Educational Technology

We were taught in class the importance of educational technology. There are various methods to use technology for classroom management, administration, and teaching. Whether its a new and inventive way to offer spelling words to a fifth grade class or a site such as Sakaii that allows college students to have direct access to learning resources the teacher provides. Technology is rapidly enhancing the manner in which students learn and teachers teach. Below are some examples of teaching tools that can be found online and for free.

WORDLE

"Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. Live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you."

Wordle is a free tool found on the internet. You provide specific texts and it complies them into an picture with "clouds." The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. The program allows you to select fonts, colors, and schemes to appeal to the viewer in a specific manner. Wordle is a really fun tool that could be used as a marketing and advertising for various occasions. I could see myself using this tool to promote specific community service events that I have been involved in with the football team.

 This tool may not be as applicable for my future profession, in the sports industry. It would be nice to use for someone in the education field, however. For instance, you could use it for spelling words. Lets say you were teaching 2nd grade and you had 10 spelling words, you could put them into wordle and have the kids take turns identifying the word and spelling it on the chalkboard. I think that with all the technology we have nowadays, the more you trying to create fun learning environments for kids the more likely they are to want to learn. So as opposed to just handing them a list of their spelling words, handing them a wordle might just make that much of a difference.