Today, some of the modern technologies, with their fast development and improvement, can come in handy not only for students of different educational institutions but also for teachers who can use some great tools in their classrooms.
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As we all are observing more and more innovations and new solutions to some of the most common problems in all spheres of our lives, technology had become an almost irreplaceable part of the modern education. How is it shown? We all can feel the benefits given to us. In the majority of schools and higher educational establishments, pupils had switched from books to tablets, which had made teaching much simpler and even more effective! What are the other advantages of using modern gadgets in the classroom and what are the most effective ways to include technology both in the learning and teaching processes? Find answers to these questions and more here!
Why Is The Use Of Technology In Teaching Important?
Although many educators had confirmed the use of innovational teaching methods, not all schools and colleges are ready to include technologies into the educational process. However, many facts prove the use of new technology for classrooms.
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The study, conducted by the IT Trade Association CompTIA, have shown that 75% of teachers and professors admit the benefits that technologies give and confirm that gadgets, used in the class, had a positive impact on the learning process.
What Are The Advantages Of Technology For College Students?
The majority of teachers also confirm the use of innovative methods in education for students. Why are they so helpful? There are a few main nuances that prove this fact:
- Wider possibilities – the Internet has made it possible for us to share the needed documents and materials with anyone within a few clicks. Besides, with the help of portable devices like smartphones or tablets, pupils have access to the relevant materials 100% of their free time, which means that the educational process is no longer limited to the hours that students spend in the classroom.
- Development of creativity and time management skills. The use of innovative teaching methods helps young people to work on some creative and exciting projects outside the school and, as a result, they also obtain necessary time management skills.
- Convenience and ease of use. Comparing to a book, the weight of a single tablet is much lower. Thus, if students don’t have to carry around two or more books, and can simply replace them with a portable device – it makes the process of learning much more comfortable and simple. Not mentioning that all of the needed data is stored in one place!
- Low cost. Modern technologies will also help us to save some money; young people and their parents spend lots of money buying new books for school, university or college every year, while now, they can spend money only once and buy a good gadget.
- Students will be more interested in obtaining new knowledge. The old methods of teaching outlived themselves a long time ago, and many students find them not attractive while including some innovations in the process will make pupils more engaged!
How To Use Technology Effectively?
If you strive to make the educational process more fun, effective and engaging for students, these top 7 tips for teachers or the ideas provided below will help you in this matter!
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- Get pupils engaged and ask for their opinion.
Creating a closed chat only for your class or a special Twitter account will help you communicate with the students and ask them to give feedbacks about what is going on in the classroom.
- Make it fun.
No matter if it is a fourth-grader or a senior – everybody loves having a good time, and the modern world gives us numerous engaging “gaming” opportunities that make learning rather interesting and not less effective!
- Invite a guest.
Such tools as Skype make it possible to invite a guest from any part of the globe to your classroom and you can benefit from this; for example, if you have a Spanish lesson – you can invite a native speaker to join you. Such lesson will be very informative and interesting.
- Let students be creative.
Include some creative activities such as photo, video or animated presentations, interesting tasks, contests and so on – this will help students to reflect their creativity and engage in the process.
- Encourage teamwork.
Offer pupils to gather in small groups (or even work all together in a large group) to perform a task together – this will teach them to work in a team and will make the whole process more interesting.
- Simulations as a powerful educational tool.
Different types of simulations can be rather helpful both in the learning and teaching process because although they are presented in the form of games, they are rather difficult to perform and thus, can be very effective in the classroom!
This Guest Post is provided by a blogger Lisa Griffin. She currently works as a freelance writer at EssayVikings and helps students solving their writing issues of any kind.