How can teachers use technology effectively in the classroom

How can teachers use technology effectively in the classroom?

In today’s society technology is a massive part of students’ lives. Schools are slowly looking at technology as an opportunity to develop teaching methods and resonate with students on a technology level. Regardless of age, almost everyone owns a smartphone. At a time like this, learning to change our teaching methods by incorporating technology is the only way to bring light to the lives of our students. What are schools doing in order to bring about this change?

In the past, teachers would use a whiteboard, markers and chalk in lesson time, however things have slowly started to change and teachers are more likely to be making use of iPad’s, DVD players, projectors and eLearning system to display tutorial videos and short online sessions, displaying the fun element in learning too. Most schools now have a projector attached to their whiteboard and a TV, making it simpler to shift from a normal classroom to an interactive digital session. Students may find this a more interesting field as they might already be familiar with google and find it easy to use.

A great way to guide students is to refer them to the internet, if you know what sources are reliable. Older students spend most of their time on their mobile phones, laptops and ipads, this may imply that they are more likely to find it easier to do a piece of research, in comparison to going into the library to find the information in selected books. 

 An interesting site that teachers could be using to help and educate their younger pupils, in learning their times tables is Percy Parker. Percy Parker can be displayed on your computer, laptop, iPad, phone etc. Andrew Holdsworth, a pop record producer from the UK, has written some fun/happy songs, which are based on a groovy grandad (Percy Parker). Percy has a complete CD, which teaches all of the multiplication tables up to 12. The songs are extremely catchy and could be seen a successful way of educating the younger pupils.

A kindle is another form of technology that students could use to help educate themselves at home. Even though a kindle is a really good idea for reading the occasional book, it also serves other great purposes. It operates a portable tool that keeps all your notes, research, and books all in one place.  

Giving students online homework/ tasks or fun online tests now and again could possibly create a good learning environment for students. They can do the online assessments and quizzes at home, replacing general homework that they could possibly find excuses for. 

Students could become less focused when there is a one-way communication with the teacher standing in front of a whiteboard. The classroom can sometimes be noisy, resulting in students becoming demotivated, disinterested and not engaged in the topic that is being taught. Having online seminars could enable the students to participate and make comments on the seminar, helping them stay alert. It could be seen as quite difficult keeping students motivated and interested throughout the lesson. Teachers need to be able to keep the lesson as interesting as possible, which could be seen as a learning process that they will practice throughout the years. It is vital that students engage in lessons so they are motivated to then do work outside of the classroom.

Similar to how a teacher is well prepared for a classroom session, encouraging students to be prepared too, can drive students to become more excited and enthusiastic about taking up different classes. 

Online research is becoming more popular which is resulting in people finding exciting careers in things like market research. When teachers give students a difficult piece of research to find, it could be classed as challenging, furthermore, it could make the students feel like they have achieved something finding research that no other student could find. Giving them praise or appreciating their online findings may motivate students to make the best use of the digital resources they have. Students may also find the task encouraging, giving them a list of research to find for the next lesson is a good way to keep students looking forward to more lessons. 

Technology is rapidly improving as whiteboards, textbooks, classroom notebooks, chalk, textbooks, homework and markers are now things of the past. They are still used in classrooms today however, smartboards have been introduced. Teachers can drag and drop shapes onto the board, use online calculators and voice out the different text that they want to see on the board. Schools are offering to provide ipads, kindle-like tabs and free tablets for students to take notes in, collaborating teaching methodology with technology resulting in lively and interesting classroom sessions!

In college and university, students are made to use a site called moodle. Moodle is a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) which makes it easy for you to provide online support for your course.  Providing a central space on the web where students and staff can access a set of tools and resources anytime anywhere. Moodle provides a place where teachers can easily create web pages with information about their courses and provide links to word documents, slides, and other resources that their students will want to access.

References

Thejournal.com By Sara Friedman 04/15/19

Percyparker- teachingideas.co.uk