Being a teacher is already hard enough these days due to various reasons beyond the teacher’s or school administration’s control.
However, that doesn’t mean that teachers will become more outdated than their students and counterparts in terms of knowledge in using educational technology (EdTech) in the classroom.
In this post, let’s talk about how schools, administrators, and teachers themselves can create a modern classroom to foster the needs of contemporary students.
1. Laptop or Computer
Owning a laptop or computer is the bare minimum for any teacher to modernize their teaching. With these devices, teachers can create presentations, watch and show educational videos, write school documents, record student grades, and do some research about the topics they’ll teach.
Laptops and computers should also have a minimum specification suitable for most applications that are needed for schooling. But that doesn’t mean that everyone should splurge for the expensive MacBooks. A normal laptop powered by a recent Intel Core i3 or i5 processor with 8GB RAM of RAM is often enough for most use cases.
It would also be really helpful for teachers if the procurement of teachers’ laptops were initiated at school.
2. Projector
Gone are the days when Manila papers and cartolina were used for reporting and presentations.
Instead, projectors should be the standard for all schoolteachers for their lectures and for their students to share their presentations. Teachers can also use projectors to show video lectures to help students better understand a topic.
Schools don’t even have to buy projectors in a one-to-one ratio. They can have a sharing scheme for teachers, students, and administrators for each device. It will prepare elementary and high school students for college and college students better opportunities after graduation.
3. Printer
Printers are one of the three most essential tools for teachers, the other two being a laptop and a projector.
Teachers can use their printers to produce learning materials, tests, and other documents. By equipping themselves with a good quality printer, they will not need to spend their money to pay for printing shops. Reams of bond papers and inks are also cheaper to buy.
4. Scanner and Document Camera
Think of EdTech gadgets as a teaching ecosystem requiring seamless document and learning materials transmission. This is where a scanner and document camera will be useful.
Teachers can conveniently scan students’ submissions and tests for storage and transmission to their laptops, smartphones, or smart boards.
Some printers already have scanning functionality. But if yours don’t have it, you can use a smartphone like the OPPO Reno12 F pictured above, to quickly scan documents using the camera.
5. Presentation Clicker
For teachers who like to move and don’t like spending their time stuck in front of their computers, clicking ‘Next’ for each slide of their PowerPoint, a presentation clicker is the solution they are looking for.
A clicker is a relatively cheap gadget connected wirelessly to your laptops that can work wonders for classroom management strategies. It will allow teachers to walk around the room while never missing a beat on the next slide.
6. Smart Board
Like how projectors can step up teachers’ and students’ presentations, a smartboard is another innovation for educators that replaces static blackboards with an interactive whiteboard.
It provides teachers and students with a touch screen whiteboard where users can write, move shapes and blocks, and embed videos and pictures into the screen. It creates an engaging environment for everyone to make lessons easier to learn.
7. Smart Speakers
Since education needs to be more interactive in the new age of distractions, teachers can use a smart speaker that can act as a loudspeaker for videos and music, as well as voice-activated commands.
It will also work seamlessly with the rest of the smart devices inside the classroom, which will create an interactive learning environment.
8. Pen Drive or USB Flash Drives
USB Flash Drives may have lost their appeal to many people because of the ease of access to cloud storage, like Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. However, for schools with slow to no Internet connections, these flash drives are still essential for portable data storage.
It’s also still easier to use a flash drive to save your documents and plug them into a co-worker’s laptop or printer. A flash drive is still a quick and easy solution to share your PowerPoint presentation or a large file with your class.
Teaching is becoming harder and harder in the era of distracted students and parents, so as teachers, innovation is crucial to ensure that students will engage.
Schools and school administrators should also find ways they can help and support the already overworked students and teachers through technological upgrades.