Education's Tech Tools

Imagine a classroom with robot teachers, and students using virtual reality to artificially be in the classroom. Dystopian? To some, maybe. To others, it would be amazing. While we aren’t at that level of technology yet, technology is advancing exponentially. As seen with AI advancements such as ChatGPT to create things such as Khanmigo, teachers might have some new aids to help them teach. Along with advancements in virtual reality, the future is closer than we think. Whether you’re a teacher or student, you will find that the following tech tools can help enhance learning in many ways! 

Kahoot!

Kahoot is a platform which allows users to create fun learning quizzes or other games that allow players to compete to see who knows the most. By combining competition along with its ease of use, it engages students into seeing who can gain the most points. From my own experiences, Kahoots are very fun and engaging—as long as they aren’t graded. 

ClassDojo 

ClassDojo is a classroom community builder which allows students, teachers, and parents to easily connect with each other. ClassDojo allows teachers to award students points depending on how well they did something, like being creative or hardworking. ClassDojo also connects parent’s easily into the mix by allowing teachers to post exciting things that happened during the day along with teachers being able to directly communicate with parents. 

Desmos

Along with being a great graphing calculator and geometry displayer, Desmos provides many tools for teachers to engage their students. Desmos provides a collection of free activities that can be assigned to students via Desmos Classroom. Their activities also allow students to collaborate and share their thinking among themselves. 

Phet Simulations

For the STEM teachers out there–especially physics teachers, this resource is for you! With excellent simulations, it demonstrates to students visually how physics, chemistry, and many more concepts can be seen in real life. By allowing students to interact with every aspect of a simulation, it reinforces their understanding of simple equations into real world applications. 

Anki 

If you need to memorize anything, look at Anki for guidance! Anki is an intelligent flashcard system which optimizes memorizing by using active recall just when you are about to forget something. While memorizing, you’ll be asked whether or not that card you picked was hard or easy. Depending on what you pick it will shuffle that card into specific spots to ensure maximum retainment. 

While we may not be in the future yet, we are getting there—and getting there fast. If we want to get ahead of the curve, we should start utilizing technology to its greatest potential to enhance learning along with teaching. If you’re a teacher or student, try some of the tools above! You might be missing out on something great. Maybe virtual classrooms and robot teachers may seem dystopian to some, but hey, we’ve experienced half of it already in 2020. Robot teachers can’t be that bad right?