Gadgets for school

1. “Wearable” gadgets – for example, “smart watches” or Google Glass – look promising in terms of the perspective of application in education. Teachers building their activities based on activity-based learning will attract smart watch functions such as pulse, pressure and speed measurement, and Google Glass, thanks to the technology of augmented reality, will help visually combine “virtual” knowledge and the real world, increasing interest in learning.

2. Take your device with you (BYOD – Bring your own device). Given the proliferation of smartphones and tablets among schoolchildren, it is now as natural to take a gadget to school as a pen and a notebook. According to the research, employees, who have modern devices at home, expect no less than modern technical support and in the workplace. The same can be said about schoolchildren: if the school can not offer students the equipment that they have at home, they will bring gadgets with them. Does it make sense to prohibit this, or can it be used for good?

3. Mobile training. According to IBM, until the end of 2015, the market for mobile devices is expected to 3.4 billion users (this is every second person on the planet). As for the educational segment, mobile applications with educational content currently occupy the second place in terms of the number of downloads in iTunes. This means that, firstly, users really want to get knowledge, and secondly – that they decide when and where to learn them. This trend can greatly change the traditional “localized” school education.

Online interaction in the classroom

4. “Cloud” technology. More and more schools in the world use “cloud” tools, such as Google Classroom, Moodle, Blackboard. It is more convenient for teachers and students alike to have access to an educational resource anywhere and at any convenient time.

5. Social networks from the place to publish photos and status have long become a working tool for the exchange of information and distance interaction. Gradually they are mastered and schools.

6. Openness and transparency. Electronic journals and diaries, e-learning tools and online courses allow more participants of the educational process not only to have constant access to information, but, moreover, personalize (adjust to their educational needs) the learning process itself.

“Handmade

Even though the educational space is becoming more and more “digitized”, it still has a place for more complex actions in “offline” than for manipulating the touch screen.

7. The technology of 3D printing can become the missing link that visually combines digital information with real objects that you can touch with your hands. According to analysts, in 4-5 years, 3D printers will become widespread in the educational sector. And now some schools use engineering and laboratory technologies and devices that offer, for example, littleBits and EdTechTitans or LET and Indigos.

Pedagogical technologies that realize the individual educational needs of students

8. Mixed training is no longer a novelty, but it is still not used in all schools. Nevertheless, this technology managed to prove its effectiveness for the individualization of learning and increasing the independence of students. Due to the transfer of the “routine” part to the electronic format, the teacher gets more time to organize the productive, research and creative activity of the students.

9. Distance learning has long been known and popular in the business environment and at the stage of higher education, but the widespread use of distance learning technologies and the active expansion of e-learning into the school have become visible over the past few years. Online courses, simulators, tools for their creation and publication, LMS-systems that provide not only educational content, but also the means of organizing the educational process with a wide range of special tools, are becoming more and more in demand.

10. Gamefication (active learning activities with game elements) allows students to memorize up to 90% of the information received. Experts predict that this technology will be widely used in the next 2-3 years.

Modern technology in school: the choice is yours

Technology in the education process has already turned our everyday life and business processes. When we learn about the release of a new gadget, we can easily abandon the less perfect solutions and move to new ones in a day or two. The school should be more critical in choosing new devices and technologies, conducting research and approbation. Knowing about all the opportunities offered by the techno-world, the school and teachers are looking for something that will really change the quality of the educational process and will not only make it more modern. But it is already obvious that without technical and technological innovations the system of general education can not be dispensed with.