Engaging students by taking advantage of new technology can have a powerful impact on how well they understand and retain information. Innovations online and new computer hardware will soon transform the classroom by giving kids new ways to learn. Here are 4 new technologies that will change teaching and learning over the next few years:
Tablets and eReaders
iPads (a tablet) and Kindles (an eReader) have turned the mobile computer world on its head in the past few years. Neither was the first of its kind on the market, but both brought widespread adoption to their respective categories. The iPad is dominating the tablet market with 95% of the market share, and Amazon announced this holiday season that eBooks outsold print books for the first time.
What does it mean for teaching?
Teachers should embrace tablets and eReaders. Touchscreen tablets provide an incredibly immersive computing experience (much more than a traditional mouse and keyboard) and mobile websites or apps designed for these tablets can easily be used to help reinforce concepts learned in the classroom in a way that pencil and paper never could. eReaders also provide immediate access to digital textbooks and eBooks, meaning teachers can supplement their lesson with a book that they thought about as they were preparing for class the night before. No more waiting weeks for books. eBooks can also be significantly cheaper than traditional textbooks, helping school districts stretch their dollar further.
Social Networks
Facebook recently passed Google as the most visited site in the United States. That, coupled with the fact that Facebook now has more than 500 million users worldwide, and teenagers are spending more and more time on social network sites, makes it a space that can no longer be ignored.
What does it mean for teaching?
First off, if teachers aren’t on Facebook they need to get on. Facebook simply has too much influence and reach to be ignored anymore, and, most importantly: your students are already on there. Second, don’t start friending all your students. Instead, create a discussion board and make it homework for the night for students to go and post comments on a topic, such as: “do you think schools should ban books such as Huck Finn for controversial language? Why or why not?” Students will appreciate you engaging them in a space they feel comfortable, and you’re likely to get more responses and participation than posing a similar question in class.
Online Video
With YouTube celebrating only its five year anniversary, it’s hard to imagine a time before the prevalence of online video. Now, on YouTube alone, 35 hours of video are uploaded every minute. Creating and distributing videos has become a crucial way for everyone, especially teens, to express themselves.
What does it mean for teaching?
There’s an abundance of relevant content for teachers on Youtube. In addition, teachers can think of creative ways to incorporate online video into assignments. Maybe you let students run the class for the day and they are required to make a video help teach their peers as part of the lesson plan. Or, assign a paper on the most viewed videos on YouTube over the past month and why students think these went viral. Online video is also a great resource to find instructional and teaching videos, giving teachers another way to present information.
Interactive Web Applications
Extending the web beyond simply text and images has been the quiet revolution online over the past decade. The change happened so gradually that we hardly noticed it, but tools like Gmail, Basecamp, and Mint all exist solely as online applications that allow us to take our computing lives wherever we have an internet connection.
What does it mean for teaching?
Although it might mean the end of snow days, interactive online applications can extend the classroom beyond the brick-and-mortar boundaries of the school. Students could play games online to reinforce math lessons, download their latest assignments through a virtual blackboard, and even take quizzes at home. Interactive applications online allow students a different way to interact with the material, making them more likely to retain the information after the class has ended.
Innovations in technology have already changed the consumer landscape dramatically over the past 5 years. Now that schools and teachers have begun to embrace this change, technology has the opportunity to alter the way students learn by giving them new ways to experience and interact with information.
What technology do you think will transform teaching in the future?
