Technology is at the core of most environments, including classrooms. Students today are accustomed to having technology at their fingertips, and teachers must embrace new opportunities for learning with their students. The right tech tools can streamline many administrative tasks and leave teachers more time to prepare for class and engage with their students. However, teachers must be intentional about which tech tools they use.
Online Digital Forms
Digital forms allow students to submit and return assignments, projects, and homework from their computers or smartphones. This eliminates the need to print, scan and upload submissions to a central system and to sort and review them manually for errors or incomplete information. Digital tools provide full, real-time insight into the status of every submitted document or eSignature.
Digital homework and quizzes can host new data types that remove common grading obstacles, such as poor penmanship and lost assignments. Using features, online teacher forms can easily streamline the input of answers. Students can circle or highlight specific parts of embedded diagrams or images or draw their sketches to answer assignment prompts, removing the need for traditional handwriting and saving teachers time to grade.
A safety and dismissal tool designed by former educators and parents, it helps schools get students home faster without the hassle of paperwork flurries so that teachers can spend more time teaching, admins aren’t bogged down with carpool call, and principals can account for every student at the end of each day. And with powerful SIS integrations, districts can automate processes to move past paper faster and improve accountability and transparency.
Collaborative Tools
Collaborative work in classrooms is a vital part of the learning process, and teaching students to collaborate builds invaluable skills they can take into their professional lives. You can deliver a digital workspace optimized for remote and in-person learning, making it easier for learners to work together and access their project information anywhere.
Classroom tech tools combine productivity and creativity, allowing kids to share research materials, annotate, brainstorm, make media, or hang out with their peers. Some devices even provide for two-way communication between teacher and student.
With COVID-19 putting schools on lockdown, video conferencing has been a lifesaver for many educators, but it’s also a great way to communicate with students. With apps that enable students to create virtual presentations and class crafts, a collaborative educational role-playing game that allows pupils to act out their classroom lessons, teachers can stay in contact with students throughout the pandemic and beyond. Many of these programs also offer features that help them build knowledge around important topics like health and safety, helping them feel safe and engaged while they work remotely. These apps can also be used to communicate school closures, news and other critical information with parents safely and efficiently.
Online Learning Platforms
Online learning has opened up new opportunities for millions of students but poses unique challenges. All educators approach this novel environment with a mix of optimism and concern. Some wonder how to leverage online learning tools and platforms to improve their teaching and offer their students unprecedented access to various technical skills and information.
Some confuse the terms “learning platform” and “online course platform.” However, there is a distinction. The former refers to marketplaces that sell courses and educational content, such as Udemy, Coursera, or LinkedIn Learning-formerly Lynda; the latter refers to software that enables a teacher/ instructor to deliver their educational content.
Educators can build their e-learning learning platforms or use existing ones that provide a wide array of technical skills and information for their students and themselves. For example, specialized language learning platforms allow students to participate in live classes planned by their school, university, or company and practice the main linguistic competencies 24/7.
Most schools have a central management system for student data known as a Student Information System (SIS). SIS platforms enable teachers, parents and students to access their educational records, class schedules, homework assignments and grades. These systems often have integrated chat, video conference, and project-sharing tools.
Assessment Tools
Assessing student performance is a critical component of teaching. The best online assessment tools streamline the process by providing teachers with various functions to create and administer customized, standards-aligned assessments at the student, classroom, school and district levels.
These tools help educators understand what students have learned and allow instructors to make necessary adjustments to their instruction based on the results of these assessments. They can also use the data to identify individual and group learning strengths and weaknesses, which can be useful for providing support for struggling students.
Classroom assessments (quizzes and activities) are intended to evaluate a student’s progress during an ongoing lesson or topic and are used to track and assess knowledge. They usually consist of multiple-choice questions and may include interactive activities. Additionally, they may utilize gamification techniques to make the assessment process fun and engaging for students.
On the other hand, large-scale standardized tests communicate effectively across time and place but are restricted in content and context, which limits the information they can provide about student achievement. The contrast between these different assessment types illustrates that the relationships between curriculum, instruction, and assessments should be fluid and synergetic.
