Back to School: Are you improving independent study and revision with our technology?

In this fourth blog in our Back to School series, we’ve pulled together some ideas that can help improve technology use for independent study and revision.

Are you a Read&Write and/ or EquatIO customer? 

Have you embraced educational technology in the classroom, but unsure how to encourage your students to use it on their own time or for revision? 

Throughout our Back To School blog series, we will explore various themes that matter most to you (the teacher), and demonstrate how our technology can help you think differently about your lesson planning, through the software that your school has invested in. 

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We’re firm believers in developing technology that fosters independence for all students. We’re sure you would agree that students have to play their own role in their learning - both in and outside of the classroom. 

But if students have the tech support they need in the classroom, they should also have the same support for their own independent study, including revision activities. 

We have a few ideas on how Read&Write and EquatIO can be used during your students’ own study… 

Independent study features

Read&Write

• Scan (making accessible text) 
• Highlighter Tools
• Audio Maker

EquatIO

• EquatIO mathspace
• EquatIO Mobile  

Independent study activities

Read&Write: The highlighter tools on the Read&Write toolbar allow information to be highlighted using any colour/s of choice, which can be collected at a touch of a button in a separate document. This feature can be used to create useful resources like vocabulary lists or research documents, or even as a tool to complete fun, independent activities.

For the teacher, you can create useful resources for extended reading by highlighting information on the web and collecting the content in a document, which you can share with students. The highlight and collect feature automatically pulls in the source link (in addition to the other information highlighted), so students can view the original webpage for further reading.

You can also have your students use this feature to put a new, colourful spin on existing activities. For example, ask students to read a piece of text and highlight all verbs in green and adjectives in yellow. Or, in a book reading exercise, ask students to highlight what character said which quotes or to sort the statements into relevant themes. Finally, ask students to highlight points in their written work that strengthen their argument or sympathise with the opposition.

EquatIO: Using EquatIO mathspace to create visuals for maths comprehension

EquatIO mathspace is more than a feature, it’s a central storage space that allows you to create and save maths activities that you can share directly with your students. Think of it as a giant digital whiteboard where you can present a mathematical problem to every student at once, and have them work through it at their own pace before submitting their answers - just like a virtual classroom. 

Using EquatIO mathspace, there are a number of ways to create engaging maths tasks for independent learning.

• Use the Shapes Input to create maths manipulatives instantly on your mathspace board. Choose from ready-made visuals such as fraction bars, coins or cars to ask your students to solve anything from simple division to working through economic scenarios or physics concepts.
• Create interactive activities using EquatIO’s Smart Shapes, which include grids, fraction circles, number lines and digital protractors. These could be shared for homework or revision exercises. 

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If you find these activity examples useful, check out our dedicated Back to School resource page for other handy hints and tips to help you get the most out of Read&Write and/ or EquatIO. 

We’re also running live webinars for each of our Back to School blog series themes. If you would like to learn more about how our technology can help support independent study and revision, sign up to Richard & Anna’s ‘How Read&Write can improve research, study skills and organisation for all students’ webinar taking place on Wednesday 2nd October 2019 from 3:45- 4:15pm. 

Lastly, if you would like to share how you use Read&Write or EquatIO in your classroom, feel free to add your ideas to the comments section below.