FEATURE FOCUS: CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY
EdTech as an ally in the classroom: transforming lessons into active and collaborative learning experiences
also encouraging exploration, collaboration and fostering greater understanding. And today, active learning remains an increasingly important method of boosting student engagement. It has become a top priority for school leaders and teachers to incorporate in classrooms, and a place where EdTech can provide significant support.
What is active learning? I
n our second feature this month on classroom technology we’re delighted to hear from Jonathan Moore, Education Consultant at SMART Technologies, who looks at active learning and the role technology can play in supporting it.
Rewind ten, five, or even just a couple years ago and you can see the ways teaching and learning has transformed with the adoption of technology in classrooms. In that time we’ve learnt that engaging students in active learning is more important than ever.
New digital tools - and using tools in new ways - have transformed the way students connect with their learning, making the learning experience more meaningful and flexible, whilst
Active learning is exactly what its name implies. It is an approach that helps learners store new information into long-term memory and develop a conceptual understanding of the material. It takes teaching beyond ‘sit and get’ to enable learning that engages students and makes learning ‘stickier’. Research has identified several benefits of active learning for students: it improves critical thinking, increases retention of new information, improves transfer of new information and promotes higher order thinking skills.
Now, teachers are not only recognising active learning pedagogies, but aiming to incorporate them in all lesson planning and activities, with the support of digital infrastructure which is widely acknowledged for providing transformative active learning solutions.
As a result, EdTech solutions which directly support active learning are increasingly embraced in schools - to encourage exploration, collaboration and foster students’ greater understanding. In fact, the UK has become a world-leading role in EdTech adoption, the
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demand growing by 72% in 2020 and anticipated to be worth £3.4 billion at the end of 2021. Moreover, according to research collected from SMART’s EdTech Assessment Tool, 64% of UK schools are now embedding technology in everyday teaching and learning practices as a result.
The rise of EdTech and cloud-based learning Of course, as part of this adoption, we must acknowledge the huge rise in demand in the last three years, as communities around the world and in the UK, accelerated their investment in building new EdTech infrastructures to support learning and teaching like never before. The pandemic saw schools rush to invest in EdTech to connect students and staff amid remote and hybrid learning periods. Whether that be investing in hardware and connectivity tools, or providing devices and additional support for students, many schools are now better equipped to support blended learning and continue to benefit from their investments in and outside of the school walls.
Entire school communities were opened up to the benefits of edtech in the classroom, and the flexibility and engagement it can provide in different learning environments, as well as the potential to personalise learning. We also witnessed the rise of off-the-server, cloud-based learning which provides students with access to education resources and teaching anywhere. And as a result, cloud-based platforms, like Lumio, have earnt much popularity on the
March 2023
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