Technology has come a long way and is now part of our everyday living, we are living in the age of automation, the period being referred to as the fourth industrial revolution.
When you wake up in the morning, you check what's happening to your friends through the use of an app, you check the latest news or trends. You check your emails for any update at work or if you have new clients trying to reach you to talk about business. When you are working out for your fitness, you monitor your progress by using an app. Then on your way to work, you watch videos to be entertained or listen to music using your smartphone. When you are trying to learn a new skill you are using another app, instead of going to an institution. You also use another app to book your upcoming flights to another city, instead of going personally to airline ticketing outlets. Instead of using the traditional notebook planner, another app is available for you to do the job automatically reminding your daily, weekly and monthly tasks. We can readily say that everyone is using handheld devices as early as a 2-year-old baby to a retiree, and I can keep going to give more examples of how technology is impacting our lives almost entirely. Whether we like it or not this is how we live today, everything relies on technology. Modern technology surrounds people in the 21st century.
Now, as a teacher. We have learned so far and practiced so far different methods of delivering academic subjects and theories, different strategies in managing a class session, different techniques to guide learners, a variety of ways on how to facilitate learning, we call it PEDAGOGY. Most educators have proven themselves the effectiveness of their traditional ways in imparting knowledge to learners. The game is changing because of the rapid growth of technology. The way we teach is also starting to change because of technology. For instance, why are you to going to spend a one session of just presenting and discussing information to your learners when let's say our CONTENT is just about the parts and functions of a computer where they can just easily find this on the internet provided that you and your learners have the TECHNOLOGY available at your disposal.
Perhaps one of my suggestions would be just give it as an assignment in advance so that upon meeting them in class, you will be able to facilitate a learning session where you have the chance utilizing teaching strategies such as conducting group activities to promote cooperative learning or the use of Inquiry-based Instruction to encourage critical, creative and out-of-the-box thinking of your pupils. You can integrate art related activity where you can ask your student to draw based on this example question: If you are going to draw your own computer design, how your computer is going to look like?
This way we will not only be able to produce students who are proficient with technology but we will also have the chance to mold someone who is a creative and out-of-the-box thinker, who might become an inventor or a problem-solver of the future, and we are able to teach better, one way or another in just one class session.
Knowledge is not the key anymore. It is wisdom that is practically applicable to our goals. We need to stop feeding our learners information because we are already drowning from it. We need to start teaching them the application of this reservoir of knowledge, that is readily available right in front of us through the world wide web.
SOME METHODS USED TO BE BORING
Technology helps enhance some traditional teaching methods. In my experience, pupils are more engaged during drill when I am using https://kahoot.it/ or https://quizizz.com/. This is not just an example of enhancing the drill technique, this is also an example of technology re-configuring our methods of teaching. If you have tablets available you can download apps that you can use for your lessons, such as apps to convert unit of measurement which can be very useful in your math or science lessons. Smartphones, Computers and tablets also comes in handy if you are going to integrate art to whatever academic subject you are using. Tons of art applications on android as well as URL links are available so you can accommodate your artist pupils even if you are teaching teaching a different subject like mathematics.
Affordable robotics systems is best to let your pupils apply their mathematics and science skill or if you allow your wild creativity to explode, robotics can be integrated to other learning areas as well.
CHALLENGES
It is easy to say do this and that because this thing has been proven to be the better way of doing things. The problem is after attending a training or a seminar about new methodologies on how information technology can be used to aid learning, we are unable to practice them. Well, not necessarily you intentionally did not apply the new methodology, it is just that you find it not applicable to your class. Maybe the curriculum is pushing us to integrated information technology in every lesson that we teach but the school where you are assigned doesn't even have a computer, or even just a television or a projector in the classroom. Or maybe there are computers, but they are not configured to aid learning. Instead of making learning meaningful it becomes a distraction because contents have not been filtered.
Let's say you have all the technology available, the next question is if the teachers are equipped with the skill in utilizing these technologies for learning. In my experience, despite of available technology in the school, teachers are not comfortable using them because they lack training.
Then it leads us to the next question. What to train? Let's say for example when it comes to the use of powerpoint presentation, are you going to train the teachers the different features of powerpoint so they will learn how to animate texts and images on the screen and use it in their lesson? After the training, let's say they learned already and now proficient in using powerpoint. The next question is do they have enough time to create presentations daily for each subject they teach? maybe it is possible if teachers only have 2-3 subject to teach and they are only required to create powerpoint presentations daily that will meet their current lesson objectives and nothing else do. But for a typical public school teacher in the Philippines with all the duties and responsibilities in reality, I think this is impossible. Unless the teacher will sacrifice his/her health by depriving his/her sleep and rest time and doesn't have other tasks to work on.
If we need effective teachers who can use modern technology to aid learning we should stop putting on them the burden of making instructional materials themselves, they should not be creating powerpoint presentation by themselves. It needs to be created in advance and must be provided to them, so they can focus on teaching. So what's the use of powerpoint training? Teachers will be able to use that skill to modify the provided e-presentation to meet his/her students needs, if the presentation happens to be too difficult or too easy for his/her class, the teacher can just add or modify it based on his/her creativity and resourcefulness, this way they have less time for creating materials for themselves and have more contact time with the students. This answers the question What to train? So after creating these lessons in e-presentation form, educational technology experts should train teachers what to do on that presentation, what are the ways to present that presentation the best way possible, and to modify it when needed. Peace out!
I hope this has been informative for you, thank you for reading!
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