Additional Tools for Integrating Technology in Instruction, Preparation, and Evaluation

When technology is effectively integrated in the classroom, it can help educators foster a more actively engaged and collaborative classroom environment for students. In the first part of this series, we looked at some time saving strategies that can help educators and students effectively implement technology aligned with learning objectives. In this article, we will delve into a few more:

QR Code: to-do list and exit ticket

You can keep a to-do list on a slide and have the protocol established that students visit the QR code as they sit in the classroom. The only thing you need to do is create the QR code leading to your slides at the beginning of the year and post it in various places around your classroom. Just make sure the first slide is updated every day before your class. You can also have a QR code leading to the exit ticket, which can be a simple question they answer on a form (summarize your progress today in three sentences) or one of the self-assessing quizzes that were mentioned in the previous point. Asking questions at the beginning of the class that are closely tied to what is being studied in class instead of generic “bell work” can help students move into learning mode in an organized and motivating way (Klein, 2023).

Pecha Kucha: for students and teachers

A traditional Pecha Kucha is a storytelling technique in which students present twenty slides in twenty seconds each, yielding a max time of six minutes and forty seconds. The format can be adapted to ten slides in ten seconds to force students to synthesize even more and save time in the classroom. Pecha Kucha can be an effective instructional technique (Klentzin, 2010), as this particular style of presentation:

• can foster creativity due to the constraints it imposes,
• fight plagiarism as it is hard to find a presentation already made with the same characteristics, and
• save time and increase engagement as it imposes a fast pace and prescribed duration.

Combined with the Flipgrid tool explained in part one, it would save valuable classroom time and assessment time.

Google Classroom: making it more efficient for students and teachers

Create templates for your assignments to structure the students’ responses and to include the objective of the activity, detailed instructions, and the references they will need to complete the task. For example, hyperdocs provide structure to the students.

Organize your materials and assignments in the Classwork page using topics. Have a system to name assignments and materials referencing the unit, the order within the unit, and the type. For example, U1L3 Summ