Technology has empowered all aspects of our life. We can now get our bills online and pay them from an app instead of waiting in mile-long lines at the bank. Many office jobs are now doable from the comfort of your home because of the internet. No matter where you look, technology has made things a lot more convenient.
Teachers and professors are such professionals who have the potential to take advantage of technology. Today, we are going to discuss how teachers are being empowered by digital solutions in modern education.
Role of Technology in Modern Education
Teaching used to be a back-breaking job where you were never truly away from work. Even when a teacher is home, they have to check tests/assignments and create lectures for the next day in their own time.
However, modern technology has empowered teachers to avoid such downsides and work more effectively during office hours. Let’s take a look at some benefits of digital solutions.
- Better Lectures
First of all, due to word processing and presentation software, it is much easier for teachers to create unique and creative lectures. Using presentation software, teachers can easily create understandable lecture slides that their students can follow.
A common example is process diagrams. Instead of drawing diagrams manually, teachers can use online tools to create diagrams and slide shows.
The slides can be conveyed to the students via a projector and a screen (a staple in most schools and all colleges). This means that no teacher has to manually create diagrams or write notes on a board. The only reason they might need to do so is to answer a student’s question.
The good thing about these lecture slides is that they can be edited easily to ensure that the content is up to date. So lecturers can reuse their presentations whenever they teach the same concept again.
- Interactive Learning with Tools
A common problem teachers in schools face is to keep their students’ attention on the lesson. Younger students can easily get distracted, particularly the modern generation that grew up on technology.
Digital solutions like a wheel spinner or gamification tools provide great ways of engaging students in their lessons. Teachers can use wheel spinner tools to create interesting quizzes.
For example, a quiz where students only need to answer five questions, but the wheel has ten will add some randomness. Students may become invested because they hope to get easier questions from the wheel.
Gamification tools like Kahoot and Classcraft are also great options to engage students in their lessons. Technologies like these are great for empowering teachers.
- Easier to Research Topics and Concepts
Some things that teachers of yore struggled with were smart students. Smart students often had a lot of questions. Sometimes, these questions were so difficult to answer that teachers had to excuse themselves while they looked for a solution.
That is not a problem any longer. No matter how blindsided a teacher may feel by a question, they can simply do a Google search and find the answer.
A student could indeed do it themself. However, a teacher’s expertise and experience will provide a better interpretation of the answer, which will benefit both parties in the end.
This ease of research also extends to other things. For example, many students have a different approach to learning. Teachers need to be flexible in their teaching methods to ensure that all students understand them.
This is difficult to do with complex topics. However, with the internet at their fingertips, teachers can look up various methods and resources to teach the same concept in different ways. This helps them ensure that all their students are on the same page and no one is lagging in their lessons.
- Software-Based Assessment and Tests
Teachers don’t just teach; they also have to assess how well their students are holding up. The best method of assessment is to quiz students on the concepts they have been taught.
The quizzes should be designed to make students apply the concepts they have learned to problems they have never seen before. This way, teachers can get an objective view of their performance.
However, in a traditional school system, quizzes and tests need to be created by hand. That can be a problem for teachers, especially when they have to do it for multiple classes.
This is where software-based assessments and tests come in handy. There are many tools online that can help teachers create comprehensive tests and quizzes with both multichoice and free-form answers.
Common examples include Classmarker and Examtime. The tests can be printed out and distributed or simply emailed to the students. If neither is an option, then a QR code with the link to the test can be used as well. Students can scan the code and access it with a QR scanner tool.
In the case of online tests, most of these platforms provide anti-cheating features as well.
- Potential of AR/VR in Specialized Disciplines
In higher education and advanced disciplines, AR and VR technologies can play a beneficial role in education. Teachers can use these technologies to provide practical experience to students in a safe environment.
Various schools of engineering and surgery can employ VR technology to train their students. For example,
- Electrical engineering students can use VR tech to design and create PCBs.
- Aspiring doctors can practice surgeries in VR.
- Mechanical engineering students can test their machine designs to check if they work.
- Mechanical engineering students can use AR technology to see their designs in 3D space and find faults beforehand.
Granted, this would require a lot of bespoke software, but the potential is there, and teachers can make great use of it.
Conclusion
Advancements in technology have empowered various job sectors, including education. Teachers can use tech to improve lectures and student engagement, as well as create tests and assignments. There is also the future where AR and VR technologies will boost education to new heights as well.
