After setting tech tools up, sliding in some batteries (if necessary), and turning it on, some educators are often left wondering ‘what comes next?’ For that reason, we’ve been big advocates of creating easy-to-follow starter activities for teachers to use in the classroom and now we’ve taken that initiative a step further!
When kids are sitting back, being spoken to, and completely passive about the content they’re absorbing in the classroom, how does that benefit them? They need active experiences and hands-on problem solving in order to become Future Ready. They need project-based learning and they need it to be of high quality.
Unfortunately, we can’t take all the credit, but we’d like to think that we play a small role in helping usher teachers into the 21st century. Now that most schools in the country and in the world are focusing a lot more on STEM education, upgrades need to be made to that as well. What’s the saying? Most of what you learn is obsolete two years from now?
If there is one goal of contemporary education it’s to prepare students for the real world. They will enter a world that’s hands-on, in need of problem solvers, and rewarding to those who develop creative solutions. It’s not as kind to those who only possess book smarts. It’s a challenge, but teachers help when they facilitate learning that mirrors the real world.
Tech tools have the ability to engage students and they help catalyze tech skills growth by default. While other factors can help spur some improved student engagement and achievement, the obvious answer in the 21st century is technology. And, whether in a classroom, library, or afterschool makerspace, there is a compatible tech tool for just about everyone.
Chances are your thoughts of traditional classrooms are different from how contemporary classrooms can—or at least should—be set up. Rows of desks and a chalkboard used to be staples but they don’t help prepare today’s kids for a hands-on future. They need collaboration, interaction, and active learning and it takes a different kind of classroom for this.
Collaboration and problem solving are an integral component of the modern-day workforce and, for that reason, have become an increasingly common part of modern education. Those who are able to break problems down and utilize a certain way of thinking to solve them while also incorporating technology are very valuable.
Students aren’t always guaranteed success by sporting straight A’s on their report cards—they need authentic experiences with real-world projects, coding, and collaborating. They also need to take charge and lead their own learning—and that is why many school districts are ditching the old ways and focusing more on student-led learning.
While we realize that there’s a lot of technology for helping kids of all ages learn, we might sometimes forget that there are also tools to help students who learn in different ways. When it comes to school children with learning differences, EdTech tools can help them learn in the same ways they help the average kid learn—grabbing their attention with hands-on challenges.
In the 21st century, those who are most successful are always thinking at least one—sometimes two, three, or four steps ahead. Why? Because they have to. No longer can the most successful workers and students get by on basic skills. The times have changed and now essentially require them to have increasingly innovative skill sets just to survive.
