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3 Technical Tools for Teachers During Back to School Time

From parents frantically buying school supplies to kids with back to school anxiety, back to school time can be a little crazy for everyone and teachers are no exception. Are your Augusts spent organizing classrooms and preparing lesson plans? This blog is for you. Here are three tech tools teachers can use to make life a little less chaotic. Video Conferencing Tool Field trips are an excellent and exciting way for students to learn but can be expensive and difficult to plan. Due to budget cuts, some schools have to reduce the amount of field trips taken in order to save money. Skype is an easy alternative that allows teachers to virtually connect their classroom with experts and create amazing learning experiences that engage students. For Example: Students in the Valdese Summer Reading Program weren’t able to travel to the N.C. Aquarium in Pine Knolls Shores and visit. Instead, they were able to learn all about sea turtles by Skyping with Samantha Bachmann, Outreach Coordinator at the aquarium. Asset Management Tool Many school districts have policies in place allowing students to check out (and return) various school resources like computer notebooks and tablets, books, and musical instruments. Effectively managing programs like this can be a bit of a nightmare, but asset-tracking solutions help schools and teachers manage these valuable assets. Using an asset tracking solution helps save time spent searching for missing items and eliminates unnecessary expenses when replacing lost assets. For Example: Miami Public Schools in northeastern Oklahoma needed an efficient way to track and manage their assets. The Wasp MobileAsset solution helped this 12-building district manage their IT equipment from one central database. Electronic Grading Tool Many teachers are exploring electronic ways to edit and grade assignments. Moxtra is a free app available for iOS and Android that allows students to submit their work to “binders.” Teachers can then go in and grade assignments by recording their voice, using the annotation tools, or using the electronic highlighting. For Example: Brenda Knobloch, a writing teacher at the Howard-Winneshiek Community School District in Cresco, Iowa, uses Moxtra as an electronic grading tool. Students submit their assignments and she is able to provide specific feedback quicker than hand writing notes on their printed page. She can insert spreadsheets, rubrics, handouts and samples into students’ binders for quick reference. By utilizing Moxtra, she eliminates the stack of pesky papers and enjoys a paperless, organized lifestyle. It’s not a surprise that back to school time is a busy time for teachers. Teachers have a number of things to juggle in addition to just teaching students every year. These three tools are intended to help eliminate some of the stress; so, teachers can get back to fueling the young minds of the next generation.