Mobile Technologies

What do professional development days look like within your teaching environment? 

Finding time for professional development (PD) during the school year is a major challenge for teachers, who are already balancing teaching, lesson planning, grading, and communication with parents and colleagues. Attending PD often requires securing a substitute and preparing lesson plans in advance, adding extra hurdles. Yet ongoing PD is critical for educators to stay current with instructional strategies, technology, and legal and safety requirements. Mobile technologies offer a flexible solution, making professional learning more accessible and easier to fit into busy schedules.

When evaluating the need for PD to be sharing via mobile technologies, I worked with colleagues to develop this plan shared below.  

Mobile Technologies Training Implementation Plan for Everest Elementary School

1. Purpose - Provide staff an opportunity to learn about the expected new curricula to be implemented, along with maintaining adherence to safety and legal protocols. 

2. Goals - 

a. Increase accessibility and consistency of professional development for teachers. 

b. Strengthen the implementation of new teaching strategies through continuous, real time support.

3. Mobile Technology and Ethical Dilemmas - Personal cell phones will be used.  Ethical dilemmas to consider are comfortability of using one's own cell phone for privacy and cost related issues.

4. Implementation Steps - 

a. Selection of a user-friendly platform

b. Collaboration among teachers, administrators, and instructional coach to develop engaging micro-learing videos, step by step guides and "just in time" refreshing lessons.

c. Upon content development completion, access will be shared with all staff along with instructions and expectations.

d. Engagement data, completion rates and teacher feedback will be collected and evaluated.

5. Obtaining Approval - A formal proposal will be presented to the school board and teacher's union explaining why this training is beneficial along with outlining the legalities that need to be followed.

Have you ever developed or experienced a training plan that includes mobile technologies?  If so, what did that process look like for you and your colleagues?

Immersive Learning in the Elementary Science Classroom

Have you used immersive learning like virtual reality or augmented reality in your classroom?  What experiences have you had with VR/AR in your personal life?

Elementary science students can use immersive technology to deepen their understanding of scientific concepts. They might explore the inner workings of a plant, use augmented reality to simulate and manipulate weather patterns, or participate in an ecosystem rescue mission to study habitats, food chains, and environmental balance.

A few of the platforms that can be used for immersive learning are explained below.

Unity is a development platform for creating 2D and 3D multiplatform games and interactive experiences

Delightex edu is a web based application used to design, animate, and spark interest in numerous concepts including scientific concepts

Merge Cube is a printable paper cube that lets students hold digital 3D objects using augmented reality technology, enabling an engaging way to interact with the digital world

In the video link below I expanded on one of these immersive learning experiences in greater detail where first grade students will go on a biology adventure inside a plant to help them better understand how all the plant parts work together. 

Please click on this link to view the video in its entirety.  

To view the Best Practices Checklist referenced in the video in more detail, please see below.