7 Prime Technology Ideas to Begin the New School Year

Donna LaLonde and Rebecca Nichols

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.”
― Bill Gates

As you plan how you will get your students working together and how you will assess their learning, we want to share some of our favorite technology ideas.

Idea 1: CCSS Mathematical Practice 3 challenges students to be able to “construct viable arguments.” The Science and Engineering Practices state, “Scientists and engineers must be able to communicate clearly and persuasively the ideas and methods they generate.” As a part of a project have your students create a podcast to explain their project and their results. Audacity is free and easy to use. In this issue of the Statistics Teacher we highlight a Stats+Stories episode so listen for podcasting inspiration and share your suggestions for topics and guests. Use this form to provide suggestions and feedback.

Idea 2: Continuing the communication theme, let your students create an animated .gif to illustrate their work. Flip Anim is an easy to use tool for doing this.

Idea 3: Create interactive formative assessments using Kahoot. You can add video, images, and diagrams to your questions and the number of questions is up to you. Kahoot works well in a classroom environment—and it’s free!

Idea 4: Create a formative assessment using the quiz feature of Google forms. Here’s a simple example using questions found in Chapter 7 of the SET Report.

Idea 5: Do you detect an assessment theme? Check out QuickKey, a mobile grading app that allows you to create both electronic and paper-based assessments. QuickKey may be especially useful for classrooms that are not 1-1.

Idea 6: If you are a Chrome user, Soapbox is a cool free extension. “With Soapbox, you can record your screen and your webcam simultaneously, and then take advantage of a unique ‘split-screen’ view, where the webcam feed is side-by-side with the screencast.” Give Soapbox a try and create your own instructional videos for your class.

Idea 7: Join our professional learning network by participating in the ASA K-12 webinars and sharing your ideas for enhancing statistics education on the ASA K-12 Educators Community. For more information on upcoming webinars see the Statistics Teacher Events section. Invite your colleagues to join us too!

Let us know if you used any of these ideas and, of course, share your ideas with us!