New technologies

Our younger pupils also use ICT

Noticias

By:Ana María Losada Antón/observatory.itesm.mx/04-07-2018

There is a wide variety of educational resources that we can explore in the classroom. The most important thing is to have a learning objective according to the cognitive development and maturity of the children, with a constructive use of new technologies.

Despite the growing effort by many teachers to incorporate didactic information technologies into the preschool classroom, their use has been limited to educational computer games and the projection of videos on smart boards.

However, there are other educational resources that we can also explore in the classroom, which do not require an exorbitant budget. For this, a clear learning objective according to the children’s cognitive development and maturity is absolutely necessary. Also, as teachers, we must be aware that we are educating our little digital natives in the appropriate and constructive use of new technologies.

Nowadays, there are multiple educational platforms and teacher blogs, such as Mi aula de infantil and La clase de Miren, as well as social network groups where we can find the good practices of teachers who are experienced in the use of educational technologies, such as tablets, mobile devices, smart boards and robots, and which serve as a model and an inspiration for our own performance. Moreover, these resources confirm that any content can be addressed using a technological tool with an educational objective.

“There are other educational resources that we can also explore in the classroom, which do not require an exorbitant budget.”

In my classroom I try to use a variety of technological tools as an additional resource, never as the only one, to accomplish the learning objectives in different areas. Augmented reality applications such as Quiver or Chromville, for example, help us to work on diverse subject-related aspects and interaction with the environment. Students are amazed to see how their own creations (a human body, a winter landscape or a world map they have just colored) come to life on paper. Apart from being motivating, they facilitate learning by offering a more real approach and providing students with a 3-D view of a globe or the human body.

QR codes are also very useful at this stage to disseminate all types of information related to daily life in the classroom. Some application examples are: indications on our ongoing project, new clues, secrets about our classroom pet, among others. A simple initiative is to include a code on a piece of cardboard for children to take home and, using a phone or tablet, they can reveal to their family the hidden recording of a poem recitation, a dance, a song or a photo album, thus disseminating their own creations and classwork. QR codes can also be allies for working on diverse curricular content. We can use them as word decoders in a reading and writing game, inserting next to the word or phrase a code that will show children an image of what they have read, so they can check for themselves whether or not they got it right.

Preschoolers can also have fun with basic programming and robotics tools in the classroom. As a starting point, using only their own body instead of technological resources, we can introduce students to the concept of programming through a motor skills game that allows them to discover how an action or an order generates a specific movement. In this way, we transform the children into little robots that move over a grid drawn on the floor, by following the instructions their classmates give them through cards with directional arrows. Then we can move on to more complex board games such as Robot Turtles (ages 4 and up) and finally use small robots such as Bee-Boot or Robot Mouse that can easily be found in stores and online.

“I try to use a variety of technological tools as an additional resource, never as the only one, to accomplish the learning objectives in different areas. ”

These tools encourage problem solving, spatial organization and logical thinking, while we work on content such as vocabulary, numbers, counting, or reading cartoons and images.

The experience of integrating this type of tools into the preschool classroom has allowed me to observe, on the one hand, their enormous didactic potential and, on the other, that children feel incredibly comfortable and confident in this area, but with the supervision of the teacher.

Mobile devices form part of our little pupils’ daily lives and are, in many cases, readily available to them. Even though they appear to have mastered them technically, good technical management is not indicative of proper, constructive and responsible use. Our duty is precisely to teach and impress upon them their proper use from an early age, bearing in mind that these devices will be around throughout their lives. Consequently, incorporating technological tools with appropriate teaching methodologies is essential, making them a natural part of daily life at school.

To develop students’ digital literacy, we first need to be aware of our own shortcomings and become, fearlessly and confidently, the first learners.

I would like to invite all teachers to reflect together on how we are using ICT. To do so, we need to be trained and have the capacity to step outside our comfort zone, in order to discover the magic that is generated in the educational experience once the panic zone has been overcome.

About the author

Ana María Losada Antón (ana_loan@hotmail.com) holds a B.A. in Elementary Education and a diploma in preschool education. She teaches at Colegio Público de Toledo, Castilla – La Mancha (Spain) and is also a member of the collaborative group Bricolaje Digital, created to integrate digital tools in schools and reflect on new educational trends.

*Fuente: http://observatory.itesm.mx/edu-bits-2/our-smallest-pupils-also-use-ict

Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »

7 Crucial education technology trends for the last 5 years.

Noticias

By Richard D. Eddington/irishtechnews.ie/06-05-2018

The world is changing, and education must change with it. Many schools are aware of this fact and are trying to rebuild their activities in accordance with the opportunities offered by new technologies. Some universities borrow ideas from the business world, referring to the experience of successful start-ups in order to launch some new processes for themselves. Gradually, a paper routine leaves the schools, giving way to electronic means of working with data.

  1. School as a Service

School as a service begins with the commitment of the state to each student as a digital student. When states reduce historical barriers, the transition to personal digital learning will mean a school service: access to quality courses and teachers from several providers.

Education SaaS changes the basic assumptions – it does not need to associate time and place. This does not mean that everything will become virtual – in the foreseeable future, at least 90 percent of families will benefit from local schools, but this requires new thinking, new staffing models, new budgeting strategies and new ways of communicating with students and families.

  1. Mobile Learning

Mobile learning, also known as m-learning, is an educational system. Using portable computing devices (such as iPads, laptops, tablets, PDAs, and smartphones), wireless networks provide mobility and mobile training, which allows to teach and learn to expand beyond the traditional audience. Within the class, mobile training provides instructors and students with increased flexibility and new possibilities for interaction.

  1. Gamification in Education

Gemification in education is sometimes described using other terms: game thinking, the principles of the game for learning, the design of motivation, the design of interaction, etc. This differs from game-based learning in that it doesn`t imply that students themselves play commercial video games. It works on the assumption that the kind of interaction that players encounter with games can be transformed into an educational context in order to facilitate learning and influence on students’ behavior. Because gamers voluntarily spend a lot of time for gaming, researchers and teachers are exploring ways to use the power of video games to motivate and apply it in the classroom.

  1. Big Data

“Big Data” is a term that we are used to hearing in business, but it is also an important tool for education. Learning World explores this technological fashion word and talks with an expert on this topic: Kenneth Cuciere, co-author of “Learning with Big Data.”

Cukier sees “Big Data” as an opportunity to adapt learning to the individual needs of students and the learning process. Instead of avoiding this, teachers must accept changes that bring in large data, and use them to their advantage.

One example of the large data that occurs in education is the “Course Signals”, which allow professors to give feedback if there are early signs that students do not exercise or do not use class time.

  1. Blended and Flipped Learning

Blended learning is a pedagogical method in which the learner learns, at least in part, by providing content and training through digital and online media using the student controls in time or place. This allows the student to create an individual and integrated approach to learning. Blended training is combined with a flipped class approach to learning.

The Flipped class is a pedagogical model in which the typical elements of the lecture and the homework of the course change to the opposite. Students watch short video lectures or other multimedia materials asynchronously before a class session. Then, class time is devoted to active learning, such as discussions, design or problem assignments, or laboratory exercises. This learning model allows teachers to guide the teaching of students by answering students’ questions and helping them apply the concepts of the course during classes.

  1. Massive Online Open Courses

Nowadays MOOCs may not be so widespread as when they first attracted attention, and people no longer think that this is the answer to the problems of educational inequality. Nevertheless, MOOCs still deserve close attention, as it develops as an important part of education, and it offers its students many advantages if used well. Moreover, The New York Times called 2013 the “Year of the MOOC” because it attracted a lot of attention and money.

  1. Personalized Learning

Personalized learning is a sort of adaptive learning that considers working with computers to make decisions, based on previous levels of learner understanding when interacting with a computer program. Learning analytics and artificial intelligence are the essence of individual learning because without them it would be impossible to easily adapt the instruction on the basis of immediate answers.

Personalized learning can seem like a dream in many schools, but it’s already happening more than we can imagine – and often behind the back of the teacher.

The universities realized that technology can be a catalyst for improving the learning process. If many people enjoy using gadgets, why not to make them an education tool?

*Fuente: https://irishtechnews.ie/7-crucial-education-technology-trends-for-the-last-5-years/

Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »