The classroom is undergoing a technological revolution. Advances in educational technology are changing learning forever and creating new opportunities for teachers to engage with students and develop their knowledge and skills for a technology-driven future. These four top tech tips can help teachers embrace the coming changes. Tech is here to help both teachers and students excel and make lessons more effective and easier.
Planning Makes Perfect
Lesson planning is an integral part of being a teacher, and the better the plan, the better the lesson. The problem is, it can be time-consuming and stressful to come up with engaging ways to get children enthused about their education and development, from kindergarten through to 12th Grade. To speed up the process, teachers need to start leaning on online and physical resources to help them make planning simple without seeing a drop in the quality of their lessons.
Check out https://studentreasures.com/teachers-lounge/lesson-plans/kindergarten/ for some lesson plans that you can use again and again to provide fun and engaging lessons for kindergarteners. Using some premade templates for your lesson planning can cut out hours of work every week and give you the time you need to concentrate on other administrative aspects of education, like record-keeping and grading papers. Smarter planning means smarter lessons and smarter students.
The Gamification of Education
Games have been popular with kids for centuries and have always been a great way to learn. Video gaming has pushed the technological envelope and made games at home with little to no educational value incredibly immersive and engaging. Many teachers and parents are in a constant battle with children to get them to put down the pad and engage with their education instead. The future of education should involve a hybrid of education and immersive gaming, educating children through virtual experiences.
Augmented and virtual reality is going to start creeping into the classroom and giving teachers the opportunity to take children on virtual field trips to dig for dinosaur bones or give them a bird’s eye view of environmental damage caused by climate change. Introducing games to virtual spaces can give a practical edge to problem-solving, demonstrating mathematical or scientific principles in a virtual space and asking students to find solutions to problems through interactivity. Using games and game principles can help teachers to reach students’ imaginations and inspire them to develop their knowledge organically.
Inclusive Tech
From digital learning assistants to virtual reality, all the latest educational tach can be used to curate learning experiences for specific students. This creates an opportunity to make education more inclusive for students with different learning styles or special educational needs. Barriers between learning and interaction can be broken down for students with challenges like autism or Asperger’s syndrome.
Students who are having difficulty understanding a subject or grasping a complex concept can spend more time in virtual spaces testing ideas and discovering solutions to their learning challenges themselves, helping them develop a skill set that will aid them in the future both in education and in adulthood.
Tailoring education to suit each child’s individual needs will help ensure that no child is left behind at school and will help us all discover new ways of learning too. Teachers with a classroom filled with students who have unique educational demands and learning styles can now engage with every student on an equal level, giving them an education that works to their strengths and helps address their learning weaknesses.
Emotional Education
Tech is helping educational authorities to build platforms to support a child’s emotional well-being and development as well as their education. Mindfulness, meditation, and emotional management apps give students the opportunity to examine their feelings and analyze their behavior to help them develop their emotional intelligence as well as the core subjects of education.
Schools can also include access to online therapy resources where students can interact with qualified professionals to help them find lasting solutions to problems outside of their education. Skills like Cognitive Brain Therapy can be taught using online courses and instructional videos that students access and use at their own pace. Students become more successful learners, and more successful people when they are equipped with the tools they need to understand their emotions and the emotions of others.
Edtech is providing education providers with tools to help them develop complete human beings, with the knowledge and skills they need to excel inside and outside of their future careers.
