Guest Post: A New Educational Tool

Erin Klein on an example of new technology in education!

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I recently ran across an educational technology tool that I believe has the potential to enhance the way we teach so that student’s learning can come alive through embedded multimedia.  As a teacher, I believe in the power of sharing great resources with others so that, collectively, we all can grow through our networks and our practice.

As teachers, we have to effectively teach and engage our students in addition to managing and organizing our classrooms. As I’m sure you’re all aware, if we spend too much time managing and administrating, it cuts out of our instructional time. This, naturally, is very bad for our students.

This is where ClassConnect comes in.

ClassConnect is a streamlined suite of teacher productivity tools that help us manage our classrooms and engage our students in new ways. To help manage your collection of digital content, you can upload files, bookmarks, videos, and Google Docs into one central repository called FileBox. From there, sharing it with your classes takes just a click, and there’s never any hassle of exporting and importing and re-uploading. Once you’ve loaded up your FileBox, its there to stay.

ClassConnect also provides a calendar, attendance, and grade book system that work seamlessly together. Putting all these great tools all in one place enables me to get in, quickly do administrative tasks for my classes, and get out as fast as possible.

Not only does ClassConnect help me manage my classroom, it also provides an incredible new way for me to engage my students. Before, I used to complement my lessons with static, unremarkable power points, I can now embed interactive content, like websites, videos, games, or quizzes directly into a slide using the LiveLecture feature. If your classroom has a computer for every student, they can follow along and interact directly with the content on the slide as you’re giving the lesson. This is absolutely amazing!!

This also enables me to reach students who I would normally have been unable to reach, such as the kids who are home sick for the day. They can tap into a LiveLecture and get a video stream of me teaching as the slides move along. This drastically cuts down on the amount of make up work that sick students have to do once they get back to school. Another bonus is that students can access these presentations after class is over, so if they have any questions, they can refer back to the lesson to find the answer.

This is the future of educational technology. Tools that simplify and streamline the management of our classes, and help us engage our students in ways never possible before. Technology in the classroom is finally catching up to the rest of the world, and ClassConnect is where it begins.

“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” – John Dewy

Please check out my educational technology blog, Kleinspiration: http://www.kleinspiration.com/
Also, sign up to check out ClassConnect: http://classconnect.com/

Have a great year!

Thank you,

Erin Klein

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Currently working in education, with a business background,  Erin Klein values the importance of technology integration and global preparation into the learning environment.  Being an involved person, she streamlines her creative teaching ideas into project-based applications that enhance the academic standards.