A friend and I were chatting at a party about
studies and his journey of becoming a teacher. One particular part which stood
out was his time at an underprivileged school, which he had just began to teach
at. The school was donated four interactive white boards a year prior to his arrival,
as well as projectors and laptops which sat in the store room the entire time.
When media training was offered on how to use this new technology, he was the
only teacher willing to take the course. What is most surprising in this
scenario is that the school would not been able to afford to purchase these
white boards by themselves, yet only one teacher took the initiative to learn.
A lot of technology centers around learning – how to use it, how to facilitate
learning in students and about teachers learning how to connect to students who
are so ‘digital’.
How would I use this new technology to encourage learning in
my classroom? I think life sciences is one of the most versatile subjects to do
this in. IWB facilitate group work and group discussion, and can be used quite
effectively to save notes and answers students may have for reference later on.
Teachers can drop and drag and also allow students to do it when labelling or
matching words or columns. The IWB can also be combined with tablets, where
students can interact with it from their desks. An interesting topic using
these features could be cell physiology. Students would be able to match
functions and organelles, label from a picture or compare differences between
different cell types. Short quizzes could also be set up on the white board to
test student knowledge, where answers are given using the audience response
system (if available). There are many different models and features so it’s all
about making the best of what is available.
It is obvious that these resources are not available at
every school, but absence of technology does not mean that learning cannot take
place. It is important to become creative as a teacher – the simplest everyday
items can be used to teach a much more complicated topic in an interesting way.
That being said, we should also not be afraid of using new technology or resources
to enhance the teaching and learning experience.
