How can technology engage students

Often, this technology sits unused or underused. If you are a teacher in a situation where technology has been "thrown" at you with no professional development, be thankful for the new tool s that you have at your fingertips -- and then do your best to learn about how they can transform and improve your teaching and have a positive effect on student learning. You can do this either on your own or by asking for help from your colleagues, mentors, or professional learning community.

Unlike many other aspects of teaching, technology changes constantly. Just as in any industry, it is vital that educators stay current with new trends and developments in both pedagogy and new technologies.

If you have a tech-integration specialist at your school, then use this person to your full advantage, as they are the front line for the tools you have or may want to bring into your classroom. While hardware and software vary across classrooms, schools, and districts, one thing can be guaranteed across the board: technology, no matter what kind it is, will fail. This inevitable part of tech integration is often the number-one fear of classroom teachers everywhere.

Whether you are taking the steps to integrate technology into your classroom on your own or as part of a schoolwide or district initiative, this fear must be the first hurdle to overcome. One of the most exciting aspects of bringing technology into your classroom -- and into your students' hands -- is the enhanced opportunity for timely and meaningful feedback.

Quick Checks: If you want to know if your students grasp enough of a particular concept before you move on, you can use tools such as Poll Everywhere , Socrative , or Mentimeter to get a quick snapshot of the class. By creating a short quiz or open-ended response question using one of these tools and having your students use an internet-enabled device to answer, you can get quick and easy feedback that will help inform your instruction.

Personalized Feedback: Through the use of course-management tools such as Edmodo , Schoology , or Moodle , it is now possible for teachers to provide personalized feedback quickly and efficiently to their students. All three tools provide the ability for teachers to leave personalized comments and notes on student work, and they provide a messaging service for students who may want to send emails with questions or concerns about the course.

Screencasts can also provide personalized feedback on student work. A teacher can record his or her computer screen while viewing student work, pointing out areas for improvement and areas where a student has excelled.

Some great tools for this are Screencast-O-Matic and Jing. In addition, Evernote is a powerful note-taking tool that can be accessed through any Internet-enabled device through a web browser or the mobile app. It allows users to record audio notes, and it can be a great way to provide personalized feedback to students.

Teachers can share these recordings, which are embedded in notes created through the app or website, with students through email.

This can be a great way to keep students updated on their progress or to provide feedback on a particular assignment asynchronously. Because the feedback is recorded, students can also rewind and relisten for better comprehension or to refer back to if they like. Please note, all of these kinds of tools require that students have access to Internet-enabled devices on a regular basis and that they hand in their work digitally. For more on using technology to provide feedback to students, you can read this blog post: " Using Tech Tools to Provide Timely Feedback.

Our students are constantly immersed in technology, yet that does not mean that they know how to use it for learning. We also cannot assume that they know how to use it responsibly either. Just as we teach our children how to handle bullies on the playground, or as we admonish a student for copying someone's work and handing it in as his or her own, we must take the time to explicitly teach about cyberbullying, copyright, plagiarism, digital footprint, and proper conduct online.

Of course, what we teach and how we teach it depend on grade level. We probably wouldn't teach first graders about the nitty-gritty details of copyright law, but we might teach them what kinds of information are safe or unsafe to share online. Likewise, while we may quickly review safe and unsafe information with high school students, we are more likely to focus on digital footprint and plagiarism.

It is worth your time to spend some time early in the year setting expectations for online conduct, use of information found online, and staying safe when using digital tools. Since it's clear that tech integration is here to stay, it is not a question of whether teachers integrate technology into their classrooms, but rather how to do it best.

By taking small steps, teachers can begin to reap the benefits that technology can bring to their teaching and to student learning. This process does not have to be painful, and no one will become a tech-integration whiz overnight. A class blog can showcase everything your students create, whether that be a link to an online resource, a photo, or a text-based post.

Friends and family can have a look at any time, and students could also post reflective or explanatory statements to go alongside their work. Use a blogging platform designed specifically for teachers like Weebly , or a free service such as Blogger. You could even use your LMS.

All you need is a single space where everyone can upload work for others to see. If we give students the opportunity to think beyond paper projects, we give them the freedom to innovate and lose themselves in something immersive. Tip: leave the options open so students have choice. They can produce something more traditional if they want to, or think outside the box and come up with something entirely new.

Just talk through the criteria first so they all know to evidence the same learning. Besides being just plain fun , gamification engages students through visible progress tracking, measured challenges, and friendly competition. And while we might get some of these benefits through rewards charts and physical activities, technology can take gamification to a whole new level of engagement by:.

Just make sure you choose a game that has the right balance of engagement and educational value. In our Mathletics and Readiwriter Spelling games, for example, our global teacher team made sure every fun activity and challenge is explicitly tied to curriculum outcomes. But to our students, it feels like fun more than anything else.

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It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Not so fast. Not technology. Here eight ways to make it happen. Achieving social presence through a technological application like Edmodo has numerous benefits for learners.

Some of these benefits include supporting cognitive and affective learning objective, promoting engagement, facilitating intrinsic motivation, creating positive group interactions and enhancing self-efficacy Aragon, Students also report that the application allows for them to feel connected with their instructor and peers while having their academic needs met.

When analyzing the overall layout of Edmodo, users identify its striking resemblance to the social media network Facebook. Criticisms of Edmodo. Although integrating the use of technology into the curriculum has been shown to enhance student engagement and success, there are some limitations. While the majority of students report high levels of satisfaction with Edmodo, some report that the application is initially overwhelming due to its many features Al-Said, There is also the argument that students are not given the opportunity to take breaks and temporarily disengage from their academics since the application sends frequent class notifications.

Since this may result in some frustration for students, it is recommended that instructors suggest time frames for using the application after school hours. As technology becomes increasingly prevalent in the education system and workforce, it is important for students to become familiarized with various digital applications.

Integrating technology into the curriculum not only provides students with the opportunity to expand their skills and succeed academically, it also prepares them for the real-world upon graduation. While educational technology shifts the learning environment from being teacher-centered to student-centered, it is important that teachers carefully think through effective methods of implementation.

Since there are hundreds of technological applications out there, each with distinguishing features, it is important that teachers guide students in the process of learning about these technologies to prevent them from becoming overwhelmed. It is recommended that teachers also provide continuous feedback to students throughout their experiences with using technology. Future recommendations would include developing more research pertaining to methods of effectively implementing technology into the curriculum.

While this chapter has focused on the impact that technology has on student engagement and success, research could be done to understand methods educators can use to facilitate this process.

Al-Said, K. Aragon, S. Creating social presence in online environments. New directions for adult and continuing education , , Buckingham, D. Carle, A. Engaging college science students and changing academic achievement with technology: A quasi-experimental preliminary investigation. Cruz, M. Higher Learning Research Communications , 3 4 , Guzman, A. Teaching competencies for technology integration in the classroom. Journal of computer Assisted learning , 25 5 , For instance, using analytics in an LMS, teachers can quickly identify those students who are struggling with the subject matter or lagging and quickly intervene with appropriate help.

And teachers can use their LMS workflows to release content in bite-sized, sequential chunks so students are not overwhelmed, have a clearly defined learning pathway and can celebrate learning victories in small, incremental ways. There is still room for improvement in this area. So, how is technology helping to engage your learners and making your teaching day better, simpler and easier?

Can you count the ways? Sign up for our Newsletter. Like this article? More Than Just Tools in the Classroom However, while research underscores that technology provides teachers with far more than simply a creative toolset, to be most successful tech tools need to be integrated into the curriculum. This article was sponsored by D2L and not written by the EdSurge editorial staff.