In an ever-changing digital world, it’s tricky to keep students switched on and engaged without distractions creeping in.
One of the main challenges for teachers is making every day in the classroom different. They need to keep schoolwork interesting for students, who can often be found yawning their way through a lecture or staring out of the window daydreaming.
We know it’s impossible to stay interested and focused for eight hours a day. So how can teachers make a difference in their classrooms and mix up their teaching styles while still making school fun?
When thinking about what excites students in their spare time, everything tends to circle back to technology.
But this goes far beyond the student universe. The average person now spends over 4 hours a day glued to their smartphone: Gaming, scrolling through social media, watching TV shows on the go, or shopping for the latest gadgets and fashion.
The question is, how can teachers use this to their advantage and introduce tech at school in a productive, appropriate way?
How To Teach With Tech
Introducing tech in the classroom depends on your teaching budget, your syllabus and of course, your own knowledge of digital teaching materials.
The best way to start is to invest some time into your own tech knowledge and get familiar with the tools you want to use in your lessons. Having a solid understanding of how everything works will not only impress your students and encourage them to participate more, but it also gives you a first-hand education in something new, which in turn will enhance your teaching skills.
If your school is passionate about teachers using tech in the classroom, it’s never too late to give your classroom an upgrade.
Introducing A Digital Classroom
Here are a few useful ways to create a digital classroom:
- Present live videos from across the world of guest speakers or relevant conferences
- Play podcasts that add extra insight into your lessons
- Use adaptive learning programs that students can access using their smartphones or tablets
- Share a class calendar online to track student’s activities, schedules, progress or homework
- Brainstorm ideas together on an online mind map
- Use eLearning apps for collaborative projects
- Enhance virtual learning using programs like Google Earth or with a virtual reality headset
- Introduce social media as a learning platform (for instance, you could allow students to send in questions on a personalized class Twitter hashtag)
Even the smallest changes can make big differences to your students.
The Benefits Of Using Tech With Students
Using tech in the classroom comes with plenty of added benefits for a healthy and collaborative learning environment. Technology suffers from the stigma of distracting students and keeping them from focusing, but if you adapt to your classroom and use tech in the right way, the benefits can be very rewarding. By using tech at school, you can boost the engagement levels of your students, encourage individual learning, and develop your student’s skills for life beyond the classroom. But it’s important to remember that not everyone learns in the same way.
Whether your students learn best by using visual aids, audio tools, and written material, or via hands-on, kinaesthetic techniques, technology can be the catalyst that drives their motivation.
Technology also highlights extra opportunities for everyone with different needs and abilities, so students can learn at their own speed and understand difficult concepts in their own way. It also provides additional support for struggling or disabled students. Even the most basic tech at school gives students access to a broad range of resources, allowing them to conduct research in different ways.
Using Digital Tech At School
One of the most inspiring and valuable ways to develop the idea of tech in the classroom is to introduce a digital photo frame into your teaching.
A digital frame provides fresh insights into lessons and gives your students an opportunity to learn using new techniques. It also adds another element to building a digital classroom, and you could even take it one step further by creating a smart classroom.
A smart classroom is a connected, technologically enhanced hub that enables teaching and learning opportunities like never before. By placing specialised software, voice search devices and audio/visual tools in your classroom, you’re opening up an infinite world of teaching and learning, allowing your class to grow together as a team.
With a smart digital photo frame, you can:
- Present multimedia slideshows with images, sound effects, videos and graphs
- Use a memory card or USB thumb drive for your frame anywhere in the school
- Control 100% of the teaching content and choose how you display it
- Syncs files or images from any PC via Wi-Fi, flash drive, or SD card
- Make your own tutorial videos and graphs for students to watch during recess or free periods
- Create a virtual lab or word station to use during science lessons or creative writing sessions
With technology playing a big part in every aspect of our lives, it’s important that students and teachers need to make the most of it. Teachers using tech can be lifechanging for students, and with a creative mind, the learning possibilities are endless.
Thinking about introducing tech in the classroom and not sure where to start? Check out our collection of smart frames and begin your digital classroom experience today.