Technology affects almost every aspect of our lives. One area which technology has a big impact on is the field of education. As technology evolves, so does the need for teachers to learn how to integrate technology in their classrooms. Today, let’s explore some useful tools that educators can use to enhance the learning process in the classroom.
ClassDojo is a classroom management app. Classroom management is one of the critical ingredients for a good learning experience. Aside from the ability to check attendance and to give merits and feedback on student behaviors, it has the randomizer function that allows the teacher to randomly call on a student to answer a question.
This makes students attentive as they know they can be called upon even without raising their hand. The ability of ClassDojo to send to parents a detailed report on their child’s classroom behavior is also a great way to inform parents and guide them into how they can influence their child to behave better and contribute actively in class.
This is another great tool for teachers. It allows a closed and secure online environment where announcements and other information can be disseminated to students of a particular class. Assignments can also be submitted online there with timestamps so that the teacher knows if students have been punctual with homework submission. Education will continue to evolve towards a paperless environment and Google Classroom is a great way to reduce paperwork as you can start checking work online. In addition to Google Classroom, Google Drive and its related applications also offers educators the opportunity for students to do collaborations on online pieces of work. They will learn how to work remotely and realize learning and collaborating can be with anyone with an internet connection.
Socrative is another wonderful app many educators use. When students log in to the specific session that the teacher has designed, the app will allow easy facilitation of presentations and quick checks of understanding with different forms of quizzes. The teacher and student will also get real time feedback of the correct answers and can use it to make a decision on whether to reteach the topic or to continue with the lesson.
Flipped learning involves flipping the traditional education process. Instead of students listening to the lecture or the content in class, they watch the videos at home and then in class, they will do activities or projects related to the content they have watched at home. Misconceptions and questions can also be rectified in this classroom session. This form of learning would tap video archives that already exist like Khan Academy as well as Youtube learning videos.
Despite all the advantages that educational technology offers, the teacher will never be replaced in the teaching process.
The teacher will continue to evolve as someone who will be well versed with the different technologies around to enhance the learning process. They will be the ones who can continue to inspire and provoke the curiosity in their students.
