A brief look at why it is important to integrate technologies into modern educational practices and a quick run through five potential candidates for use in the classroom.

1. Integrating 5 Cloud
Based Tools Into Your
Teaching Practice
Kim Pepler
Secondary Science Teacher at
Learn@Home 8-12
2nd year Graduate Student in Online
Teaching and Learning at VIU

2. Why Choose to Use a Cloud
Based Tool?
The Push …
School has become incredibly boring.
Image source http://paradisaicallife.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/class-is-boring.jpg

3. The Science…
According to Michael Fullan and Katelyn Donnelly in Alive in the Swamp Assessing Digital Innovations in
Education (May 2013)…
“Results indicate that 95 per cent of students in Kindergarten are enthusiastic about school but this
steadily declines and bottoms out at 37 per cent in Grade 9. Part and parcel of this, teachers are
increasingly alienated. Satisfaction is plummeting amongst the teaching force; and those wanting to
leave the profession are approaching one in three in the US. Students and teachers are psychologically
and literally being pushed out of school.”

4. The Pull …
“Rapidly expanding digital innovations … (are) resulting in an exciting but undisciplined explosion of
innovations and opportunities. New platforms are being built specifically for education, the amount of
global digital information created and shared is growing at an increasing rate and has increased
ninefold over the last five years. The internet is becoming a powerful access portal and content is
increasingly an open and free commodity.

5. If teaching is to
remain relevant in
the 21st century it
will have to
leverage these new
technologies for
use across the
system… and it
starts with YOU!
Image source http://www.poster-street.com/templates/large/posterstreet-th-010.jpg

6. So how do we get started?
Filters…
Filters allow teachers to distinguish relatively
quickly between a tool that will be useful and one
that will not.
What Should They be Based On?
“The future will belong not to those who focus on
the technology alone but to those who place it in
(a) wider context and see it as one element of a
wider system transformation.” Sir Michael
Barber, May 2013
https://cdn2.iconfinder.com/data/icons/color-svg-cloud-icons/512/cloud_filter-512.png

7. Fullen and Donnelly (2013) suggest the following four
criteria that new learning systems must meet:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Irresistibly engaging for students and teachers.
elegantly easy to adapt and use.
ubiquitous access to technology 24/7.
steeped in real life problem solving.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/Z05kV66g6Jg/Ul2dJXF9NPI/AAAAAAAABYI/6oPVE0vC53w/s1600/
Time%2Bfor%2Bchange.jpg

8. Problem 1: How can you tell if a tool is
irresistibly engaging for students and
teachers?
TOOL 1: GOOGLE FOR EDUCATION
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mlCipDT
c8GNRGQUslB4WtUtaVym6yQgRQawe3QpgF7U/
edit
http://www.dodigital.co.uk/education/files/2012/06/Google-Apps-For-Education.jpg

9. TOOL 2: PINTEREST
http://www.pinterest.com/kimpepler/
http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/pinterest-logo.jpg

10. How do we decide what is most important to us
as teachers?
Teacher Know Thyself…
Key Points of My Personal Philosophy of
Living, Teaching and Learning are…
• I am a humanist.
• I believe in the educational theories of
constructivism/connectivism.
• I believe that active learning is the most profound.
• I believe in the power of socially networked
learners/people to construct new understandings for
themselves and others.
• I believe I can make a difference.

11. http://craigwehrle.edublogs.org/files/2009/10/WehrleC_ETEC511_PhiloshophyOfEdTech-What-are-the-key-components-of-myphilosophy-of-education-1024x729.jpg

12. How do we decide what is most important
for our students?
I need a pedagogically sound reason to use the technology in
the first place.
• Wow factor is not enough!
• I choose tools for my students that build
confidence, mastery and/or autonomy in my learners,
• Put the focus on the student not the teacher
• Allow the learner to showcase their work as well as see
and comment on the work of their peers
• Allow learners to work together dynamically in an online
environment.

13. How can you tell if a tool is
elegantly easy to adapt and use?
TOOL 3:TedED
http://ed.ted.com/
http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/inline-ted-ed-video-interactive-young-crowd.jpg

14. TOOL 4: POWTOON
One of my explainer videos created using Powtoon…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4to2uie9cIM
Why don’t you try it?
http://www.powtoon.com/edu-home/

15. Does the tool support curricular
outcomes? Is it relevant?
TOOL 5: WEEBLY FOR EDUCATION
Image from http://onceateacher.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/weebly_apple2.png?w=500&h=103
http://disruptinghomeostasis.weebly.com/

16. “As in all revolutions, opportunities
and problems present themselves
in equal measure.”
(Fullen, 2013)
What are some of the barriers to implementing
technology in your classroom?

17. Barriers
•
•
•
•
•
•
students skill level with technology
hardware
solid internet connections
cost
parent permission
safety concerns

18. Thank You
http://annamariaprzybysz.pl