The beginning of a school year is an excellent time for innovation and reshuffling of class plans and projects and even take the plunge with new ways of approaching our teaching.
Even more so if you have got an excellent excuse, like a brand new BYOD programme at school, to re-think your resources and classroom dynamics.
So here's my humble penny for the endeavor. I've chosen 4 tips to turn your classroom more interactive and digital in a BYOD environment, inspired by one of Edutopia's stared posts.
Tip #1: use a digital icebreaker
A good way to tell your students you're in for productive and creative productions with digital devices is to try out VoiceThread. Tell them you want to hear everyone's voice asking them to follow a VoiceThread prompt. What do you expect of this school year? What are your main interests in this subject? Can you share an image to describe your expectations at this point? You can also model positive feedback by leaving them your own comment online and use this material for reflective practice during the year.
Another interesting tool to gather instant information about what's going on in the classroom is using an online survey tool like surveymonkey.com. Ask your students how much they know about your subject, invite them to share their favourite research links, detect your ICT experts that will help you in your boldest digital acts and save it all in a spreadsheet to register results.
Tip # 2: open a back channel of communication
If want to flip your classroom and foster a collaborative learning atmosphere where the teacher is no longer the only expert, you might be ready to implement a private chat room with a microblogging tool like Twitter. You can even try first with a classroom account, depending on the challenges you're ready to take on (mainly in terms of informal chatting and netiquette).
One of the essential skills we need our students to develop is to convey a message effectively. So if you bring in a tool that challenges them to synthesize their ideas, find the right words, and answer others if they can, builds up everybody's digital literacy skills. You will also discover that some of your low profile students feel more comfortable with this mediating tool and begin to participate actively in your lessons.
Tip # 3: get your digital stuff organized
The best way to define common grounds with students online is to use an information hive. If you already have a learning management system solution like Moodle running in school, make the most of it turning it into a real e-portofolio for your students. Ask them to leave the links to all their digital production there and turn the virtual class into an interactive place. There are various free platforms to create your own virtual course like Edmodo, too, apart from the well known content managers.
Tip #4: be their model, work together
Collaboration is a 21 century must. We need to develop the abilities in our students for them to be part of the global society in an active way, contributing to their time. The way out is through collaborative learning and production.
Be part of the learning process, bring your own device! Use wikis and google.docs to create work teams, and model positive feedback.
Having your students with a device on their desks is a huge thing. Can be scary at times, so I thought I might contribute with this post as a way to trigger some ideas on how to start small but on track, and get warmed up for the school year ahead.
Visit http://www.slideshare.net/mem2009/edutopia-10toptipsforteachingwithnewmedia1 for edutopia's complete resource.
Planning and building blocks
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