Easily Accessible Technology for Teachers by Taylor Robinson        July 11, 2016

There is a trend going on in our current society that is making a popular demand for technology in the school systems. The updating times call for updated technology. Technology is used for an array of purposes such as completing assignments, blogging, watching educational videos, and much more. Such technology has shown a increase in demand over the past 10 years or so in our school systems. Technology such as smart boards, 1:1 students computers, kindle fires, and iPads have recently made their way to the top of the list of popular demands in schools. However, these technologies, along with others come with a price. A price that some schools simply cannot afford. There is an easy solution to this problem. One blogger named Richard Byrne names off some ideas for teachers for free technology they can use in the classroom. I thought his ideas were fantastic!

The first idea that caught my eye was the timeline tool. It is essential for a student to keep up with their classwork, and a timeline is just the thing to help them do that. As an English major, I am very organized and writing everything out long handed. I keep at least 3 calendars and schedules going at the same time along with each class' schedule and syllabus. This would be a great tool for myself to use as an English teacher to help my students learn how to manage their time wisely for creating assignments and writing papers. And, because this can be done through Google Docs, it is completely free to the student and the teacher. All the class would need is one computer to take turns on if there are not enough computers for each student in the class to have their own. I would totally use this for my classes. There are other technologies that Byrne mentions in his own blog that would be useful for other teachers to take advantage of. Back when I was in elementary school and even through middle school I remember doing KWL charts in classes. Now, there is technology to create these charts, and they are free! Padlet is a way for students to create a multimedia version of the KWL chart. These charts are very helpful in helping the student to understand where their knowledge is at on a subject, what they want to learn in this subject, and what they are going to learn. The multimedia portion of it helps the students to interact with technology and learn to use it in useful ways.