Educational Websites for Teachers

When I was in High School, my English teachers made good use of a website called "turnitin.com." This website is designed so that teachers can catch students who are attempting to plagerize essays or other pieces of writing and discourage other students from doing so. Whenever I wrote an essay, I had to submit it on "turnitin.com" and print out a receipt to show that I had done so before I could actually hand the essay in to my teacher. When I "turned in" my essay, I essentially gave the website the right to search through my essay and compare every word of it to any online source or other student's work that had already been "turned in." If the website detected that any part of my essay was not my original work and no source was cited, that portion of the essay would be flagged so that the teacher would know that I had plagerized either another person or an online source. Although I never plagerized my essays, I do know some people that did and this website was a great way for teachers to find out exactly who those students were and give them a fair punishment. Use of this website enables teachers to easily see which students are producing honest work and which are not. I think that this website is a great tool to use in the classroom because it forces students to think for themselves and produce their own work instead of merely copying from someone else.

SMART Boards

The SMART Board is the world's leading interactive whiteboard and is a great educational technology tool to use in the classroom. The technology used in SMART Boards, allows for the board to be connected to the instructor's computer. This means that a teacher can control what is put on the whiteboard right from his or her own computer. Essentially, the SMART Board is a combination of a whiteboard, computer, television, and overhead projector. Having been in classrooms where SMART Boards are used, I have seen the great effects that they can have on classroom learning. The use of this educational technology tool allows for students to participate more in class and for teachers to access electronic material, present it, and add their own comments and features to enhance a lesson. I have seen SMART Boards frequently used in Math and Science classrooms and they have had significant benefits. On an average whiteboard, the teacher can write down a part of a lesson or sample problems, but is forced to erase them once the board has no more space left to write on. With SMART Boards, not only can the teacher continue a lesson by simply scrolling down on the page to find an infinite amount of usable space, but he or she can also save those pages for future reference and access various other visual images and tools from websites or other technological programs. A weakness of the SMART Board would be that since it is a piece of technology, it is not indestructible. Some teachers may not like to rely on a piece of technology in their classroom, because it is very possible that it could break or be damaged in some way, which could hinder classroom learning. However, the SMART Board is long lasting and has been shown to increase students' alertness and retention of classroom material. The SMART Board is a great technological tool that could be very useful and beneficial in any classroom.