7 Ways Digital Education Is Transforming Teaching Methods
How Digital Education Is Transforming Teaching Methods
Schools are slowly looking at technology as an opportunity to develop teaching methods and resonate with students on a technology level. Regardless of age, almost everyone owns a smartphone. Google is our library, and Wikipedia is our encyclopedia. Thesaurus is our dictionary, and Kindle is our textbook. At a time like this, learning to change our teaching methods by incorporating technology is the only way to bring light to the lives of our students. What are schools doing in order to bring about this change?
1. Smart Class
Teaching with a whiteboard, chalk, and markers are now a thing of the past, and teachers have shifted to making use of projectors, VCD, DVD players and eLearning system to display tutorial videos and short sessions online to help understand that learning can be fun too. Many schools now come with a TV or a projector attached to their whiteboard where it is easy to shift from a normal classroom session to an interactive digital session. This can make students pay more attention as we are now in the digital era where Google is our go-to place.
2. Being Digitally Updated
In a tech-savvy world, education can become easily outdated, as there is always something new happening. Equipping students to be updated with news and other subject-related topics is the best way to teach students to grow as a person. Students spend most of their time on their laptops, their phones, and their iPads. Knowing what sources students can refer to, online, and knowing which websites offer the best information can be a great way to guide students.
3. Converting Books To PDFs
Books are now taken to Kindle and other Tabs. Sending them notes, references, and other information in PDF formats that can be easily accessed on laptops, phones, and tabs is a good way to encourage students to choose to study better.
4. Encouraging Online Tests
Training students on subjects by conducting fun online tests from time to time can create a good learning environment for them. Students can be given online quizzes and assessments that they can take from home, replacing general homework that they find excuses for.
5. Conducting Online Webinars
How attentive are students when there is only a one-way communication with the teacher standing in front of a whiteboard? We find the classroom becoming noisy or students becoming easily disinterested in the topic. Conducting online seminars and webinars, enabling all students to engage in commenting and participating in questionnaires can help them stay alert. Keeping students interested throughout a lecture is an art and a talent that teachers need to have, to benefit from the entire teaching-learning process. It is very vital that students engage in seminars and the lectures involve two-way communication.
6. Supporting Online Research
Similar to how a teacher is well prepared for a classroom session, encouraging students to be prepared too, can drive students to be excited about taking up classes. Online research is trending and people find exciting careers in Market Research and more. Asking students to find something online that is difficult to find or encouraging online research by giving them a list of things to find before the next class is a good way to keep students looking forward to more classes. It really does feel like a great achievement knowing you’ve found something that no other student could find. Giving them rewards or appreciating their online findings can encourage students to make the best use of the digital resources they have.
7. Creating Communities
The interaction between a teacher and a student does not have to end at school, in a classroom. An online community is where a group or a team stay connected online, submitting projects, discussing topics or expressing ideas. Teachers can set a platform for students to communicate their ideas, suggestions and subject-related queries, for them to solve any time. Being open to online activities like these keep students more focused even outside of school, without realizing the fact that the learning process continues even after classes are done.
Summary
Textbooks, homework, classroom notebooks, whiteboard, chalk, and markers are now history. Smartboards are introduced where teachers can drag and drop shapes, bring in online calculators on the board, measure with AR tools and voice out the text they want to see on the board. How practical is it to be disconnected from the digital world when students are way faster in terms of technology? Schools are now offering to provide free tablets and Kindle-like tabs for students to take notes in. It is time to collaborate teaching methodology with technology and make classroom sessions more lively and interesting!
7 Ways Digital Education Is Transforming Teaching Methods, May 15 2018
elearningindustry.com
7 essential oils that can ease breathing
Are you having trouble with your breathing? A few whiffs of the right essential oils can clear up your congested airways and improve the muscles involving in the process, an article in Organic Spa Magazine reported.
“Breathing passages, like sinuses, trachea and lungs, have to be clear for efficient breathing,” said Hope Gillerman in her book Essential Oils Every Day. “And some essential oils can help relax the deeper breathing muscles enough to release them from their locked state.”
Gillerman recommended a number of essential oils for alleviating specific breathing problems. She also shared two different but equally effective ways of applying those remedies.
Improve your breathing with these effective essential oils
If a combination of fatigue and congested nasal cavities is hampering your breathing, you should get eucalyptus essential oil. It has been shown to fight bacteria and viruses that cause these symptoms.
This essential oil also removes congestion in the nose. Last but not least, it suppresses inflammation. It would be very helpful during cold and flu season.
If it is your chest that feels congested instead of your nose, you have three essential oils to choose from: Fir, pine, or spruce. The oils from these related trees are used in traditional chest rubs, remedies that are used to loosen up the deeper breathing muscles.
These three oils are good for improving symptoms of allergies, asthma, and coughs. Furthermore, they can restore your energy when you feel tired and down.
100% organic essential oil sets now available for your home and personal care, including Rosemary, Oregano, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Clary Sage and more, all 100% organic and laboratory tested for safety. A multitude of uses, from stress reduction to topical first aid. See the complete listing here, and help support this news site.
If your mind is unfocused because of distracting pain in your stiff neck and strained shoulders, Gillerman recommended peppermint essential oil. It is a good way to restore your energy after spending long periods of time in a certain position without moving much. It also improves your mood.
Last but not least, excessive amounts of stress and worry can cause you to have difficulty breathing. When that happens, apply sandalwood essential oil to yourself in order to help your chest breathing muscles loosen up.
In ancient times, sandalwood was used in two ways. It was burned during periods of meditation to spread its essential oils through the air. It could also be applied directly to the chest.
How to apply the essential oil
Before starting, identify the condition of your malady. Are you feeling fatigue? Can you feel congestion in your chest or in your nasal passage? Are the muscles in your neck or shoulders giving you difficulty? Or is it caused by stress and worry?
There is an appropriate essential oil or a specific set of symptoms. Put a few drops on the surface of either a tissue paper or your hand. Cover the lower half of your face with the treated surface.
Start by letting your breath out of your nostrils. Then inhale the vapors slowly. Make sure to keep your body muscles from the tension-inducing motion. Try to avoid sniffling during the breathing exercise. Do this at least five times but no more than 10.
“When you are trying to get more air because the essential oils, the relaxation and the exhale all work for you, instead of you having try to take a big breath in, which can strain neck and shoulders,” Gillerman explains regarding the breathing process.
Another way to use the oil is to put it directly on parts of your body that are near your nose. Recommended spots include the collarbone, beneath the ears, on the temples, and around the throat and jaw.
If you want to find out what essential oils can do for your health, visit EssentialOils.news.
#healtytips #organics #essentialoil
organicspamagazine.com - Dec,13 2018
naturalnews.com
No, mobile phones should not be banned in UK schools
Access to mobile technology can be both a blessing and a curse. Smart phones are used to make calls, run businesses and organise social lives. But they also raise concerns over their potential impact on our health, society – and education.
The UK’s culture secretary has suggested it would be a good idea for schools to ban mobile phones. Matt Hancock, who is in charge of digital policy, said: “I admire headteachers who do not allow mobiles to be used during the school day. I encourage more schools to follow their lead. The evidence is that banning phones in schools works.”
He went on:
"Studies have shown mobile phones can have a real impact on working memory and fluid intelligence, even if the phone is on a table or in a bag."
As a teacher, I personally witnessed the impact that rapidly evolving mobile phones had in the classroom. A new behavioural issue fast became a key challenge – how to deal with yet another distraction.
However, those same phones also became a valuable resource for many innovative teachers. Here was an opportunity to develop innovative learning strategies using technology which provided students with access to a knowledge base far beyond the confines of the classroom.
Some teachers use interactive learning activities such as the game-based platform Kahoot!, which is free but is reliant on students being able to access mobile devices. Others may simply wish their students to use those devices for research when they do not have access to computing facilities. In these cases, it is reasonable for teachers to encourage their students to use their mobile phones.
But this innovative approach comes with complications. How can teachers be sure that students are using their phones for learning rather than accessing social media? Students themselves are then expected to justify the use of their mobile phone.
Teachers can find themselves under immense pressure. Technology has developed at a speed which is difficult to keep up with – and with each advancement comes an expectation for teachers to have either a solution or strategy. This, coupled with the pressure on teachers to keep order in class and achieve good grades can leave little time for new strategies to emerge.
In some respects the culture secretary’s suggestion to ban mobile phones in schools (as France has done) is understandable. The rationale, I suspect, is that by removing the catalyst for poor behaviour (the mobile phone) we remove the issue.
But this repsonse has flaws. To start with, we already expect a great deal from our teachers. Do we now believe they should undertake “stop-and-search” surveillance of students entering the school and classroom simply to remove a mobile phone?
Secondly, while the removal of the mobile phone may prevent the short-term issue, it does not prepare our next generation. Education providers are responsible for preparing students for the future. Acquisition of knowledge is not enough – we must ensure young people are ready for the next stage of their lives.
A smarter approach
Whether we embrace it or not, mobile technology is a fundamental part of the modern world. Today’s students will have jobs that rely on technology, and they need to be mature enough to use it wisely – and appropriately.
The solution is not prohibition, but education. This is not without its challenges – but if we are shaping the workforce of tomorrow then we have to consider how we prepare students to be part of it. Exam results are important, but so too are wider skills such as using technology appropriately and safely, and having the self-discipline to regulate the use of mobile technology – knowing the right time and place to fire up a smart phone.
As a student, I would want to be afforded the opportunity to retain my mobile phone – and be trusted to use it correctly. In return, I would expect to learn about appropriate mobile phone use with the guidance and support of my teachers.
As a parent, I would welcome another person taking the time to educate my child about the best way to of mobile phones. (That way I’m not the only person nagging: “You’re always on your phone…”)
And as a teacher, I appreciate the challenge that mobile phones bring to the classroom. But I also want to prepare my students for their next steps. The smart phone is not going anywhere – and has many educational features. It contains a writing tool, a calculator, and a huge encyclopedia – and I can’t imagine anyone calling for those to be banned at the school gates.
The conversion - June,22 2018
Shutterstock
Elon Musk: Private Space Entrepreneur
NASA administrator Charles Bolden (left) congratulates SpaceX CEO and chief designer Elon Musk on June 13, 2012. Behind them is the Dragon capsule that on May 25 became the first private vehicle ever to dock with the International Space Station.Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Elon Musk is an entrepreneur best known in space circles for SpaceX, which became the first private company to ship cargo to the International Space Station in 2012. Since then, SpaceX has developed a large rocket (Falcon Heavy) and continues work on a crew capsule for NASA that will fly humans in the near future.
A long-time advocate of Mars exploration, Musk has publicly talked about ventures such as building a greenhouse on the Red Planet and more ambitiously, establishing a Mars colony. He also is rethinking transportation concepts through ideas such as the Hyperloop, a proposed high-speed system that would run between major cities.
The South African-born businessman describes himself as "an engineer and entrepreneur who builds and operates companies to solve environmental, social and economic challenges."
Musk is also the founder of electric car company Tesla Motors. In recent years, Musk has been criticized for periodic negative comments on social media, such as some personal comments he made about rescue personnel after his offer to help Thai children trapped in a watery cave in 2018. The children were rescued, but without Musk''''s help.
Early years
Musk grew up in South Africa and earned degrees in physics and business from the University of Pennsylvania. His first venture after school was Zip2 Corp., an Internet company that provided software and services for businesses.
"Things were pretty tough in the early going. I didn''''t have any money — in fact I had negative money [because] I had huge student debts," Musk recalled in a 2003 Stanford lecture.
He showered at a local YMCA and lived in his office, managing to keep expenses very low despite his low revenue stream. "So when we went to VCs [venture capitalists], we could say we had positive cash flow," he said.
After Compaq bought Zip2 for more than $300 million in 1999, Musk turned his attention to online bill payments. That company, later known as PayPal, was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
Musk now had a small fortune in hand, and at the tender age of 30 was looking to put his energies into something new. He began SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) in 2002 with ambitious plans to launch a viable, privately funded space company. In the face of naysayers, he doubled down and worked on a business plan.
''''Ridiculously recalcitrant problem''''
Musk has repeatedly said that humans must be an interplanetary species to combat the threat of asteroids, and potential human catastrophes such as nuclear war or engineered viruses.
What is blocking us from doing that, Musk wrote in a 2008 Esquire piece, is "the ridiculously recalcitrant problem of big, reusable reliable rockets."
"Somehow we have to ... reduce the cost of human spaceflight by a factor of 100," he added. "That''''s why I started SpaceX. By no means did I think victory was certain. On the contrary, I thought the chances of success were tiny, but that the goal was important enough to try anyway."
This problem has been one of the themes of Musk''''s work since starting SpaceX. The first successful rocket the company flew, the Falcon 1, took four tries to get off the ground before a successful test flight in September 2008.
Musk funded SpaceX through his own money at first, and then gained enough experience to attract millions of dollars for NASA to develop his rockets and spacecraft, and to bring cargo to the ISS. He has also received launch contracts from entities such as the U.S. Air Force. [Infographic: How SpaceX''''s Dragon Space Capsule Works]
The company''''s track record was a factor in NASA awarding it money to develop the Dragon spacecraft for cargo runs to the International Space Station. Dragon won multiple rounds of funding under NASA''''s Commercial Crew program and made a world-first docking with the International Space Station in 2012. It is now sending regular shipments of cargo to the station.
SpaceX is now developing a human-rated version of Dragon that is expected to take astronauts to the orbiting complex around 2019 or 2020. Like its cargo counterpart, the Crew Dragon spacecraft received money from NASA for development and is now one of two spacecraft types (along with Boeing''''s CST-100 Starliner) in the final stages of funding for human certification. SpaceX unveiled the spacesuits for the Crew Dragon spacecraft in September 2017. Astronauts were announced for the first Dragon flights in August 2018.
Dragon is hefted using a rocket called the Falcon 9. Since 2014, SpaceX has attempted to re-use the first stage of the rocket by landing it in various situations. To date, SpaceX has successfully achieved ocean, land-based and barge landings of the Falcon 9''''s first stage.
In March 2018, SpaceX successfully flew a heavier rocket, the Falcon Heavy, on its maiden flight, carrying a Tesla car and an astronaut mannequin named "Starman." The rocket blasted its cargo to low Earth orbit, and then an upper stage fired to carry the car somewhere toward Mars and the asteroid belt. Musk had said in the months beforehand that there was no guarantee of success.
"I hope it [Falcon Heavy] makes it far enough away from the pad that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider even that a win, to be honest," Musk told NASA in July 2017. The Falcon Heavy succeeded in sending its cargo to space. However, although its two side boosters landed successfully on twin pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, its center rocket core crashed and burned.
Musk is a frequent user of social media, sometimes posting ideas that are early design thoughts or jokes — and sometimes making cutting comments about others. In April 2018, Musk tweeted that his company plans to land a rocket with a "giant party balloon."
During a chat with Twitter users, Musk vowed to delete SpaceX''''s Facebook account in March 2018 amid concerns about the social media giant''''s privacy policies, a vow that was carried through within hours. That same year, Musk also said he would create a company rating journalists and made critical comments about a rescuer trying to help Thai boys trapped in a cave; he later apologized for those comments amid worldwide criticism.
Dreams of Mars
Musk has often said that around 2002, he looked up the schedule for when NASA was supposed to send astronauts there, and was shocked to see there was no timeline. (Today, NASA says it hopes to land astronauts there in the 2030s). That''''s when, he told Wired, he came up with an idea to do a simple Mars mission "to spur the national will."
"The idea was to send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars, packed with dehydrated nutrient gel that could be hydrated on landing. You''''d wind up with this great photograph of green plants and red background — the first life on Mars, as far as we know, and the farthest that life''''s ever traveled," he said.
"It would be a great money shot, plus you''''d get a lot of engineering data about what it takes to maintain a little greenhouse and keep plants alive on Mars."
He eventually turned aside from the idea due to financial concerns, but in 2012 he sketched out plans to establish a Mars colony, along with other entities, with 80,000 people living on the Red Planet. (Musk later tweeted he meant to say 80,000 making the journey per year.)
Musk has discussed and revised his plans several times over the years. He first unveiled an Interplanetary Transport System in 2016 that is intended to take humans to Mars with SpaceX technology. At the time, the ITS booster (a huge rocket not yet built) was expected to loft up to 100 people at a time to low Earth orbit and send people to Mars in as little as 80 days, as long as Earth and Mars remain close to each other, Musk said in 2016. He also warned that some of the first Mars settlers would likely die during the journey.
In 2017, Musk unveiled an ambitious timeline of sending the first robotic missions to Mars in 2022, and the first humans just two years later — in 2024. He subsequently revised the ITS concept to say that the colonists would use a rocket called the BFR — also known as the Big Falcon Rocket. This rocket is expected to replace the entire Falcon line sometime in the 2020s, revising previous Musk plans where he said Falcon Heavy would carry people.
While Musk is focused on Mars, he has said that he would also willingly participate in a moon base; he even unveiled conceptual designs of a "Moon Base Alpha" (along with a Mars base, of course). His remarks in 2017 were prescient because later that year, the Trump administration tasked NASA to head to the moon before going to Mars. Musk used to advise Trump, but said in 2017 he would stop because the administration withdrew from a Paris climate pact.
#successpeople #realbiography #mars #spaces #homeshoolfather
> https://www.space.com/18849-elon-musk.html
Creative Schools review – we need to call time on exam
‘Creative Brian’, a 25ft aluminium walk-through head designed by British artist David Kemp, introducing children from Radclyffe primary school, Salford, to Artworks at the Lowry. Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian
‘Our school systems are now a matrix of organisational rituals and intellectual habits that do not adequately reflect the great variety of talents of the students who attend them. Because they conflict with these systems, too many students think that they are the problem; that they are not intelligent, or must have difficulties in learning.”
Ken Robinson’s thesis is compelling: we are currently operating a Fordist model of mass education that is failing to prepare young people for the dramatic socioeconomic demands of the digital age. What is more worrying is that politicians, rather than supporting a schools system with the flexibility and innovation obviously needed, have fallen for a theology of standardised testing and assessment that is exacerbating the crisis.
Robinson wants a revolution in education, “based on different principles from those of the standards movement”. And he wants us – you – to be the change. “The best place to start thinking about how to change education is exactly where you are in it. If you change the experiences of education for those you work with, you become part of a wider, more complex process of change in education as whole.”
Robinson is, of course, a change-maker himself. He might have achieved international acclaim for his 2006 TED talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” (now viewed by an estimated 300 million people worldwide), but for more than 40 years he has persuasively made the case for more creativity in teaching and the curriculum, as a teacher, government adviser, examiner and academic. Creative Schools brings together this classroom experience and policy ardour in an elegant, powerfully written manifesto for change. And if the book occasionally suffers from an overdose of education conference keynote-ese – the need for “curiosity, criticism, communication, collaboration”; the importance of “diversity, depth, dynamism” – its informed, avuncular style and unexpected accounts of inspiring teachers more than make up for it.
The book is part of a growing public discourse on education policy aimed at a data-and-ideas-hungry readership of helicopter parents, engaged practitioners and school innovators. There are Doug Lemov and Pasi Sahlberg on teaching, Paul Tough on character, Andrew Adonis on school reform, Anastasia de Waal on selection, Paul Marshall on closing the attainment gap. Then there are the blogs, Twitter feeds, Teach-Meets and EdTech geeks. Add to that the controversies around international comparisons: Swedish free schools versus Finnish teaching; New Orleans charter schools versus Singapore curriculum reforms.
And it is all to be welcomed. The more we discuss education, the better. Not least because such conversations help to highlight the tricky 40-year gap between where policymakers think schooling should be heading (preparing for society 20 years hence) and what the majority of the public thinks schools should be doing (their own halcyon days 20 years past). The role of politicians is to seek, consensually and pragmatically, to bridge that divide.
But Robinson’s point is that politicians are doing exactly the opposite: scarred by the media reporting of the Pisa international league tables on school performance, they have retreated into a self-defeating cul-de-sac of testing and assessment. As a result, we are at risk of inculcating an industrial education system producing compliant, linear pupils. “The emphasis on testing comes at the expense of teaching children how to employ their natural creativity and entrepreneurial talents – the precise talents that might insulate them against the unpredictability of the future in all parts of the world.”
The prescription is a richer personalisation of learning – an appreciation of the diversity of intelligence; the need to adapt teaching schedules to different learning speeds; a flexibility that allows learners to pursue their interests and strengths; and a different model of assessment. And, as expected, a strong dose of arts education as an essential component of schooling. Through a catalogue of test cases – teaching Shakespeare in LA’s Koreatown; transforming schools in North Carolina under the A+ arts programme – Robinson shows how taking the arts seriously is particularly rewarding for high-poverty, inner-urban districts. Time and again, the arts engage students and raise standards.
If, occasionally, Robinson gets a bit too Californian – with his call for “organic education” and extensive flirtation with home-schooling – his driving critique of the “exam factory” model of schooling is well worth reflecting on. Because, in recent years, English schooling has had too much teaching to the test, too much focus on C/D borderline, too many early and multiple entries for examinations. Yet the uncomfortable truth is that there are also large swaths of the English education system that require more not less uniformity. If all our pupils could reach some basic minimum standards of literacy and numeracy by the time they left primary schools, our educational attainment as a nation would be markedly higher. Similarly, we need much greater consistency in the professional development and training of teachers.
As much as Robinson decries them, this is the clarifying force of comparisons such as the Pisa tables: they show how young people in Poland and Germany, let alone Shanghai and Singapore, are more advanced in many essential subjects and skills. Robinson rightly makes the case for the rigour of creative learning – “creativity in any field may involve deep factual knowledge and high levels of practical skill” – but we always need to guard against the soft bigotry of low expectations: the worrying trend of play and expression being adequate for working-class pupils, while leaving the tough stuff, the physics and history, for their better-off peers.
What I took from Robinson’s impassioned work is the never-ending need for innovation in education. Project-based learning, flipped classrooms, personalised curricula – all of this is starting to reshape education and the role of teachers. We need to embrace all the exciting, uncomfortable possibilities offered by digital technology. What’s more, no education system exceeds the strength of its teachers. Their ambition, professionalism and subject knowledge are the key variables. “It doesn’t matter how detailed the curriculum is or how expensive the tests are; the real key to transforming education is the quality of teaching.” The structure of a school is markedly less significant than an effective head teacher, a faculty which embraces change, and quality professional development.
We need to call time on the exam-factory model, ensure a broad and balanced curriculum in our schools, and focus on improving teaching rather than fruitlessly reforming school structures – not only because a childhood at school should be a rich, enjoyable and challenging time; but also because the coming economy demands exactly the kind of rigorous creativity and personal resilience that Robinson advocates.
#PrimarySchools #SecondarySchools #Schools #EducationPolicy
> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/23/creative-schools-revolutionising-education-from-the-ground-up-ken-robinson-lou-aronica-review
Tired of texting? Google tests robot to chat with friends for you
We aren’t the robots … but is one of these girls talking to one? Photograph: Richard Baker/Corbis via Getty Images
Are you tired of the constant need to tap on a glass keyboard just to keep up with your friends? Do you wish a robot could free you of your constant communication obligations via WhatsApp, Facebook or text messages? Google is working on an AI-based auto-reply system to do just that.
Google’s experimental product lab called Area 120 is currently testing a new system simply called Reply that will work with Google’s Hangouts and Allo, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Android Messages, Skype, Twitter direct messages and Slack.
Reply aims to take the smart AI-based suggested replies that are available in Google’s Gmail and Allo apps to the next level. In an email test sent to volunteers, acquired by Android Police, Area 120 says: “You probably get a lot of chat messages. And you want to be there for people, but also for people in the real world. What if replying were literally one tap away?”
The system can apparently work out what people are saying to you and suggest one-tap answers, but Google says it will go further, taking your location, your calendar and other bits of information into account. One example was using your location to send and instant response to “when can you be home?” using your preferred method of transport and the time it’ll take to wherever your home is.
Reply will also be able to tell everyone you’re on holiday, automatically checking your calendar and replying as appropriate. Plus it will have an advanced do not disturb mode that will silence your phone and tell people you can’t chat right now, but also scan incoming messages for important stuff so that “Reply can make sure to get your attention even when your phone is silent”. There will be no escape.
There’s certainly something to be said for freeing people from the constant strain of digital keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, but at some stage it’ll just be robots talking to robots, and by then should we even bother?
#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Chatapps
#Consciousness #Computing
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/14/google-tests-robot-chat-reply-friends