This video is sponsored by Wacom.
Let's look at five pieces of tech for you to consider
as you head back to the classroom this year
and what role each piece plays in your classroom.
We will also be doing a giveaway of one of these items,
so be sure to stick around to find out the details on how to enter.
As a teacher, your most essential device is likely going to be your laptop
and the biggest bang for your buck
that you can get with a laptop right now is the M1 MacBook Air.
This is the first MacBook Air with Apple's M1 chip.
And without getting too technical, what that means for you
is that you can have a ton of tabs open, a YouTube
video, playing a Zoom call running and be screencasting
all of that at the same time.
And the M1 MacBook Air won't slow down even though all of that is going on.
Even if you're a media teacher, I've edited
4K footage on this without any problems.
The battery life is really great and should last you the day
without having to recharge.
This is Apple's most powerful laptop
that you can get at the $1,000 price point.
And if you're okay going refurbished, you can find it for $850.
A few things to know.
There are only a couple of usb-c ports on there,
so you will likely need a hub that you can plug in,
like this one from Anker, which runs about $80
and it allow you to plug it into your projector
as well as plug more traditional USB devices
into your MacBook Air.
If the M1 MacBook Air is outside of your budget.
I asked friend of the channel, Jon Sowash
who is the Chromebook master,
which Chromebook he recommends to teachers today.
He gave me two options at two different price points.
One of the best Chromebooks that you can get right now is the Asus Flip CX5,
which Jon had been using recently and he said he loves it.
It's got a nice big 16 inch screen, it's got a tablet mode,
it has 128 gigabytes of storage on the device .
He also recommends the Lenovo Chromebook Duet.
This one is a little bit more of a tablet than it is a laptop,
but it can serve both functions.
So if you're just looking for something reliable
that you can connect to the Internet
and use in the classroom, it'll get the job done.
Like the MacBook Air, the duet only has a usb-c,
so you would need an adapter to be able
to plug it into your projector
Now that you've got your device.
One of my favorite tech tools and helping me
work on my computer so much more efficiently
is called a Stream Deck.
What it is, is physical buttons that you can program
to do basically whatever you want on your computer.
Let's say you have three websites that you open every day
your email, Google Classroom and your calendar.
You can program one button for each of those.
So when you press it, it opens up that website.
But that's not much better than just having bookmarks.
What's really cool about the stream deck
is that you can have multiple things happen
when you press one button.
So I could press one button to open up all three of those websites at once,
even though I don't have my browser open to begin with.
If you find yourself typing the same thing
over and over to students or parents
in your email or in Google Classroom or anywhere on the computer,
you can program all those common responses
as a button on the stream deck.
So when you push it, it just paste that text right where your cursor is.
And you can also program sound effects in there, which is always fun.
Throw in an air horn to get kids hyped.
The Jeopardy theme could serve as a 30s timer in your classroom
or just throw in a fart sound effect
and see if anyone notices you.
Tell that I was a middle school teacher.
This 15 button stream deck is $140,
but they also have a six button one that is $80.
So now that you're rocking and rolling with your stream deck,
it's time to start making some lessons for your students.
And here at New Edtech classroom, we are big fans of creating
screencast lessons for your students
that they can watch at their own pace.
And it frees up time for you as the teacher
to meet individually or in small groups
since you're not lecturing nearly as much.
I'm in screen casting since 2013, and as a math teacher,
I always wanted to be able to write out
the math on the computer screen so my students could follow along.
And so I got a tablet and my current writing tablet of choice
is the Wacom Intuos.
I pull my document on the screen and then begin
writing on my tablet, and then that writing shows up on the screen
while I am recording my screen with the screen cast.
The thing about the Intuos that I like is that you can program
these buttons at the top to do whatever you want,
so you can program one button to undo
whatever it is that you just did or program
another button to go to your next slide or whatever.
Couple that with an extension called annotate dot net.
And now you can not only annotate things like a Google slides,
but you can actually write over actual web pages.
And what's nice is the writing sticks to that part of the web page.
as you are scrolling,
I got the medium size Intuos because I'm usually working on a 27in monitor,
which is a little bit bigger but the small Intuos
should be perfect for anyone that is working primarily on a laptop.
And we have now entered the giveaway portion of the show
Shoutout to the air horn sound effect courtesy of the stream deck.
We're going to giving away three wireless Wacom Intuos writing tablets.
And all you need to do to be eligible to win is to leave a comment
answering these three questions.
One, What would you use the Wacom tablet for in your classroom?
Two, would you prefer a small Wacom tablet
or a medium welcome tablet?
Three. Share a link to a social media profile
that we can contact you through if you win.
YouTube doesn't have a messaging feature,
and I'm hesitant to tell you to put your email
because if you put your email in a public place
like a YouTube comment, you probably get tons of spam.
But if you don't care about that,
feel free to leave your email
if that's the best way to contact you. If you win,
If you don't win, but you would still like to pick up a tablet.
We've got you covered.
You can save 20% off of your Wacom tablet
if you use the coupon code: wacomnewedtech
and you order through Wacom.com's website.
So now that you've got your screen casts made, you arrive to class
and you've got a slideshow ready to show your students
exactly what they're going to be working on today.
One of my new favorite tools is this presenter
remote by a company called Norwii
It's got a forward and a back button that allows you to be able
to cycle through your slideshow using those buttons
without having to be right next to your computer hitting the next button.
I've struggled with these before, sometimes
working in one app and not the other, but I tested this
with Google slides, PowerPoint, genially and prezzi
and it worked for all of them.
So by default, the bottom button goes to the next slide
and then the top button goes to the previous slide.
Kind of like you're going up and down the slideshow,
but you can customize the buttons to do whatever you want
using the free software that it comes with.
You can even set what happens
when you hold one of the buttons for 2 seconds.
So I wanted it to start my slide show
by holding the top button for 2 seconds,
and then I can continue to cycle through the slides
by just hitting the next button on the remote.
It connects using a USB receiver
that I plugged into my computer
and I like that the little USB receiver
goes back into the presenter remote magnetically,
so you're a lot less likely to lose it.
So now your students are ready to get started on their lesson
and some of them are going to be
watching the screencast that you made for them.
And even though you told your students
always have headphones in your backpack
or whenever you need to listen to a screencast, it's inevitable
that some of them will not have their headphones.
So instead of lamenting, I mean like kids
these days aren't prepared for anything,
you can solve that problem with a class set of headphones.
This set gives you ten headphones for $30.
So these are not the most premium quality sounding headphones,
but they sound just fine and they do the job.
And based on the reviews, it sounds like the company is really good about
replacing any that stopped working during the year
and I really like that they're multicolor.
I feel it's just a lot more fun than having a bunch of gray
and black sets of headphones.
I do recommend coming up with a routine or procedure
for managing your classroom headphones
so they're less likely to get lost or damaged.
You put headphones in a plastic bag
and number the bag, and not only will this
keep them super organized, but having the cable inside of the bag
will keep it from getting tangled up with the other cables
in your headphone bucket or wherever you have them.
So be a great opportunity to create a classroom job of headphones
manager where they distribute and ensure
that the headphones are being properly stored and cared for.
I would order as many as you need for everyone
to be able to have a pair of headphones in the classroom
and out of anything on this list. I would really push for your admin
to use school funds to pay for this
because this is directly a resource and supply
for the students in the classroom.
The bonus item on this list is a quality backpack
to carry all of this tech to and from school.
The first district I worked at gave all the teachers a Swiss
gear backpack, and I loved it.
But when I left the district, I had to give the backpack back,
so I ended up buying my own, which is pretty much the same model
that I have for the district.
I use that backpack for about eight years
and it often doubled as a travel backpack.
And when I was researching for this video,
I found that Swiss Gear had an updated model
of my favorite backpack style of theirs.
And so I got it and I have really been enjoying it.
The straps are super durable and comfortable.
It's got a back compartment that'll fit a laptop up to 17 inches,
so the MacBook Air will fit in there just fine.
The compartment next to that's got this little pocket
that will fit a smaller tablet. I was able to put my Wacom small into us in there
and I really like this front pocket for putting my computer charger,
my USB hub and my headphones for easy access.
Inside, there's a small pocket for your phone.
Or if you're like me and keep your phone in your pocket,
it is a good spot to put your phone charger
and the rest of my folders and notebooks and books
fit in that main compartment as well.
Of course, it's got the pens and pencils
and keys section as well as spots on the side
for your water bottle and snacks.
I will note that compared to most other backpacks
I've used, this is a little bit on the heavier side.
Even if you don't have a lot of stuff in there
As you gear up for back to school
or something to think about as which new apps
you may want to try this year.
Check out this video we did on five apps
that you may not have heard of or may never have considered
using in the classroom to get your mind rolling on the possibilities
of what you can do this year. We'll see you over there.