We dove into the world of interactive videos this week. Screencastify surprised me with how easy and intuitive it was to use. I will be bringing this plugin with me throughout my career as a teacher. The H5P plugin was also very user-friendly once I got it downloaded but the downloading process was definitely frustrating.

Trying to figure out H5P installation made me think about the technologies I want to bring into my future classroom. I know my limits, and I would not describe myself as a tech-savvy computer whiz in any way. That means if I want to bring a specific website or application into my class, I might have some trouble helping with technical difficulties. I picture a lot of hands up asking questions and not being able to give many answers. Hopefully, through my learning in this class, I can get a bit more confident in using educational technology. I also would crowd-source help within my class, and ask students who had figured out a particular step to assist the students around them. If nothing else works, I would have to get creative and provide an alternative for those students who experienced technical difficulties.

The reward of using technology in the classroom is building self-competence and accessing some really cool features. For example, screencastify and H5P are some awesome resources that I would not have known about unless they were brought into this classroom. I think usually, the risk is worth the reward in an increasingly tech-heavy world. It is important to give students skills in a wide array of technological avenues. For an interesting article on this subject, check out Drexel University’s page on technology in the classroom. I’m curious to find out other future teacher’s thoughts on technology in the classroom. How do you feel about its use and how confident are you in teaching tech?

My H5P video was on Pinterest and using Pinterest boards to save images for my free inquiry project. Although this 2-minute video took me a very long time to complete, I learned a lot in the process.

If you want to learn how to use Pinterest, check it out here:

Pinterest Tutorial