With the rapid advancement of technology, the incorporation of digital advances into the classroom has become inevitable. The digitization of teaching methods has made learning fun-filled and more-engaging than ever. The dynamic digital world has given a whole new meaning to education. It has changed everything in our lives helping us to explore new dimensions to achieve our objectives more effectively and efficiently.
Today, I’m hand-picking some super fun and amazing (however, not-so-brand-new) tools that will make your classroom more fun-filled and engaging.
Nearpod:
With the help of this free iOS app, teachers can create quizzes, polls and multimedia presentations or a drawing activity. Nonetheless, this host of pre-made, fully-interactive lessons for all school levels and subjects has another wonderful feature that allows teachers to import lessons from any file type and add interactive elements, web-links or video snippets to them.
Recently, two new add-ons have given Nearpod lessons entirely new heights:
- Nearpod 3D is basically an archive of over 100 stunning 3D objects to be used in the Nearpod lessons.
- Nearpod VR takes students to virtual field trips to over 100 different locations, without any headsets!
Buncee:
A fun and easy-to-use web tool for educators and students that helps to create and share engaging multimedia presentations and interactive lessons. Educators find the app amazingly helpful as it fosters the 4 C’s of learning: Critical thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity. Buncee is a perfect application for creating digital posters, mini-movies or simple games as a classroom activity.
Go Noodle:
Launched in 2013, GoNoodle is another excellent educational tool to make the world of your tech-smart kid more miraculous. GoNoodle gamifies education by designing mobile games, interactive activities and kid-friendly customized videos which are used to direct a child’s energy towards active learning, heightened engagement and enhanced focus. The ‘fun’ of GoNoodle is so appealing that the app is now used in over 600,000 elementary classrooms, and over 12 million kids are actively engaged each month in classrooms and living rooms across the U.S. and in 175 countries worldwide.
Kahoot!:
This game-based platform that enables accessible, meaningful, and playful learning experiences in classrooms and beyond, is now a global education brand with over 40 million unique users worldwide. This is an app with all the easy-to-use features which attracts and engages not only the educators and students, but reaches beyond the classroom to any social and learning context. An ally of inclusive education, Kahoot! is also designed for those with learning disabilities and special education needs which gives the app another boost.
Book Creator:
Book Creator is a wonderful platform where the students and educators can unleash their creativity. The open-ended, cross curriculum Book Creator lets the users create a portfolio of learning after each lesson, or a homework assignment, an interactive story or a comic book. The application also allows the resources to be shared online with anyone worldwide.
“BookCreator’s ease of use is perfect for young children to apply their speaking, listening, reading & writing skills.” – Amy Kingsley, Apple distinguished educator
Thinglink:
Thinglink is another amazing tool that helps students to use digital media effortlessly. It’s an image interaction technology that helps students to create interactive infographics, maps, videos, social media and much more. Thinglink also supports 360-degree video and VR/AR content which keeps students engaged in classroom and beyond.
This is the transformative nature of technology that alters the status quo of any physical space it enters whether it is education or any other field. Today, when we are able to deliver despite an outmoded education system, imagine what wonders the next generation will accomplish, once they are trained with advanced pedagogical methods like these!
– Upama Goswami