Technology-Based Resources for Differentiation

    Everyday, teachers struggle to find task that keep students engaged while also helping them reach their growth goal and master curriculum. In this current era we live in, most kids want their devices rather than worksheets and books. They are motivated by technology and want to be on the devices as much as possible. What if we as teachers had games and programs students enjoyed playing and being engaged on while also meeting their growth goals and learning curriculum? There are so many programs and technologies that are out there but how do you know if you are choosing the right one? Here are my top picks for my personal classroom! 

 

          Lexia Core 5-

        Lexia Core 5 was created provide students and teachers with rigorous personalized structure interventions in the classroom. This is a user friendly app that both teachers and students can navigate through. I recently just started using Lexia in my own classroom and I love it and my students enjoy it too! This app is specifically for all things Literacy, anywhere from phonics to sight words and high frequency words. This program is designed for students from Kindergarten to 5th grade. This program helps to close the gaps in all students on preschool levels past 5th grade reading levels. All students take a placement test once they open the app. If a student gets a placement that is not best for them rather its too hard or too easy, a teacher can change the students placement. Lexia is both independent instruction as well as teacher lead. When the students become stuck on a topic, the teacher can pull the lesson plan and work one on one or in a small group to help the students learn the missing skill. Lexia keeps students engaged by the students going "around the world" and completing levels. This program helps all students learning styles by showing students the directions, and reading them the directions. Students will physically move items in each lesson and watch how to complete a task. This app is also great for our MLE students. MLE students can have the directions read to them in their home language, however this is Foundation skills and literacy work so the program will be in english and help to support the english language. The students love to complete levels and see the movement in the backgrounds of each country they are in while learning and improving their literacy skills. This program promotes ownership of learning by tracking how much time is spent on the app while also having students complete levels. If a student really wants to complete a level and receive a certificate, they will complete the work. 

EDPuzzle

During Covid-19, I used EdPuzzle a lot! This is a great online program to help differentiation instruction to more than one student at time and distributing more than one intervention at a time. This program is student friendly, however it does require more work on the teachers end. Teachers upload videos, either from youtube or one they have created, teachers can then edit the video in EdPuzzle. I like this program because educators can prevent students from fast forwarding through the video and embed check ins or questions throughout the video to check students understanding. Teachers you can also see how far into the video students are and how many times they've watched a section and answered the questions. This is a great way to see which students have mastered a skill and which ones need more help. This program allows students to take ownership of their learning by having the video check in questions. I like that I can see if my students have rewinded the video to change their answer. This helps me know whether my students truly understand or need more help with the concept. 

SAS Curriculum Pathways 

SAS Curriculum Pathways is a new program for me. I like that it's a free resource for students and teachers that have interactive lessons from videos to tutorials and other apps for all subjects (Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies and Spanish). This program is student and teacher friendly and easy to navigate. Teachers can find interventions or lessons for students to complete by searching a key word, grade level, skill, or standard to find various activities for students to learn and practice. I like how this program offers a formative assessment that teachers can print out or email to families to show how their student is performing, and which areas need more growth. I also enjoy how I can find specific instruction based on my students needs. I also enjoy that their is a form of learning for each student. This program also allows teachers to set the instruction that students are receiving by choosing basic skill level to higher complexity. 

Resources

EdPuzzle | Make any video your lesson. (n.d.). Edpuzzle. https://edpuzzle.com/

Education Analytics. (n.d.). SAS. https://www.sas.com/en_us/industry/education.html

Lexia Learning Systems. (n.d.-b). Lexia Core5 Reading | Lexia Learning. https://www.lexialearning.com/core5