The fast pace of innovations in data and internet driven technologies in past decade has influenced every aspect of our life. Let it be the way we start our day, plan our day, commute, eat, work, connect with people, interact with people, be social, transact and the way we learn new things.
Conventional ways of teaching and learning are being infused with digital
learning every other day. The way swiftly a classroom environment changing,
especially when the technology affluent Gen Z being the student now (Gen Z is
the newest generation born
between year 1996-2015), it is a time to leave the teaching methods used
to teach the Echo Boomers (the generation born between year
1977-94) and start infusing newer teaching and learning techniques based on emerging
technologies.
The infusion of digital learning in the classrooms can be in the form of tablets or laptops like Chromebooks replacing notebooks resulting in to a paperless classroom experience.
This change will initiate use of apps, websites, teaching tools, and technologies built for e-schooling. This e-schooling technology eco-system can include social networks and chat platforms to share and discuss assignments. Digital learning increases student’s interest in learning new concepts and scale their overall perspective.
This article explains how digital learning will be a good addition in our conventional education methods.
Digital technology promotes Self learning and Smart thinking
Digital technology has made the Generation Z students more affluent and knowledge hungry and they have developed self learning skills. They are deciding what to learn find and use online resources, use the information to solve problems, and even evaluate outcome on their own.
Digital based learning helps in understanding concepts quickly and increase their competence and overall productivity. Apart from self help, digital learning sharpens critical thinking skills, which further help in improvement of analytic reasoning. Students answering questions by remembering from textbook and bit imagination, with help of digital learning can answer with reasoning.
Learning Collaboration, Teamwork and Discipline, the digital way
Gamification is one of the best aspect of interactive education as it teaches students playing in a group to work together to win a game or accomplish their targets. It also promotes collaboration and teamwork which is very important skill to succeed in life. Interactive games are designed to teach children decision making, discipline by making them follow rules and they also develop positive feelings of achievement from mastering new knowledge and skills.
e-Learning keeps students engaged as well as responsible
Students learning through digital medium become more engaged in the process and more fascinated in upgrading their overall understanding. Unknowingly they indulge in process of active learning which consists of teamwork, problem-solving, reverse coaching, concept maps, gamification, level-play, role-play and storytelling.
The aspects of interactivity and remembrance as compare to traditional textbook learning, e-learning provides better perspective and more appealing activities than conventional teaching methods.
Another aspect of e-learning is, it tracks the progress, assess understanding systematically and shows a scorecard. As students track their own progress it results in high level of motivation and accountability.
Benefits to teaching community
Digital technology brings in range of tools like easy lesson planning, class content creation, assessment creation and much more for an educator. This helps the educator save time and utilize time efficiently to analyze progress of individual students and assist them in understanding concepts and grasp pace with curriculum.
With social platforms, Educators get ability to create and manage groups depending on speed of learning, group activities, and mixing students equally to maintain poise. On the fly grouping, workshops and gamification adds up collaborative culture to the conventional education model.
Digitization has brought in revolution in form of being social, connect with likeminded people, form communities and groups on the fly, use discussion boards and threads to ask questions and respond to others queries from across the globe. Knowledge sharing has become easy and helpful to all. Teachers can join specific online groups and communities and ask questions and share tips, keep themselves updated with latest and appropriate content for their syllabus.
Looking at all aspects we can say that digital based education with enriched content, gamification, group activities can result in enhanced classroom experience.
Disruption in Content Format, Creation, Consumption and Sharing
Digitization has brought a huge change in the way people create content and consume it. The old days of reading a printed newspaper in the morning to know what happened yesterday is a passé and replaced by news sites and social apps which gives latest news via live content at our fingertips.
The past decade has seen a shift from print to digital which has changed the way we learn too. This transformation is changing conventional education and opening up larger spectrum of learning opportunities. Digital technologies has allowed students to access huge set of academic content which they can customize, sort and filter as per their interest area. The striking difference digital transformation brings in is the way they can consume it, as per availability of device, at a convenient place and time, as per individual pace.
Apart from individual learning, Digital technology enables learners to share educational content with fellow learners on the fly and learn in collaboration, accomplish group assignments. Google and Yahoo search engines in past decades pioneered and made free and open content available to all who seeking for information. This paved way to build an environment of sharing ecosystem. Using devices, connectivity and educational content, classrooms can boost knowledge, understanding and communications skills.
Conventional Vs New age learning, the way ahead
Conventional teaching methods including classroom teaching will always be there, but to make it more effective and future ready, it has to be allied with digital learning tools and technology.
One way is to use classroom time for introduction and explanation of concepts followed by discussions, engaging in group activities and finishing projects while supporting learning material can be shared on a digital learning platform, for reading, understanding and reference. With this, if the entire curriculum loaded in to the platform, Students can continue learning in parallel and even come prepared for classes by reading in advance
We have to agree to a fact that a lot of good things digital tools bring to the table are not possible to be delivered by conventional teaching and learning methods.
From a paperless classroom to fast access to information, digital technology provides a perfect way to save money, save time, increase reach, make best use of resources and many more benefits.
Parenting 2.0, enhancing child’s knowledge at home
Digitization of educational processes makes parents more attentive of its child’s curriculum, activities and day to day progress. At home, Parents can use interactive learning tools, apps to uplift their kid’s interest in education as gamification makes the process much more enjoyable and interesting.
A good example of gamification in education is app like Duolingo. Duolingo makes language learning easy for beginners. It helps to learn many dialects like English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, German, Japanese, Latin etc. in a fun and smart way. The app has an array of lessons that use listening exercises, flashcards, and multiple choice questions to drill a user on new words, phrases, and sentences.
Apps like QuizUp combines trivia and a social network and invites player to choose from more than 1,200 topics, take part in challenges and illustrated quizzes and post about player’s interests.
Parents can utilize such tools to build and enhance enriched learning culture at home. Digital technology adds fun element in kid’s learning process as well as adds numerous benefits in terms of developing a child’s overall growth.
Making kids future ready
Unlike old ways of parenting, Today’s parents plan kids education well in advance and prepare them with the prerequisites related to higher education and related entrance exams. Deciding a career path of a student at a young age has become important for parents as well as the of school education system.
Use of digital technology in primary and secondary schooling can get students ready for higher education and modern careers by helping them gain skills including analytical thinking, reasoning abilities, presentation skills, data mining skills and fluency with emerging technologies.
Making the kids mere exam ready alone may not be able to give a successful career. It is important that logical skills, rational and critical thinking, team work is built within kids right from school so as they are not groomed only as good scorers, but as bright individuals with wide mental and emotional horizons.
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