Joelle's Favorite Things:
Teaching and LEarning Resources
These are some of my favorite tech tools for facilitating, teaching and learning. Enjoy!
BEST TOOL FOR TEAM COLLABORATION
Learning to work through a pandemic has accelerated adoption of some tools. For me, Microsoft Teams has been a game changer over the past year. I am working and communicating through Teams for the majority of my projects at this point, it is the go-to place for organizing and communicating in many contexts.
BEST TOOL FOR COLLABORATIVE BRAINSTORMING and STRATEGIC FACILITATION
I have fallen in love with Miro. Miro is an online whiteboard but to stop the description there would be understatement to the extreme. This tool can help your team to visualize, to find consensus, to find patterns, to plan meetings, to facilitate, to engage and more.
BEST TOOL FOR FACILITATION PLANNING
Sessionlab has been a game changer for my team! If you need a tool to produce sharable, editable, formatted facilitation or lesson plans, I highly encourage you to check it out. It will save you HOURS of time.
BEST BLOGGER
Richard Byrne has an excellent blog called Free Technology for Teachers. This link is a website, however you can also connect via facebook, twitter, pinterest, google plus, linkedin, RSS feed or subscribe via email. This regularly updated blog draws mouse clicks from me on a regular basis.
BEST STUDY TOOL
If you have simple terms to memorize or concepts to remember, try using Quizlet. This site allows you to:
- easily search, create and share your own stack of flashcards
- turn flashcards into practice tests and games for studying on computer or go mobile with your phone or tablet
BEST TEST MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
I spent so many years of my teaching career writing tests on word processing software. Try Examview Test Generator for these added benefits:
- many publishers sell pre-populated testbanks to build your own tests from
- easy to write all types of questions
- questions may be randomized and dynamic
- split screen question/answer entry, answer keys automatically generated
- may be linked to learning objectives
BEST FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TOOL
Even for adult learners, Kahoot is a fun quizzing platform to check understanding and gather information. It is reliable, fun, and very intuitive, even for students and instructors who are not yet extremely comfortable with technology. The free version will serve the needs of most students and instructors, however the pro account will allow instructors to share Kahoots across a team and download detailed result reports.
BEST SOURCE OF CREATIVE COMMONS IMAGES
In developing online content for education, it is imperative to model appropriate attribution. Images and work that include Creative Commons licensing information make that a bit easier. Try Pexels and The Noun Project for access to thousands of icons and images that include instructions for attribution.