Technology has proven to be a powerful learning tool for people of every age. In addition to being readily available, technology accommodates several types of learning methods. That is why more teachers are integrating technology in classrooms and lessons – especially for students they’ve had trouble engaging. Continue reading to discover five ways educators can use technology to help students. These methods offer enrichment and are proven to help students stay engaged.
1. Virtual Field Trips
For elementary school-aged children, field trips are an opportunity for more than fun or a day out of the classroom. Field trips are a chance for exploration, engagement, enrichment, and learning. That leaves teachers to find innovative ways to bring field trips to the classroom.
Luckily, there are apps and other digital methods for taking children on virtual field trips. In addition to apps, interactive laser projectors are available, with collaborating lessons to bring the field trip to the classroom. Virtual field trips have been a tremendous technological tool for teachers to use in school.
2. Gathering Student Feedback
Feedback is a vital part of learning and assessment. Additionally, getting feedback from parents is also beneficial. While email is an excellent mode of communication, for a parent or teacher, messages can easily get lost as junk mail or spam.
Today, teachers can use more than 75 apps with space for student and parent feedback. When the school system invests in one of these apps, teachers use them as a teaching strategy for staying in touch with parents and more. For shy students, utilizing the feedback portion on an app is beneficial as they can communicate with teachers without the entire class knowing.
3. Creating Digital Content
Creating digital content frees students to express themselves and acquire knowledge. Creating digital content also helps students strengthen their comprehension and retention of information. It also helps students develop their critical thinking skills.
Creating digital content is especially important for middle and high school students, where independent thinking is crucial. Apps that allow creativity and privacy enable students to explore their passions. That is why school systems are changing and investing resources into digital content-creating apps.
In addition to apps that students can use to create books, there are apps that allow students to:
- Create animated videos
- Create professional video scripts
- Create shareable post-it boards
- Create presentations and social media graphics
4. Plagiarism Checker
Teachers now must go beyond checking major term papers for spelling, grammar, and appropriate punctuation. Today, they must ensure that the papers they are reading aren’t plagiarized.
Plagiarism is using someone else’s ideas or written words and putting your name on them. It is not allowed anywhere – however, it happens often. Plagiarism can cause expulsion from high school and college. Some ways that plagiarism happens are:
- Taking pieces from a bunch of papers on a subject, piecing them all together and putting your name on it
- Using someone else’s work and turning it into a teacher as your own
- Using the copy and paste function to take large pieces of text on your paper and not citing the source
For these reasons, more schools are investing in teacher plagiarism detection programs. This tool can also come in handy for online coding instructors. For instance, Instructors can use a code plagiarism checker tool to identify copying and cheating between students. According to Codio, it only takes the “click of a button, Codio will code projects of all students within a class for a specific teaching unit.” These systems also identify students’ performance and programming styles to detect plagiarism.
5. Activities For Students Who Have Completed Assignments
Teachers now have options when a student has finished an assignment before others. Instead of allowing those students to get bored or distract their classmates.
Where the school can afford it, computers set up in the classroom are the perfect opportunity for students to engage in online learning. That can be through a game or lesson the teacher has programmed for students to use. These are great tools for teachers and students.
Conclusion
As you have read, technology has proven to be an effective learning tool for people of every age. Today, more teachers have integrated technology into classrooms and lessons. Five ways that teachers are doing that are listed above. These methods enrich and keep students engaged in learning.
