time, no matter where they are located. It provides a virtual canvas where users can collaborate, ideate, and organize ideas visually.
Whiteboard.fi is an online platform designed for virtual classrooms to facilitate real-time collaboration and interaction. Teachers can use Whiteboard.fi for quick assessments, quizzes, or to gauge student understanding on specific topics. Teachers can provide instant feedback to students during the session, making it an effective tool for formative assessment.
Flinga is a free Finnish whiteboard and cloud service designed for collaborative working and learning. It is also a good application to support digital facilitation of groups of students. With Flinga, you can plan and work on different projects and tasks. It enables collaborative work, discussion and note-taking.
Ziteboard is a simple, visual collaboration platform improving the remote education, online lessons and group work. Space to work with your class or students in real-time.
Pedagogical tips for using online whiteboards in teaching
Pedagogical tips for using online whiteboards in teaching
1 Illustrating points
Teachers can use the online whiteboard to visually explain concepts, draw diagrams, or illustrate examples, enhancing the clarity of their explanations.
2 Writing down key information
Just like a traditional whiteboard, online whiteboards allow educators to jot down key points, formulas, or important information during a lesson or discussion.
3 Structuring topics of discussion
Teachers can use the whiteboard to create an organized structure for the topics under discussion. This can help students follow the flow of information more effectively.
4 Completing tasks or exercises
Online whiteboards provide a space for students to complete assignments, solve problems, or work on exercises collaboratively. Teachers can monitor progress in real-time.
5 Creating mind maps
Mind mapping is an effective technique for organizing thoughts and ideas. Online whiteboards facilitate the creation of dynamic mind maps, helping students visually connect concepts.
6 Collaboration
One of the significant advantages of online whiteboards is the ability to collaborate in real-time. Students can work together on projects, and teachers can provide instant feedback.
7 Virtual classrooms and meetings
Online whiteboards are essential in virtual classrooms and meetings, enabling interactive and engaging sessions where participants can actively contribute and share ideas.
8 Problem-solving
Teachers can use the whiteboard to present problems and guide students through the problem-solving process, fostering critical thinking skills.
9 Annotations on documents
Some online whiteboards allow users to import documents or images, enabling annotations for a more interactive learning experience.
Quiz and activity builders
Quiz and activity builders
Nearpod is an educational technology platform that provides tools for creating and delivering interactive lessons in classrooms or virtual learning environments. Teachers can use Nearpod to engage students with multimedia content, assessments, and collaborative activities.
Socrative
Socrative offers free exercises and learning games that engage students across all devices. In addition it allows instant feedback on learner progress and adjust learning approach based on the results.
Kahoot is a tool for game-based learning to delight and activate students. Games possibilities are user-generated, multiple-choice quizzes that are accessed via a web browser or the Kahoot app.
Quizlet
By Quizlet at teacher can share quizzes, games and flashcard sets with students. Quizlet resources are specifically designed to help with the memorisation process.
Wordwall
Wordwall can be used to create customised activities and vocabulary games for students. These include quizzes, match-ups, word games and more.
Pedagogical tips for using quiz and activity builders in teaching
Pedagogical tips for using quiz and activity builders in teaching
1 Alignment with learning objectives
Teacher should ensure that the quizzes and activities align with learning objectives. It is important to clearly communicate to students how the assessments contribute to their understanding of the subject matter.
2 Varied question types
The applications offer a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, true/false, short answer, and interactive activities. This diversity keeps students engaged and accommodates different learners.
2 Immediate feedback
Some platforms allow immediate feedback after each question. This can help students learn from their mistakes and reinforce correct understanding.
3 Formative assessment
Teachers can encourage students to use online quizzes as formative assessments to gauge their understanding during the learning process. This also allows teachers to adjust guidance based on real-time feedback.
4 Collaborative activities
Teachers can improve students’ collaboration skills with activities where students can work together on quizzes or projects. Collaboration promotes teamwork, communication, and the exchange of ideas.
5 Reflective activities
Quizzes can also be used in reflective activities where students can express their thoughts, opinions or personal connections to the content. This develops students' critical thinking and metacognition skills.
6 Pre- and post-assessment
Teachers can implement online quizzes as both pre-assessment (to gauge prior knowledge) and post-assessment (to assess learning outcomes). This helps tailoring teaching to students' needs.
7 Encouragement self-paced learning
Many applications allow teachers to design activities so that students can progress at their own pace. This accommodates different learning speeds and promotes a more personalised learning experience
Tools for designing videos and audios
Tools for designing videos and audios
ThingLink is a useful tool that can be used to turn any image into an interactive graphic. It allows you to add extra information and links to existing assets such as videos and images.
Canva is a free graphic design tool that allows collaborative creation of visually appealing design assets. It can be useful for project work or creating visually appealing content for online classrooms.
This online tool is designed for teachers to create interactive videos. It is assessment-centered and allows teachers to add open-ended and multiple-choice questions to video footage. The results can be easily shared.
Pedagogical tips for ThingLink, Canva and Edpuzzle in teaching
Pedagogical tips for ThingLink, Canva and Edpuzzle in teaching
Canva:
1 Visualize concepts
Teachers can use Canva to create visually engaging materials that help students better understand complex concepts.
2 Collaborative projects
Teachers encourage collaborative projects by having students work together on Canva to create presentations or visual summaries.
3 Interactive worksheets
Teachers design interactive worksheets with Canva to make traditional assignments more visually appealing and engaging.
ThingLink:
1 Enhance multimedia
Teachers and students can enrich their presentations by using ThingLink to embed additional information, videos, or links directly into images.
2 Virtual tours
Teachers and students can create virtual tours or maps with ThingLink, allowing students to explore content interactively.
3 Interactive assessments
Educators can turn static images into interactive assessments by adding questions or quizzes using ThingLink.
Edpuzzle
1 Interactive video lessons
Passive video watching can be turned into an interactive experience by embedding questions or discussions with Edpuzzle.
2 Personalised learning
Teachers can implement Edpuzzle to cater to individual learning processes by allowing students to engage with video content at their own pace.
3 Real-time feedback
Teachers may leverage Edpuzzle's features to provide real-time feedback on students' understanding and identify areas that need clarification.
Word Clouds
Word Clouds
Word clouds, also known as tag clouds or word art, are used to visualize and summarize various types of data, from feedback from the audience to school projects and more. There are many word cloud generators to choose from, each with its own unique design and customization capabilities.
Free Word Cloud generators
Pedagogical tips for using Word Clouds in teaching
Pedagogical tips for using Word Clouds in teaching
1 Text analysis and vocabulary building
Teachers can generate a word cloud from a text related to the lesson or topic and discuss the most prominent words and their relevance to the subject.
2 Concept mapping
Students can create a word cloud as a visual representation of key concepts in a lesson. They can discuss the relationships between different terms and concepts.
3 Prioritizing information
Teacher can build a word cloud from a list of terms related to a particular theme, and guide students to identify and discuss the most important terms.
4 Review and reflection
Students can create a word cloud summarizing a lesson or unit and reflect on the main ideas and concepts presented. Teacher can use the word cloud as a visual aid during review sessions.
5 Cross-curricular integration
Teachers and students may apply word clouds in various subjects to reinforce common vocabulary and explore how certain terms are used differently across disciplines. The rehearsal fosters connections between subjects through shared language.
6 Project-based learning
Teachers can incorporate word clouds into project-based learning activities. They can guide students to create word clouds to represent their research findings, and to present and explain their word clouds to the class.
Quick feedback tools in Word Cloud format
Quick feedback tools in Word Cloud format
AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic feedback tool. It can be used for real time audience participation, online brainstorming and classroom feedback.
Mentimeter is an online presentation-building tool that enables audience engagement. The tool allows presenters to include live polls, multiple-choice and open-ended questions, quizzes, and scales for audience interaction. Mentimeter allows for the creation of interactive word clouds as well.
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