Incorporating Technology into Your Classroom at a Low Cost

Did you ever think about having your own website where you can control almost everything? I’m not talking about blogs, facebook, twitter and all the other social networking where you are somehow limited. Creating your own website gives your students the opportunity to learn important web skills and gives them a fun way to complete their assignments and other class work. Here are some reputable web services you can use to create your class website for a low cost:

 1- Weebly :

Weebly has a special option for creating a website for education purposes. You can create a free class website and let your students build sites too.

2- yola :

Yola is another good place to start building your classroom website.

3- ELECTA live :

Electa Live is a virtual classroom and Web conferencing real-time environment for live teaching and training over the Internet. You can arrange live classes, online meetings and Webinars. You only need a computer with an Internet connection for your live sessions.

This guy is an example of a man who's made a change to many people lives by making z free world-class education to anyone anywhere. His name is Salman Khan and he is Bangladeshi American. You can watch him talking about technology in classrooms.

Click here - Khan Academy

reference :
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When I first went to Japan I didn't know anything about Japanese.  But I felt that I would be okay because technology was on my side.  I had a PSP (Playstation Portable) and a game called Talkman.  I figured this game would do all the talking for me.  But the technology wasn't really advanced enough and I ended up having to take the time to learn.

But now, with technology advancing seemingly faster than ever, will there be a time when technology makes actual learning of languages obsolete? This is an old video but the technology that is being developed seems like it would make it almost unnecessary to learn new languages.   

Here's an application that is currently available for the iphone.

How much can technology assist students' learning?

Up to what point can technology help schools meet the needs of their students? Do you think a computer program can be flexible enough to allow ELL students to work at their own pace while academically gifted ELL students are able to work at a more accelerated pace? Most importantly, to be able to assist ELL students to work on grade-level curriculum while developing their English language skills? At first, it might not seem promising, but actually the program Kurzweil 3000 is known to assist ELL students with little prior education or with learning difficulties providing great benefits to all type of learners.



Kurzweil 3000 claims to provide powerful learning experiences in a variety of ways. In addition, students who use this program make significant gains academically, including test scores. Most students are able to raise their reading scores from low to passing. As news of the success of this program spreads, more and more schools, colleges, and universities are utilizing it. As a result, the use of Kurzweil 3000 is increasingly been used for all subjects. Not only are students grades improving, more importantly, students are functioning more independently and more confident. This comes as a great benefit to challenged students including, students with special needs, students with disabilities, ELL students, and GT students as so many of them are constantly anxious they aren’t able to perform well. Apparently Kurzweil 3000 gives them the confidence and support they need. One of the most helpful features used by students with disabilities is “Modeling by reading text aloud.” This is a feature where the readings are scanned and they are read by the program as the student listens. It can be repeated as necessary. All those readings can actually be read to you by a computer? Yes, unlimited reading! This feature supports the teaching of fluency. Kurzweil 3000 is said to be transforming the lives of many students. Although most students are hard-workers, due to their learning challenges, their grades often don't reflect their effort or their knowledge. Kurzweil 3000 is known as a program that opens the door to opportunities to students.

To read more about Kurzweil 3000, you can go to the following link:
http://www.kurzweiledu.com/files/K3000%20ELL%20Research.pdf

Too Much Technology?

This post is taking a different look at technology. Lets think about a different angle for a moment. Can there be too much technology in the classroom? This post is not to say that we don't need technology in the classroom. By all means, I am very much in favor of adding technology into the classroom. But, here is something to think about.

Schools in Lancaster, Pennsylvania have been putting more and more technology into there classroom. They have been using various types of educational software, Mimio boards, PowerPoint, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, and others.

But the newest addition to their technology is using a school-based, kid-friendly e-mail system called Gaggle. The students in grades three through twelve are now using this system in the Lancaster schools. They have an e-mail account where the students can type and hand in all their homework. There is a place where the students can take notes and store them and their homework assignments in the "digital locker". The students can have discussions in Gaggle. There is also a feature called GaggleTube, a kid-friendly version of YouTube. One teacher in the article said " I could see going paperless with Gaggle in the future and having the students turn all their big essays in to me electronically." Could the school system go all paperless?

I think that learning how to write is still important. There are many skills that technology can aid in but should not replace. What are your thoughts on this? Is there such a thing as too much technology? Are there certain skills that just cannot be replaced? What would be the pros and cons of Gaggle? Again, I am very much in favor of adding technology into the classroom. I just wanted to take a different approach and see what people thought about this. Is there such a think as too much technology?

Click on the picture to read the article I got this information from.