Technology keeps students from focusing, right? One solution is ban phones and computers from the classroom. Another solution is to engage students with online tools that will help them complete assignments while still using electronic equipment. Here are some online tools to hold their attention.
Prezi
Presentations are an important part of the curriculum but let's face it. PowerPoint isn't terribly engaging. Prezi allows students to create presentations that are more creative and exciting than what PPT has to offer. Not only will this make the presentation-creating process more interesting for students, it will also make watching presentations more interesting as well.
Trello
Because so many students are in the habit of multitasking, a good skill to teach them is how to organize and simplify their assignments. Trello is a free and super easy-to-use tool for students to create workflow charts. Multiple students can be added to the same board; great for teamwork on projects.
Cold Turkey
Cold Turkey is a useful tool to reduce the number of tasks that students can do at the same time on their computers. They probably won't love this one because it limits their access to certain websites so that students can focus on their tasks. Even having students turn it on for half of a period for some focuses on in-class writing time will make a difference in terms of their productivity.
White Noise
Whatever you want the students to engage in — activities, contents, assignments, etc. — they need to be able to focus, and classrooms aren't always the easiest places to do that. White noise can not only drown out excess(过量) noise, but also help students keep more concentrated, for there is less noise when they're concentrating.