S'Cool Tools: 5 Great Tools to Perk Up Your Classroom and Engage Your Students

         I believe I found the best article for my last summer reading reflection blog post. The 5 learning tools, not toys, were carefully selected because they were the new, easy to use, to enhance teaching and learning. Lego Education’s WeDo Robotics Construction Set is designed for ages 7-11 that contains 12 different model activities with a motor, a motion sensor, 160 Lego blocks, and icon-based software. Students can make alligators that mouths open and close and airplanes that plays sound when they move. This will definitely be a hit for the young kinesthetic learners. The Smart Table is the new and cooler Smart Board. It is a “multitouch, multiuser (up to eight users), interactive learner center with customizable applications.” The table’s tool kit provides prepared lesson plans where the teacher can also replace his or her own pictures and content.  This fascinating tool motivates and excites children to learn. The AVer Pen can take pictures, record videos, writes on any surface, projects images, forms graphs, and many other cool and unique features. They say it’s similar to the smart board, but no board! It is simply the new board-less and paperless tool of the future! The lesson plans can be projected on to anywhere or anything in the room. Each pen also “has a built-in answer selection keypad that acts as a group response system that displays poll results as graphs and tables.” The next tool is the New Multiuser Virtual Environments. This tool brings the fun into making games that also meet the curriculum. Teenagers love it, because who wouldn’t love to be learning while making video games! The last tool is Google Apps Education Community. The website has links to dozens of lesson plans posted by teachers who use Google Apps in the classroom. The app is purposely for teachers in sharing their ideas, voting on their favorite educational apps, and asking advice. The website is about Google, “reaching out to educators to provide tools for Internet searching, collaboration, and classroom activities…” I hope to be lucky to use any of these tools for my classroom.

            I loved this article because I felt that I finally accomplished finding more technology educational friendly tools beyond iPads, phones, computers, and apps. Although, some are costly, in time the cost will be reduced. I think a lot about what happens when students are no longer entertained and fascinated by iPads and computers? Then what are the next tools to look beyond to as educators? This article really hit on fun and unique tools to extremely excite students and learning. Google Apps Education Community is a real winner too for educators, and it’s free! Again, I hope to be lucky enough where these tools are affordable and can be implemented in to all classrooms!

Brown, M. (November 2009) 5’Scool Tools. 5 Great Tools to Perk Up Your Classroom and Engage Your Students, Learning and Leading with Technology, (37) 3, 12-15.