Quizlet You Soar the Highest in Teaching!
Reaching greater heights in the new normal education becomes
easier now because of the existence of various online educational tools that
enable teachers and learners to bring out the best in them. In this part of the
article, I am going to illuminate the beauty of Padlet for you to see how this marvelous
tool can change your life forever.
Quizlet is a digital educational tool that contains immense
studying materials about numerous topics or subject matters created by other
users. Its study sets are for free and any user can make their own learning
materials and share them with others to foster resource sharing. The information
you can acquire from this app can be presented through flashcards, quizzes, and
games so that you can utilize them to uplift student engagement or just create
an exciting learning experience in the class. Isn’t it astounding?
Just like the other digital tools that I have tried
using, I got a fantastic experience using the Quizlet on my own. It was just a trial-and-error
session. When it comes to its accessibility, I find it user-friendly for I can
just simply sign up and login without complications. It can be used by Android
and iPhone users, and since I am an android user, that’s a good thing for me. As
to the learning materials, I can just look for the available ones that are
relevant to the topics I want to acquire. Also, I tried creating learning
material and I was stunned because I can add up multimedia resources that can
make the content more creative and attractive. For you to have varied choices
of presenting the learning material, you can choose the modes like flashcards,
learn, spell, test, match, and gravity. These modes are very enthralling, but what
I love the most is the gravity.
However, I can also see two downsides to this
tool. First, the reliability, accuracy, and credibility of the learning
materials can be questioned because these shared resources are not validated or
reviewed, that is why it is necessary to properly and thoroughly assess the
information being presented to you before using it. Second, I know that it’s
free but what’s painful about open access is that you can just explore or navigate
limited features, unless you will upgrade and avail the premium platform for
you to have the additional customizations and enhancements. Despite these
problems, I can still consider Quizlet as a very functional tool that we,
educators can use as a weapon to channel the enthusiastic energy of learning even
if we are having a hard time dealing with this pandemic.
In 2016 qualitative data analysis of Bruce Lander
about what the students think about Quizlet, results have shown that most of
the students resoundingly love the digital flashcards but there are also some
of them favor more traditional methods of learning the vocabulary. He also
expects further additions and augmentations from Quizlet. With this study, I
can say that it is very important for us, educators to utilize this tool and to
consider redefining and reimagining our teaching practices (from traditional to
modern) by marrying the technology so that the students can be more betrothed in
learning and discovery. We need to more open to progress and innovation. Whatever
age bracket we are in, seasoned or not, we all need to level up and embrace the
new normal education because there’s no other way but to move forward.
With the amazing experiences that I had when I tried
using Quizlet, I would love to use it again, especially in this upcoming academic
year. Now I will start exploring for more and maybe if I will have the budget,
I will consider unlocking the premium platform to maximize its functionality. I
would also love to share it with my colleagues for them to know that we can still
do more despite the hardships this pandemic gave us. Indeed, we can soar the
highest in the field of education with the aid of Quizlet. Just let the Quizlet
do the magic!
Unlocking Padlet: Opening the Door to Literacy
I
know it’s so metaphorical to say that information and communication technology
is now our best pal to combat against the cruelties of this pandemic and to survive
in this new normal education, but it’s totally the reality. With its glory, smart
and analytical learning is still possible and feasible even if it’s now done
differently. For some, this new system is bizarre because of their reluctance, but
for me, I have to break free from the bondage of information uncertainty and
illiteracy by creating awesome learning experiences with help of the
flooding digital tools.
New
added tool to the list is the Padlet. This technological tool can be a great
venue for students to post and share notes in the same place. The notes can be provided
in various formats like links, images, videos, and other types of documents.
Students can easily use this tool to enhance their quality of learning by
conducting group research, unleashing creativity, improving class participation,
and acquiring class updates. Mostly, this technology tool can empower collaboration
among learners for them to lift each other’s up in this new normal learning
environment.
In terms of its functionality and practicality for
the teachers as the facilitators of learning, it can be used in many fruitful
ways. It can serve as a digital wall that is very useful in the classroom. Specifically,
you can use this to do recapitulation or asking students to post a synthesis of
what they have learned from the previous lessons and activities. It can also help
you gather students’ class expectations, organize collaborative notetaking, conducting
living Webquest, wrapping up the day by asking questions about what they have
learned, letting students store, share, and export relevant images, links,
and topics, asking students to share ideas, acquiring whiteboard answers, and many
more. This tool is endless and we can ensure that with its help, the pandemic
can’t take its toll on the quality of teaching and learning. It can be your bulletin
board, billboard, blackboard, whiteboard, and boredom destroyer!
When it comes to my experiences with this tool, I
still like the fact that it’s easy to use. From signing up to the actual utilization,
I find this accessible. In signing up and logging in, I use my Google account
to keep it simple. Obviously, I have just used the free version because I don’t
have the budget yet to upgrade it to the Pro version, but it’s manageable even if
it’s just a free version. So, since it’s just free, I am only allowed to create
three padlets at a time, but you can just delete them afterward if you want to
make new ones. There are actually options that you can do to use it differently.
We can have it in a form of a wall, canvas, stream, grid, shelf, backchannel,
map, or timeline. Our posts can be enhanced by selecting backgrounds, choosing
font styles, selecting the color scheme, attaching links, multimedia files, and
other documents, etc. I have found out that we can change the privacy of the
post. After the basic steps that you need to do, we can just post the content,
make it accessible to our students, and start exploring its possibilities for
teaching and learning.
In the 2019 paper of Inma Beltran-Martin about the
utilization of Padlet for collaborative learning, it was found out that the students
were highly contented with the use of this technology tool in class because it
can help them achieve a good academic performance. Moreover, it was confirmed
that it can successfully support the collaborative work of the learners. With these
results, we can really prove that Padlet can save you in handling the virtual
classroom.
I strongly believe that Padlet can be greatly used,
just like other technology tools, in making the new normal learning more
interactive and more alluring to our learners. With the multiple advantages of
this tool, we can organize a safe place for us teachers and learners to gather,
share, and expand ideas. It’s like a social networking site that solely for
educational purposes. Aside from its stride for academic excellence, it also helps
foster camaraderie. Also, I would like to focus on the advantages of this tool
(even if there are not-so-serious loopholes or hitches). Aside from the fact
that it can be used for free, it is easy to use and it allows you to connect heartily
and intellectually with your students.
In the meantime, I will just settle for the free version, since we also have a learning management system that also has this tool’s features. However, I still find it more creative and more engaging so I would really find time to utilize it and showcase its beauty and brilliance to my students. I want to connect more with them, especially that this pandemic hinders me to effectively monitor them. I strongly think that this tool will help me make them updated and espoused in learning. Together, we will unlock this Padlet’s full features and advantages to open the door that leads to academic excellence!
Author: JVC Abatayo
Photo Credits:
https://www.generalatlantic.com/media-article/quizlet-raises-series-c-funding-from-general-atlantic/
https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/18/padlet-raises-1-2-million-for-its-easy-to-use-collaborative-website-builder/
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