Introduction

Ed Tech to Bring to Your Pre-Service Teachers

Ed Tech to Bring to Your Pre-Service Teachers

Hands type on a keyboard alongside a trackpad.

Ed Tech to Bring to Your Pre-Service Teachers

Author: Samantha Goldman

In our last Affinity Group session for our “Preparing Teacher Candidates for Online and Hybrid Instruction,” we discussed some great tools to help teachers and teacher educators prepare for online and hybrid learning without “reinventing the wheel.” Our focus of these group meetings is to engage with stakeholders interested in the preparation of personnel for the preK-12 hybrid or online classroom. In this blog, we introduce multiple tech tools shared in the session that can be used for Language/Literacy and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) development.

Why This Matters

Many tech tools exist to support the access to the general education curriculum for learners with various support needs. And, several of these tools were around before the COVID school closures. It is important that we expose pre-service teachers to these tools because integrating and modeling their usage will likely increase our pre-service teachers’ technology readiness when they enter the classroom. In the next few sections, we will lay out several tools that you can take back to your pre-service teachers to be added to their digital toolkit.

Language and Literacy

There are so many tools that can easily be integrated into existing curriculum to support students’ access to language and literacy learning. These tools focus on removing barriers from reading and writing curriculum. Audiobooks are a great way to increase access to novels for students with diverse needs, such as those who struggle to decode grade-level text, have visual impairments, or simply prefer to listen to books. Local public libraries have audiobooks available for check out and/or through Overdrive. In addition, there are websites like Bookshare and Learning Ally that have audiobooks available for download. There are also several tools available to provide text-to-speech (where the computer reads the text on the screen), speech-to-text (where the learner dictates to the computer), and word prediction (where the computer anticipates the next word based on previous words typed).

WebsiteDescriptionFree/ PaidTutorial Video
BookshareAudiobooksFree for students with print disabilities Bookshare
CoWriter Universal Word prediction, Speech-to-text, Text-to-speech and other accessibility featuresPaidCoWrite
Grammarly Grammar, spelling, tone writing helpFreeGrammarly
Learning AllyAudiobooksPaidLearning Ally
NewELARelevant leveled articlesFree with Paid UpgradesNewsELA
Read & WriteWord prediction text-to-speech, speech-to-text and other accessibility featuresPaid, but free for K-12 TeachersRead & Write
Snap and ReadText-to-speech and other accessibility featuresPaidSnap and Read
Google Voice TypingSpeech-to-textFreeGoogle Voice Typing
 

Social-Emotional Learning

Assisting SEL skills development in the hybrid and online classroom seems like a daunting, if not an impossible task, because students are not around each other to interact. However, the following resources/tools provide support for students to learn and practice social skills in the online environment. One benefit of these online tools is they allow students to practice SEL skills in a safe and nonjudgemental way.

WebsiteDescriptionFree/ PaidTutorial Video
The Social ExpressInteractive environment to practice social skillsPaidThe Social Express
Project VOISSVirtual reality for practicing social skillsSchool PartnershipsProject VOISS
 

Bringing It Into Your Classroom

What ways have you integrated these tech tools into your classroom to model for your pre-service teachers? How have you helped them bring these tools to their students? What other tools do you use to support your teachers in providing high-quality language, literacy, and social-emotional development in their own classrooms? What tools would you like more information on? Head over to our community and share your ideas!