Standard Homework Assignment: Create a poster board over a book/person/event.
Technology Alternative: Create a Glog using Glogster for Education
Standard Homework Assignment: Find an article about a certain topic (Current Event maybe) and bring into class with a write up discussing the content
Technology Alternative: Have students find that article online and post a link to it on a blog or wallwisher wall discussing the content. Share the blog/wall in class the following day.
Standard Homework Assignment: Complete the questions from a certain section or chapter review in your textbook.
Technology Alternative: Create a Back Channel Chat using a site like TitanPad and discuss the questions from the book at a certain time that night.
Standard Homework Assignment (Math): Do a certain number of problems from your book and bring them in to check for correctness
Technology Alternative: Use a site like Twiddla and provide a whiteboard area for students to collaboratively work together on the problems.
Standard Homework Assignment: Complete a worksheet and turn in to the teacher the following day
Technology Alternative: Create the worksheet and make it available to students online (Use a Word to PDF converter). Have students search the Internet for the answers and provide a link to the source for where they found the answer.
Standard Homework Assignment: Read a poem/story/section of a book and be prepared to discuss in class the next day
Technology Alternative: Read a poem/story/section of a book and create a blog or Twitter account for students to discuss the night they read it. Then share the comments on the blog with students to facilitate the discussion in class the next day. It also provides a way to grade them for participating in the reading. If they do a blog response, they get a grade, if not, they don't.
Standard Homework Assignment: Write a Poem.
Technology Alternative: Use a site like PicLits and write the poem using an image as inspiration. Email the completed poem to the teacher. Share in class.
What Technology Alternatives do you have for the Standard Homework Assignment? Feel free to comment!
Instead of completing an "All About Me" survey, create a Wordle containing your favorite movie, author, hobbies, birthday, etc.
ReplyDeleteStandard: write an acrostic poem about a subject
ReplyDeleteTech Alternative:Use Spell with FlickR http://metaatem.net/words/ and focus not only on the content but on the appropriateness of font/texture for the region.
As an alternative to the dreaded book report, I like to have students create a book trailer, a short video about the book that intrigues without giving away the ending. Students can use Animoto.com or the standard video creation software that comes with either PCs or Macs
ReplyDeleteI wish we had more lists like this. Clear cut ways to substitute activities. I have had students do a Who Am I? activity where they had to research important people that they had to know about in Social Studies. They would then record a podcast about that person with 10 important facts. I uploaded the podcasts to our website and had students log on at home and listen to each podcast and try to identify who the person was.
ReplyDeleteSarah, I also like the alternative of having students create a web page instead of a book report. Then students are creating a great list of links to information about different books.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the additional ideas.
Excellent post and great ideas for teachers. I had my daughter use glogster.edu to make a multimedia about William Penn for a social studies project her class was making the usual posters for. I had my class choose between creating video book reviews and using Garage Band to make songs about books. How about using timelines.com each day to talk about what happened in history! So many things to do to change from the standard to the tech integrated!
ReplyDeleteWhat about voicethread? You can use it in many different ways, check their educational examples.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I'll pass it around to my fellow teachers!
ReplyDeleteFantastic post! Thanks 4 sharing =)
ReplyDeleteGreat post full of creative ideas! Instead of making students write a dialogue and hand it in, make students record their interaction using www.vocaroo.com
ReplyDeleteExcellent ideas Michael! Instead of a traditional book report a ZimmerTwins or Kerpoof movie where there is an interview of one of the characters.
ReplyDelete