One of the best ways you can get kids more engaged in learning is by providing them with tools with which they can learn and have fun simultaneously.
Combining technology with learning can make for very interesting ideas on how to gain knowledge while also learning how to use technology.
A great tool I found for K–8 students is this interactive map by Asia Society that pulls together demographic, economic, and education indicators into data points that students can use to learn about the world.
This tool can increase the students knowledge about other parts of the world they might not be aware of.
They can figure out these stats through an interactive map:
The maps are color-coded, so it is easier for people to notice the differences and statistics.
This tool can be great for kids to learn and explore the world.
Students can learn about interesting statistics like the total population of areas, the number of languages spoken in each area, and the ancestry of the people living there. This tool can inform students about stats they never knew and provide a visual for them.
It is very important for kids to learn about the world they are living in, and these interesting statistics make them more informed about their country and the demographics that make it up.
If I were a teacher, I would let kids explore this tool and ask each other questions about the statistics and demographics. This would improve their ability to read and relay information to others.
Collaborative technology is the tools and software brought by the technology in order for people to work in teams in order to achieve their designated goal.
Benefits
Cost and time reduction when working with many different teams
More coordination in group problem solving
Easily share the ideas of many different people
Ability to share files with one another remotely
Notification of when someone makes changes to shared files
Real time remote collaboration
Importance of Collaboration Technology
With technology ever advance people have more access to the internet and its abilities than ever before. Why shouldn’t we be making use of it. With all the benefits collaboration technology has to offer we must make use of it, because if done correctly it will show more and more benefit’s to the use. Already people are able to cut costs and time to meet up in person when they can just come together remotely. So why shouldn’t people make the most of the technology out there and use it to its fullest.
Importance of collaboration in this modern education gives us a better way to go forward. Collaboration means when you do a work with the team and everyone contributes and distributes properly and equally . Now a days, technology has highlighted the collaboration into the classrooms in a modern way. It is important to use tools to collaborate now a days as the world is changing into digital tools.
Microsoft Office 365 is one of the many tools which helps to collaborate. It has a section calls ‘Team’ where we can communicate each other as a team and contribute our thoughts and make it reality. Microsoft Teams is a central hub for teamwork within Microsoft 365. It combines chat, video conferencing, file storage, and app integration into one platform. Teams allows users to create channels for specific projects or topics, making it easy for team members to collaborate in real time.
Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint allow multiple users to edit documents simultaneously. This real-time co-authoring feature simplifies group projects and document collaboration. We can also contribute and work as a team at the same time in these applications. Such as, if we want to make any ppt then the whole team can sit and make it together not even staying together.
OneDrive for Business provides secure file storage in the cloud. It is one of the largest could system ever built. It enables users to store and share files, making it easy to collaborate on documents from anywhere, on any device. On OneDrive we can create a section called ‘Sharing ‘ and make it accessible in only our teams.
SharePoint Online is a powerful platform for creating intranet sites and collaboration portals. It offers features like document libraries, lists, making it ideal for building collaborative websites and applications.
Collaboration is what makes education powerful , because a knowledge is free to everyone. By doing collaboration we can easily distribute the knowledge by contributing to make something. And there are so many tools that can help us to make it happen in this modern day.
Throughout your years in school, one of the fundamental building blocks in fostering social development and team working abilities is collaborating with other students in your classroom.
Collaborating with other people is very useful in helping solve problems and issues that you would otherwise not understand yourself.
Working with other people is always more benefical to get a task done, especially when that task involves things one person might not understand. To have multiple different perspectives on a problem will make it easier for people to find solutions and build projects.
We already collaborated during the pandemic by using Zoom and Google Meet to connect and learn with each other, but there are many other ways people can collaborate as well.
A great way students can collaborate nowadays would be Microsoft Teams.
Teams makes it easier for people to share files with other people and work on the together at the same time!
You can create files, edit with others and share with people outside of the team. This also works with projects you are working on in other sites like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more.
This is a very effective way for people to work on projects with each other and learn to collaborate on those projects using technology. This will help foster growth in teamwork and other social abilities and is overall a wonderful way for people to come together and work!
With technology being more accessible than ever, it has rapidly made its way into the educational world and is providing educators with tools to enhance their classrooms and producing exceptional learning and collaborative experiences. These tools can help educators accommodate for their students and help all different types of learners achieve their full potential.
Types of Technological Tools
The article if found, discusses the various types of innovative technological tools educators can utilize to teach lessons and how it creates a collaborative community within the classroom. Some of the tools educators can utilize are interactive displays, 3D printing, and audio systems.
How these Tools are Beneficial
Interactive displays allow for students to visualize concepts easier and is a more fun and interesting way teachers can introduce more challenge material. 3D printing tools help create tangible creations that utilize engineering and critical thinking skills. Lastly, audio systems can be an accommodation for students who might have an audible disability, but also tools like microphones can be used to read aloud to the entire class.
Overall, these technological tools, and many more, and all very beneficial for the enhancement and sense of community within classrooms. The future of education will be bright by utilizing these technological tools.
Now a days AI chat bots has become a revolutionary tech and a talked topic among the world. It has been a blessing in one side and curse at the same time. With Ai chatbots we can gain limitless knowledge and sources in a single click for various purpose. It might be coding, writing article, gathering information or what not, ai chatbot can perform a limitless performance and can be the most powerful tool. At the meantime students are using it for cheating purpose as well. They are copying assignments without even going into it and what not.
However, ai chatbots are the power houses for the educational purpose. Mainly, the teacher can use the it for various purposes to help children. It can help a teacher to decorate the study plan. It also can help teacher to know anything that is unknown. Teacher also can set problems using ai chatbots for the exams and recheck it many times for a better quality.
Although, it can have some limitations as it is not dynamic or cannot create dynamic things, it can help a teacher to get the broad guide to the plans. In near future, ai chatbots can help teacher to detect plagarism , give suggestions about what to improve and what not. In short, a ai chatbots now a days plays important role in education to help the teachers and make the education system better. Only need is to supervise so that it can be used ethically.
To conclude, ai chat bots are friends of teachers. A teacher has so many hectic works in his/her day to day life. Moreover, it becomes tough to maintain everything sometimes. AI Chatbots help them to decorate and plan everything. It can help them to gather knowledge and also help them in every toughest problem possible.
Virtual Reality has become very popular in the 2010s, and it is rapidly evolving. From playing a video game to receiving a learning experience, Virtual Reality can be very impactful and an enjoyable experience for students!
This image displays young students using Virtual Reality in class.
The Benefits of VR in Education
I found this article which provides a lot of information on how VR can benefit in education.
Enhancing Student Engagement
Boosting Knowledge Retention
Improving Student Learning Outcomes
Developing Collaboration and Social Skills
Building Empathy
Supporting SEND Learning
Within this article, each topic goes more in depth on how each of these points help students learn.
Final Thoughts
I think Virtual Reality is a great resource for education. Students gain many great skills, not only for the classroom, but skills they will use for the rest of their lives. A point that stuck out to me the most was “Developing Collaboration and Social Skills.” By introducing these skills early on in education, it gives the students more confidence within the school environment and being comfortable starting conversations. Finding out that VR can help students learn those specific and important skills made me more interested because it is very crucial to learn at a young age.
Unfortunately, Virtual Reality headsets tend to be very expensive. It is uncommon to see these in a classroom due to some of the school district’s budgets. Although this is an unlucky occurrence, I hope in the future some districts make this a priority and see how much these devices can help their students learn!
Augmented Reality, or AR, is a technology that enhances an individual’s experiences in the real world with an added virtual overlay. Unlike Virtual Reality, you are not fully immersing yourself into a virtual world; rather, AR technology imprints a virtual world upon the real world. This is an increasingly popular technology, with such programs as AR Games on the Nintendo 3DS and mobile game Pokémon Go being some of the most popular games to utilize augmented reality. However, AR may have the potential to enhance students’ educational progress as well.
User CybTekk posted a comprehensive thread on X (formerly Twitter) outlining the potential upsides of augmented reality within education. This user argues that AR would allow for the classroom experience to be more immersive, with such examples as “history com[ing] to life” and “virtual labs enhanc[ing] science classes,” and that with AR, students would be able to virtually connect with the rest of the world, and take virtual, augmented reality trips to various places in the world to learn about them, all without having to leave the classroom. Plus, the article mentions how 80% of businesses use AR, and that learning how to use it early may be a valuable tool in the job market of tomorrow.
Unfortunately, there is no mention of current AR tools in use within the educational field currently. However, the potential benefits of using AR for education are not to be overlooked. The idea of allowing students to be immersed into what they are learning, rather than learning at a distance, is an exciting idea for innovation within education. I like the ideas put forth by this user, and hope that the idea and application of using AR within education is one that continues to grow traction, as it very well may be a big part of the future of educational technology.
One of the things kids have a difficult time with when learning to use computers is remembering their login password and how to use a keyboard. This is especially difficult for them when they are also learning the alphabet since they might not know how to quickly find letters or numbers on a keyboard.
It is harder for kids to learn how to type faster when they are not used to using a keyboard and not used to the letters and numbers that are positioned on it.
However I found this article that makes it easier for kids to remember their login password and teaches them how to use a keyboard.
Kids can learn how to login and use a keyboard by the corresponding colors that relates to a number or letter on the row it is in.
Some benefits of using this login color key:
Saves kids time when logging in
Teaches them how to use a keyboard
Gets rid of putting tape on keyboard
Uses color to make it more appealing to kids
I think this is a wonderful idea to make kids more comfortable with using technology and providing them an easier way to learn how to use a keyboard, remember the alphabet and learn how to login all at the same time!
This article gives educators ideas of how to integrate technology into their classrooms. Technology is constantly evolving, and it is important as educators to keep up with the rapid industry. Many of us have already seen technology taking over classrooms. For example, many teachers use online study games in their classrooms to help their students understand material. Some of these online learning tools include Kahoot and Quizlet, which may sound familiar.
After the pandemic, many teachers have used technology to make learning easier and more efficient. We can see this with certain applications such as GoogleClassroom, BlackBoard, PowerSchool, Canvas, etc. Some may say that technology can be detrimental to students’ learning, but I disagree. Implementing technology into your learning curriculum could be extremely beneficial to your students as they pick up new skills and learn to easily adapt to new changes (tech world is constantly changing and evolving).
Despite some of the hate that using technology in classrooms may get, it makes learning 10x more efficient. Teachers are able to better prepare for their lessons with tools such as PowerPoints, engaging games, videos to show their students, etc. Majority of students use technology in their free time (phones and laptops) so using these things to your advantage could help keep your students be better engaged and enhance their understanding of the material. The culture that older teachers grew up in is vastly different from the culture that students in today’s world are growing up in. It is important for teachers to keep up with the new cultures because it could help them better connect with their students, and teach them in ways that they would be more motivated to learn in. Like everything, using technology to teach has its downsides such as certain applications not working correctly, internet not connecting, students being more susceptible to cheating, but the advantages that technology provides are far greater than these disadvantages. Students today are gaining skills in their youth that most professionals did not gain until later on in their careers/education. Technology in classrooms is just getting started and is just going to continue, so it is best that teachers learn to use it to their advantage as well as come up with strategies to reduce the disadvantages (such as cheating).
