How Instagram, Pinterest, Google Tools, and VR empower teacher candidates

0:02 Hello Edu Magicians, welcome to the Edu Magic podcast with your host, Doctor Sam Fessich. Doctor Sam is a professor of education, author of Edu Magic, and a Pumpkin Spice Latte fan. This podcast is designed for pre service teachers. Remember friends, teaching doesn't begin at graduation, but during that first class at 8:00 AM. Let's get this party started. This podcast is a. Proud member of the Teach Better Podcast network. Better today, better tomorrow. And the podcast to get you there. Explore more. Podcasts at WWW. Dot teach better podcast network dot. Com.

0:44 Now let's get on to the episode. Hey, and welcome to Instagram, a snapshot into the future. My name is Bella and. My name is Kaden, and today we're going to be talking about how you can use Instagram as a teacher candidate. So Instagram is a tool. It's a social media app where future teachers can share their progress in the classroom and can connect with other teachers for help, inspiration and ideas. Personally, I love using Instagram to connect with communities that I can't connect with in real life, so as a future teacher, being able to connect with veteran teachers is a game. Changer for me. Oh same here. Same here. The really neat thing about Instagram is that there is no specific demographic of people that are on Instagram, so both teachers and students can use this platform.

1:26 Yes, but we also know that can be a bad thing because sometimes certain students like to stalk their teachers, see. So teachers need to make sure that they're keeping their private lives private and their public accounts school friendly. For sure, I know I have stalked my teachers many a time and I know lots of young teachers or teacher candidates also like to forget that they do have a digital footprint. Definitely, it always comes back to you. So back to the positives of Instagram though, because that's what we're really here to discuss. There are so many useful tools for teachers to use when you make an Instagram account. There's an option where you can make it a business account, and this way you can see who and how many people are viewing your posts. You have more access to the analytics of your posts and that can be really helpful for teachers that are trying to grow their social media. Presence, yeah, that is a really cool feature. So on the story feature of Instagram, you can do polls, questions, multiple choice questions, voting and this can let other teachers interact with you and give you feedback in a quick, easy and convenient way.

2:23 Instagram is a super convenient tool for sure. You just got to be careful with who you're interacting with because any social media, some people could be lying about their identity. You just need to make sure you're being wary of the information you're sharing. And definitely, please do not share any personal information about your students, your schools, anything like that, or else you can kiss your career goodbye. And indeed you can. Instagram is such a great tool for collaboration, though a lot of times you just were just getting started, often feel like they're being thrown into the wolves. So being able to quickly, easily connect with educators in the same boat or educators that have been in this field for years can help out and really mean the difference between loving your job and just tolerating it. Definitely. Instagram also helps students with collaboration, so students can create group chats and can easily share things with each other.

3:09 For group product projects, they can share messages, pictures, ideas. So overall, Instagram just really is a one stop shop for convenient communication and there is no denying it. Absolutely. Instagram is definitely a look into the future. It's a fantastic tool for teachers and it should start to be recognized more for its impact on the teaching community as well. For sure, it really is a great Ed tech tool for all teachers and teacher candidates. We encourage everyone to go out there and give it a try. Who knows, it could just be your new favorite edtech tool. Thank you so much for listening in. We really hope you learned something. Bye. Hi everyone, I'm Bree, I'm Sarah, and I'm Erica. Welcome to our Pinterest deep dive. Today we're going to talk about finding your teacher aesthetic and how Pinterest can help with that. So what is Pinterest exactly?

3:54 Pinterest is a website where you can create a unique aesthetic for gathering images, ideas, and inspiration. Pinterest is one of my favorite social media platforms. It's been a useful tool of creating my presence as an educator online. Can anybody use Pinterest and how should they use it? Anybody can use it for features. It can be used to design our classroom and find Lesson plan templates, worksheets, or other classroom tools. Pinterest makes this so easy. Through some of its features, you can find picture collages with related ideas, links to websites, your resources, and collections of useful posts that other Pinterest users gather called boards. I can see why this tech tool is valuable. Are there any challenges with using it that should be considered? Trust me, it could be tricky for some to figure out how to make your own post, but once I got the hang of it, I haven't had issues since.

4:46 I think recently there's been a lot of art on Pinterest that has been clearly created by AI. It's important for all social media and online resources to stay aware of AI and keep up with your AI literacy. I think we've established a good understanding of what Pinterest is. Would you guys want to share how you've used it during your teacher journey? I chose Pinterest as my preferred method of establishing my online teacher identity. If anybody searches my name on Google, they'll come across a Pinterest page that summarizes who I am as a teacher. I love your Pinterest page. Your welcome post seems to really show your personality. What did you include in your welcome post? I compiled images that represent me and my subject. I've also made posts that can act as phone Wallpapers and vision boards for lessons.

5:32 I feel like your post with inspirational teacher quotes along with cute little school images really get me in the teaching mindset. Yeah, it really sounds like a great way to inspire and make connections with other educators. I've been able to find inspiration for projects from other educators posting on Pinterest 2. Not only do the posts themselves spark inspiration, but they often include links to additional resources. How do you guys think Pinterest can help students? One way I think is that students have the opportunity to get creative while brainstorming for projects or assignments. I agree. Not only can students show their own personalities through their posts, but they can collaborate with others by sharing posts and they have made or what they have find.

6:14 Can Pinterest help with student engagement and productivity? Absolutely. The creative and customizable element of Pinterest can give students more freedom and can make make projects more fun. Pinterest is also pretty easy to use. Whatever they create can be easily shared with other classmates and teachers. Sounds like Pinterest offers both teachers and students a way to express themselves, gather ideas, and create. If you ever need help gaining inspiration for a project or collecting ideas, Pinterest is the perfect tech tool for you. Hi, this is Ross. I'm here with Dakota and we have an assignment in our sealed class. We're going to do a podcast on Google Forms. How applicable it is for us and our students.

6:55 I apologize for any background noise. We are in a student center. Let's do it. All right, so why we chose Google Forms? It felt pretty simple. We both really connected with it. It was really easy to use. We both have our Co-op teachers. They both asked us to make Google Forms, so it seemed pretty like a pretty easy choice to make. Dakota what? What? What did you find that like? I think it's just just the simplicity of it. I think it's just, I mean you, you got a certain amount of type of questions and. You just. You got multiple choice matching, it's easy, like you get your results instantly, you can customize you and have pictures, videos and it's just a great benchmark for new teachers. I mean, my only real challenge is when I try to link a video and it doesn't like, work for some reason. I'm sorry that that's something with like, I guess that copy and paste issue.

7:48 Yeah, I mean, that's all I ever really ran into. I just think that it's not creative. I think it's very bland. It gives old school history teacher type of feeling when it comes to it. I don't think there's anything attracting when you look at it. Even if you have an image, there's no color. It's just. Yeah, I can agree with that. It is kind of. I'd say both. I thought of an example here when it comes to like student government or people taking surveys in high schools or schools for their peers. I think that it can be used for kids to to give to get feedback from their peers as well as teachers obviously for assignments. I completely agree with that. I mean, I wish I would have known about how easily accessible and how easy is to use when I was in high school. I think I could have used it for my own assignments honestly, just when I had like the surveying assignments that teachers would assign.

8:41 So we never used it. We never used it was always for assignments. We never, we never thought of like student government thing, how it could help students learn and collaborate. Like I said, practice quizzes like you could. It's so easy to make and collaborate with. You can have groups of kids just make quizzes for each other. And what value? I mean obviously it assesses your students knowledge and instant grading is a real big thing for me. I like to know my grade after the test and usually with Google Forms you could do that. And I know that's a big thing for a lot of people that they don't want to be antsy about if they fail or not. It's going to say takes the US grading it out of the equation, and then yeah, they'll leave that student stress as well, which goes back to it being for both students and teachers. 100% it does help the teacher out with that. Examples of use, obviously, again, quizzes, exit tickets, I think surveys, like I said with student government, I think there it is again, students can get quick feedback. I think that's a big deal for a lot of people. I think a lot of people stress over tests and what they got on it.

9:50 And I think getting that instant grade helps as well as the teacher, even if they're overloaded with grades, just having a grade for them. And so I mean, I know if you pay for the Goop classroom thing, it'll just automatically put the grade in the book. I personally like the exit ticket using of it because like that's what my Co-op teacher wanted me to make when I made the group. So like it also like hits home a little bit. It's really easy to use. He said he loved the way it worked. So I think I'm going to try to continue using that As for my teaching as well. Yeah, I think I made obviously made a Google form, but I think a lot of history teachers do that. Why do we like using it again? For me, it's simple. I'm a very bland person. It's easy, multiple choice.

10:32 It grades it for me. Feedback, I could see percentages of grades and this and that. I just think it's very I'm a very person of simplicity and easy to do. Things, I mean, you couldn't have said it any better. It's a very straightforward process. I mean, and you get again, the feedback instantaneously is amazing and it will definitely, I mean the students also can use it to help themselves as well. So it's just an all round, it's a well-rounded, well-rounded website. Exactly. Anything else? There it goes. Thank you. Good morning and welcome back everybody. Today we're bringing you student voices with Google Sites, and today we'll be talking about all things Google Sites. Yes, we are.

11:15 Emma, can you explain what this tech tool does? Sure, Google Sites allows users to create a simple web base while integrating activity like internal team sites, company organizations, project hubs and simple public websites. Now, could you tell us who can use this platform? Yes, this platform can be used by everybody. Students use this site to review content that was given to them by their teachers as well as the teachers who can produce content for students and parents to see. Educators can take advantage of Google Sites to show their community who they are and all the good things that they have achieved. That's right now about the available tools to utilize on Google Sites. You can photo import, embed, add social links, add YouTube videos and text to speech as well as anything. Google can be simply integrated in the site like Google Calendar, Maps, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms and Charts. It's a great tool for simple layouts and having pictures with explanations.

12:13 Those are such great ideas, Emma. Google Sites also includes helpful accessibility features like text to speech and voice typing, which can support students with learning disabilities. Text to speech allows students to have written content be read aloud, which can also help those who struggle with reading or processing text. Voice typing can also be useful because students can speak their ideas rather than typing, making it easier for those who have difficulty with writing or spelling. Although I will mention it can be sometimes tricky when you're trying to transfer transfer content from Google Sites to other websites or platforms. Formatting and layout may not always carry over correctly. This can cause text, image, or embedding materials to appear differently than what was intended.

12:57 On the bright side, it has many great perks. Emma, can you tell me why you think Google Sites is a valuable website? Yes, I totally agree. Go sites is valuable because it keeps information organized and it's fairly easy to. Follow. When content is grouped into clear sections, students don't get overwhelmed or lost and sends all the tools like O sites, school forms, etcetera work together smoothly and makes the whole learning process more intuitive. Now that we know all the valuable things, what problems can the tool solve? So sometimes it is hard for students to learn when content on their slides are cluttered and confusing. But when we organize our content into sections, everything in is in one spot.

13:38 With easy to read labels. Related information stays together, which makes things easier to follow. And since all the tools we're using, like Google Forts Forms in Google Sites, come from the same company, everything connects so smoothly. It makes the whole experience easier for students to understand. Yes, I totally agree with everything you said. Now I encourage our whole audience to test out Google Sites. It's free of cost, has seamless integration into other Google tools and it's super easy. Thank you guys so much for. Listening. Hello, everybody, and welcome to our podcast Discussion of Tools for Educators. I'm here with Darian Craig and Matthias Matsura, and today we'll be discussing something that at a first glance might not seem like it could be of education we use in the classroom. I mean, of course, virtual reality headsets, despite being most frequently used for gaming. Let's examine today how helpful this can be to students and teachers.

14:24 I'll hand it over to Darian. It's a bit more information. VR headsets I believe are some of the most landmark progression in tech for education. It can develop deeper engagement for the students, allowing education to turn from this passive lesson into immersive hands on experiences. You can explore museums and buildings and even as I said before, do more hands on learning. Do you guys know that like welders can use VR headsets to help them Weld and see how they would do? Really. That's really interesting, Yeah. Even exploring the vacuum of space. On that note of even special education, it can be used for that. It can help with low distraction environment and life skills practice for students with ADHD, autism or physical disabilities. It's UK. It's use cases span all ages of education and advancement of education. The only small issues while researching this topic that I can see with it are how much space it takes up those big headsets. 3 can be 3 or 4, then you need a space to keep them there, and also that the educator may need some training while using it.

15:22 Obviously it would be hard to educate on class. Educate a class on something that you don't know how to use. Absolutely. Also, Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi stability. But I think that that happens in a lot of modern classrooms anyway. Yet I think all of this is heavily outweighed by the experiences that it can deliver to students. And you don't even have to center an entire lesson around it. You can always blend it with regular teaching or do a smaller and focused lesson on it. Now, I talked about it a bit before, but I'm going to toss it over to Mathias to go deep into all of the use cases for VR. Thanks Darian. So one example of VR used in the classroom would be to utilize programs like History View VR to allow students to have an immersive opportunity like Darren mentioned earlier to explore different national and international storage sites. Another example of VR used in the classroom is through augmented reality or AR, as students can do different activities such as drawing on a piece of paper and then being able to create and interact with their drawing on AVR headset or smart device using programs like Interesting. Using VR and AR, students are able to have an immersive learning experience, which is an extremely prudent way for students.

16:27 Having a seemingly direct contact with abstract concepts or historic events allow students to experience different sensory stimulations, only sight, sound, even touch. This type of learning experience is impossible to achieve with traditional learning practices involving reading and experiencing lectures engages students in a way that makes learning fun, which is a wonderful way to achieve productivity. And now I'll hand things back to Trent. Well, that's all we have for today. Overall, the use of VR technology in the classroom has many beneficial uses. One of the most entertaining, engaging, and educational ways that technology is able to be used in the classroom. I would encourage all teachers and educators to at least examine the tool for use in their classroom. Thanks for listening. Have a rock? Task. Good day.

17:16 And there you have it, Edu Magicians. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share it with your friends. For more Edu Magic, check out S fessage.com and follow Doctor Sam on Twitter and Instagram at S fessage. Until next time you have the Edu Magic within you.