How can Teachers use Technology in the Classroom to Boost Student Engagement?
It’s not a secret that today’s students are more tech-savvy than ever before. Like it or not, the Generation Z is becoming more and more attached to their “smart” gadgets. You can often hear teachers complain that students spend most of their time on social networks, video games and other forms of online entertainment, being distracted away from school classes.
But despite the common belief that technology undermines the learning process, it has proven to be a great tool to empower teachers and students, when used the right way. Teachers’ reluctance to use technology in the classroom is less a question of scepticism about its potential, but in large part, fear of technology and the need to keep up with trends.
As an educator, you should take the courage to go the extra mile, overcome the fear of technology and “do it digital” at your classes. This will surely help you meet your students where they are and support their learning experience on their terms.
Here are some ideas of how you can use technology in your classroom to boost student engagement and encourage learning.
- Go on virtual trips with Google Street View
Weather your class is going to read an article about a historical or natural monument, or do a research on a cultural phenomenon, you may want to take them to the setting. While it’s often impossible to visit the place physically due to distance and other logistical issues, technology can make it happen for your students.
You can use Google’s Street View to make virtual field trips to any place in the world, enter buildings, explore parks, forests or hiking trails. If you want to add more fun to your virtual travel experience, you can make your students play games, like city scavenger hunt. Imagine them trying to find the Trevi Fountain in Rome or the Parthenon in Athens!
2. Add multimedia to your lessons
Different people learn differently. Some of us are visual learners, while others are better at memorizing sounds or learning through reading/writing. This list of learning styles can go on. It means you have to accommodate different teaching styles in the classroom to make sure that your students are equally engaged in the learning process. While monotonous lectures can often disengage students, adding multimedia elements to your lessons will help you hold their attention.
You can use Prezi or PowerPoint to incorporate images, videos, audio clips, graphs and other types of media in your presentation. In this way you’ll make it easier for your students stay focused on the material throughout the class.
3. Run polls and surveys
Rather than banning the use of mobile devices in the classroom, you should find creative and fun ways to use them for learning purposes. For example, you can run online polls and surveys as a fun way to involve the smart gadgets in the learning process.
There are tools, like Swift Polling, which allow you to easily create SMS or web polls to gauge the students’ understanding of the material or receive their opinions on certain topics. Students can vote from any device and you can even share the real-time results with them as the voting goes.
While some students may feel uncomfortable to raise their hand and speak out loud, using online polls will help you ensure that they are also engaged in the learning process and your classes aren’t just about you talking at your students.
4. Create a classroom blog
Having students showcase their works in a blog is a great way to encourage learning and hard work. A classroom blog will help your students build an authentic community of audience, improve research and creative writing skills and connect with other students around the world. On the other hand, it will make easier for parents to stay updated about the progress of their children. In the beginning, you may find it difficult to figure out how to set up a blog, but there are many student blogging guides and tutorials which can make your first steps easier.
5. Try WebQuests
A WebQuest is a lesson format in which the students are instructed to search the internet for specific information to solve a task. The teacher can give them a list of online resources they have to work with to complete the task. For example, students can be divided into several groups, each group having to represent the New Year rituals in different countries. They have to search the web to find out when and how people around the world celebrate the New Year and present the traditions to their classmates.
Creating a task is the most difficult part of the WebQuest, but there are many already-constructed webquests out there, so you can check them out and generate some fresh ideas for your own one.
As you see, embracing technology in the classroom is quite easy and it pays off in terms of student engagement and interaction. You just need to use your limitless creativity and play around with tools that technology provides.
