Remember the time when classes were conducted with boards with a chalk or marker? When understanding 3D shapes on a 2D board was nothing less than a miracle? When you just nodded in affirmation when teacher asked that whether you understood the lecture or not.
Well now the things have or are transitioning towards a change.
How, you ask?
By making the schools smart.
Institutes have realized the importance of incorporating technology in schools in order to bring improvement in the quality of education and results of the students.
Here are the 8 tech gadgets making schools smart
- Have digital textbooks made paper obsolete?
The textbooks and registers have been replaced. Students no longer have to carry big, spine straining bags that are stuffed with heavy books.
They have been replaced by a single, portable and light weight digital textbooks that allow all the functions of a normal one but none of the weight.
Not only does these digital textbooks have enough storage to hold all of your textbooks, but it can store all of your course books too.
- Tablets, the future of education
Tablets have revolutionized the classrooms. There was a time when the teacher had to use boards to deliver lectures. But now the paradigms have changed.
- Helping the teachers
Instead of teaching on boards, teachers prepare lectures as digital presentations that each student can view on their tablets.
Teachers can now create more intuitive and fun lectures using pictures and videos for better explanation.
- Are softwares better at teaching?
There are many digital educational softwares that facilitate and help students in their learning. Softwares that replaces limitations of learning, like “Electronic Work Bench” that is a very interactive and user friendly software for making electronic circuits and projects.
It replaces the physical limitations as it has every known electronic component known to mankind in it’s database. The students and researchers can experiment on this software and build prototypes and experiment, before implementing the circuits in real life. This is a very safe and cost effective method of learning.
- E-testing aiding in analytics
The tests are conducted digitally that removes the chances of cheating and provides with analytics of each individual students. This can be used to profile each student separately and then using that to work on each student’s weak areas.
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- Boosting creativity with 3D Printers and 3D Doodlers
Many of us were clueless most of the time when it came to understanding 3D shapes. It is hard to comprehend a 3D object on a 2D plane, unless one have a very good imagination. 3D printers and doodlers are good for tactile type learning.
3D printers allow the printing of complex shapes and objects that can be used to help students understand them better.
For example subject like chemistry become very easy to comprehend if proper 3D structures of molecules and bonds are present.
- Remote learning with Webcams and Projectors
The teachers can also deliver lectures remotely using webcams. For example world renowned teachers and professors can screen live lectures in different classrooms throughout the world with the help of projectors. Or conduct seminars and training sessions in places, where travelling might not be feasible due to time constraints.
They can also record their lectures for students who either missed the lectures or when they feel the need to review the lecture in future.
- Experience impossibilities in Holographic world
The augmented reality allow students a hands-on experience of learning. Recreating different holographic environments that would help students in better understanding something.
It can be either used to virtually take the students on excursion trips to different parts of the world. Or create artificial environments for them to help understand some fundamental topics better e.g. taking them inside an atom to explain it’s structure or a virtual trip of the space to teach them about different planets and our solar system.
- When boards become smart
Smart boards are just like normal white boards, the only difference is that they are interactive, these boards are touch enabled and allow many functions like
Internet Connectivity
- Allows internet surfing and additional features like ability to play videos
Ability to write into files
- It has the compatibility to open files of different formats and even annotate on those files
Zooming
- Ability to zoom into different areas on the screen e.g. pictures for better visualization
Device Compatibility
- Ability to connect and share screen to different devices like mobile phones, tablets and laptops
Multi-user Collaboration
- Allows multiple users to be linked and work on the same screen simultaneously.
You and your friends can search for assignment help online or UK best essays style for your essay assignments and work on it simultaneously while being on different devices.
- Smarter Tables
These tables are just like smart boards but in the form of table. Where smart boards are used for collaborative experience between teachers and students, smart tables are there for promoting collaborative experience between the students by allowing them to simultaneously use it.
- Security and time management with Biometrics
Technology is all about optimizing your time for better utilizing it elsewhere. Normal attendance taking in classroom takes a lot of time depending on the number of students in a class. And this is something that is prone to human error.
Using biometric helps reduce the time it takes to mark the attendance and is a foolproof method of collecting information.
Using biometrics can also help keep institutes safe as no outsiders will be allowed to enter the premises or imposter any student.
We see how these 8 gadgets have been useful in different domains. Some targeting the educational prospects, others improving the creativity and learning prospects for students and some improving data collection and security of these schools. All of them making the 21st century schools smarter.
