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 Blog 3 - Technology

So many choices! Do you get caught up in technological services you just "have to have", yet really don't want to spend money on? This year I am spending more than I ever have before on subscriptions to services for my classes. The first is a subscription to señorashby.com, which is a website for Spanish teachers with many different resources. Señor Ashby created one song that helps my students to learn numbers, and this is why I subscribe every year. One song!

My second investment this year started during September, when I just couldn't stand all of the political ads on Youtube. Every single day, I share a song with my students to begin class, usually a video with lyrics in Spanish and in English. I consider this to be such an important part of my curriculum that I was willing to start a subscription to safeshare.tv as well. Safeshare allows me to play my Youtube videos every day for students without having ads pop up, which for me, both saves time and prevents my students from having to watch those annoying (or worse) ads.

So when my free trial of Gimkit expired and they wanted me to pay monthly, I had to question myself. How many of these subscription services do I really need? I think the list of available educational subscriptions has probably exploded during last year. I have never asked my school to pay for these subscriptions, but I wonder if other teachers do. What subscription services have you "succumbed" to for your classroom? What are your favorites? And most importantly, should a school pay for these subscriptions?