Just arrived home from an evening writing class with some ESL students. I uploaded the Powerpoint and the examples to the cloud (Drive), so they could use it online for the practice part of the class (smartphone, tablet, university network) after my lecture. They produced texts online in the cloud, which I can comment on - for all visible and hopefully instructive. What has been transformed is not the content but the way to work together - collaboratively.

In the past, they had to copy the important points on paper, or I had to hand out paper. During class they were distracted by taking notes, now they can concentrate on questions. They had to turn in paper work, which I had to check for plagiarism (how?), mark and return to the individual student. No collaboration.

There are many other advantages with the use of technology: personalizing pace of learning and 24/7 availability, among others.

If technology doesn't work in class as expected, though, it can be a huge distraction from the learning materials. You better have a backup plan even if it eats some of the time up you spare by using such tools as Drive.

BTW. Since you are interested in classroom technology the question topic "Educational technology' might be of some importance.

Hi Michael,

I am in my second year at University and since being in education I have always been involved with technology which has helped to enhance my learning experience. I study Emergency Planning and Disaster Management and I have found that the use of applications such as "ubAlert" which essentially gives you live updates on recent events worldwide such as pandemics, epidemics, seismology and weather warnings etc. This has really helped with my coursework as I am able to access these events to look at the severity of each incident and as to how many people have been affected.

On a bigger scale for Business Continuity Management, a company named "Cobalt" has a fantastic piece of software which helps to construct Business Impact Analysis and acts as a live document in which users are able to review and update BIA's and is something I have had first hand experience on using and is very beneficial in both the corporate world and the academia world.

Hope this has sort of given you a perspective on a two types of software and applications I have used to help with my studies.

Just arrived home from an evening writing class with some ESL students. I uploaded the Powerpoint and the examples to the cloud (Drive), so they could use it online for the practice part of the class (smartphone, tablet, university network) after my lecture. They produced texts online in the cloud, which I can comment on - for all visible and hopefully instructive. What has been transformed is not the content but the way to work together - collaboratively.

In the past, they had to copy the important points on paper, or I had to hand out paper. During class they were distracted by taking notes, now they can concentrate on questions. They had to turn in paper work, which I had to check for plagiarism (how?), mark and return to the individual student. No collaboration.

There are many other advantages with the use of technology: personalizing pace of learning and 24/7 availability, among others.

If technology doesn't work in class as expected, though, it can be a huge distraction from the learning materials. You better have a backup plan even if it eats some of the time up you spare by using such tools as Drive.

BTW. Since you are interested in classroom technology the question topic "Educational technology' might be of some importance.

We cannot deny the fact that technology does not only invaded industries but schools likewise. The presence of technology in the classroom makes classes more interesting and fun. Attitudes toward the subject has improved. Students tend to go to school earlier because they are excited to learn new things using the technologies provided in their classrooms. However, there are studies which show that the use of technology in the classroom has little impact on students academic performance. The study of Diaz (2014) for instance reveal that there is no significant difference in the level of performance in science. In her study, it was also revealed that there is no significant difference in the level of performance in science of the students when taught using the traditional teaching and those with the use of PANABOARD. This means that the level of performance of the students are almost the same.

I'm inclined to align with Eliseo here. I make heavy use of technology, with rather ornate PowerPoint slides embedding with audio, visuals, and videos. However, I think it's much ado about nothing (and the students are smart enough to know that) if the instructor is not bringing the enthusiasm to the classroom. That enthusiasm is what will give students the motivation to go out and start taking a more active role in their understanding. No amount of technology can make up for shortcomings in instructor enthusiasm, and I think technology is just sort of icing on the cake.

When I started my education, the teachers used to teach on blackboard with the help of chalks for writing and duster for erasing, then blackboards were replaced by whiteboards and chalks with markers. Then came projector when teachers started using slides to teach. It reduced the burden of teachers to a large extent. With the help of slide show, a chapter can be completed in 1 class which previously required more than 2-3 class to finish. And now it is the time of virtual classroom which cant be imagined few years back. With the help of virtual classroom quality of education will improve to a large extent and also can be reached to remote places easily.

The concept of virtual classroom is one of the biggest evolution in field of learning provided by modern technology which is definitely going to change the concept and idea of learning in coming future.

Regards,

Nitish

Although there are presence of technologies in the classroom to bring teaching and learning more comfortable to the teachers and students yet we cannot do away with what we have before-the traditional lecture discussion method. In areas were technology is quite impossible this is still the fad yet students do excel. As what I have stated in my first discussion, there are several studies which reveal that the presence of technology in the classroom has impacted less in the academic achievement of the students. The best thing I think we can do is use both the traditional and with technology in teaching the subject. For sure there topics in our discussion that can be done using technologies. Remember in teaching there is not such perfect strategies. What we do as a teacher is that we find appropriate strategies for a particular subject matter.

Dear Eliseo

I completely agree with you that there is no perfect strategy in teaching. I also want to add something in your last line:

Appropriate strategy for a perticular subject for a particular student or group of students.

Regards,

Nitish

Dear Nitish

Yes appropriate strategy for a particular subject matter for a group of students.

Thank you very much for your response.

Thanks for the thoughts. I have taken a lot from your ideas.

Here is a presentation I have made outlining the changes that have happened with the technology over the years. I don't have text, I'll be speaking through the images, but might add some later. See what you think.

http://prezi.com/tbsyemda4h2v/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy