Posts from thetechedvocate.org
How Schools Are Recruiting New Teachers VirtuallySpread the loveAre you a teacher looking for a job? Are you concerned about face-to-face interaction during the Coronavirus pandemic? Maybe you are moving and want to find a job before you arrive at your new home, but can’t get there for an interview? These are just some of the problems that are being solved by virtual recruitment. Virtual recruitment and data-driven hiring have been increasing in the 21st-century. Recruiters understand that busy professionals can’t always get time off from their current jobs to travel to a recruitment fair, or maybe the cost of getting to a recruitment fair just […]
How K–12 Schools Are Doing Summer School VirtuallySpread the loveAre you a parent or teacher worried about your child’s learning progress over the summer months? Maybe your child has experienced the summer slide before? The summer slide is the loss of learning skills that sometimes happens during the summer months when students are not full-time. Although this problem can affect all students, unfortunately, it disproportionately affects students from low-income families because of lack of resources in their communities. The summer slide is a phenomenon that school districts and administrators are trying to combat with supplementary summer lessons and activities. The increased usage of technology in the 21st-century […]
How Innovation is Helping Educators Teach From HomeSpread the loveImagine yourself fifteen years ago and how you would have reacted if someone told you that all schools would be primarily online. Fast forward to our current world where, amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, this is exactly the situation that students and teachers are facing. Since the majority of teaching is being done from home, teachers need to adapt and design creative lessons that can translate into the online classroom. There are specific innovative techniques that teachers have implemented to create an online learning environment that is conducive to academic success. Online Apps for Teachers Like most people in […]
Virtual Reality Matures in the K-12 ClassroomSpread the loveAre you a teacher who sees the words “virtual reality” and automatically thinks of robots and science fiction sagas? Well, virtual reality (VR) has increasingly become more accessible and common in the classroom. VR provides many benefits for students by enriching their learning. Benefits Of Virtual Reality in the Classroom There are many reasons why virtual reality is an important part of the 21st-century classroom. Virtual reality can be beneficial to all students because it develops a sense of empathy; for example, experiencing a historical site gives the students a better understanding of what life was like during […]
What Are We Learning From the World's Big EdTech Initiatives?Spread the loveOver the past few months, a remarkable experiment has been taking place. With almost every school in the world moving to remote learning, educational technology has increased. In fact, at one point, over 90% of the world was using some type of EdTech. Though this was challenging for the parents, students, and the faculty of schools across the globe, the EdTech companies had the opportunity to let everyone see just what they were capable of. With this, many of those companies were given free access to their platforms for a limited time. There are many different EdTech companies. […]
6 eLearning Trends Currently Shaping the IndustrySpread the loveeLearning is an essential part of teaching in the 21st-century. Having different strategies to administer lessons can benefit students and maximize learning potential. Below you will find trends that are currently shaping the industry. Virtual Reality Virtual reality has become an important part of 21st-century learning. Virtual reality creates a digital learning experience that allows students to have experiences that they would not otherwise be able to have, such as field trips to historical sites. A great aspect of virtual reality is that it can be implemented on computers, so all eLearning students will have access to this […]
How to Increase Enrollment at Your UniversitySpread the loveAccording to the 2019 Survey of College and University Admissions Directors, 52% of colleges couldn’t meet their enrollment targets by July 1, 2019. Also, only 37% were able to achieve their goals by May 1, 2019 as the pressure grew and deadlines approached, enrollment reps struggled with the same challenge. What’s the solution? While the admissions teams own the entire enrollment funnel, marketing must continuously feed the top. Let’s discuss how you can get the best out of your teams to reach the finish line before your competition. Anticipate the learner’s questions Choosing the right college for higher studies […]
5 YouTube Features Every Teacher Should Know How To UseSpread the loveIn this day and age, teachers need to use every resource at their disposal. With distance learning being something that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon, one of those tools may very well be YouTube. This platform is a great place to create a video that corresponds with your curriculum for your students to access them at any time. If you are going to use the platform, there are extra considerations that need to be made. There are also YouTube features every teacher should know how to use before posting those educational videos. Below we are going […]
Attributes of High-Quality Online LearningSpread the loveWhat constitutes high-quality online learning? I am glad you asked that question because we have the answer. The following are eight hallmarks of high-quality online learning experiences and complementary conventional instructional approaches. A small number of grading requirements – Grade the meaningful, big-idea assessment tasks; take advantage of auto-grading features. We want value on productivity, not activity. Don’t just grade everything for the sake of grading everything. That is not how assessment works. Several ways to demonstrate mastery – Allow a choice among written, video, audio, typed, and image submissions; enrich learning by encouraging submission variety. Trust me, […]
How to Create an Infrastructure for a Remote-Ready SchoolSpread the loveWhen all of the other schools were scrambling to get their students set up to learn digitally when the pandemic first hit, there was one school that didn’t miss a beat. Academy of Our Lady of Peace, the only all-girls school south of Los Angeles and the oldest high school in San Diego, had zero downtime. How did they manage that? What can we learn from them about how to create an infrastructure for a remote-ready school? What Was Their Reason for Success? Fully Cloud Environment Ready Their main reason for success was that they were entirely in a […]
How K-12 Schools and Colleges Can Successfully Transition to Adaptive LearningSpread the loveAdaptive learning is a technology-based or elearning system that analyzes a student’s performance in real-time and modifies teaching methods based on that data. Think AI meets a dedicated math tutor who meets personalized engagement. Is your school or college thinking of transitioning to adaptive learning but needs a little help? If so, we have you covered. To help you better understand how to transition to adaptive learning, we decided to write this short blog post. An overview of how adaptive learning works Learners in every age group are immersed in digital ways of learning and thinking. When the […]
A Guide to Preparing for the Future of eLearningSpread the loveIf you are a part of the elearning and online learning community, then chances are you have spent some time contemplating what the future of elearning will look like. If you have taken it that far, you also have thought about what you and your colleagues need to do to prepare for it. In this article, we will discuss just that. Tip 1: Ditch the container concept Stop thinking of an online learning class as a container that needs to be filled with content so that the more content you fit into the container, the more value it […]
The Keys to Successful Online Course CreationSpread the loveIf you are employed as an instructional designer, then you know how challenging the job can be. Sure, it’s easy to just throw a course together and call it online learning, elearning, or digital learning, but it takes time, effort, and skill to create a quality course. So, we wanted to write a short blog that helps instructional designers do their jobs better, by listing the keys to successful online course creation. 1. Develop a clean class outline Letting people learn at their pace is essential, but not guiding their path will almost always guarantee their failure. Remember, […]
Incorporating Discussions and Social Interactions into Your Online or Blended CourseSpread the loveFacilitating discussion in any course can be challenging, and if you are facilitating an online class, the difficulty level goes up exponentially. Why is this? First, in a face-to-face class, you can manage and control the flow of the discussion in real-time. If you see the conversation going south, you can pivot to another topic to recalibrate things quickly. However, in an online course, more than likely, you and your learners will not be accessing the course at the same time, especially when it comes to discussion. If a discussion goes south, you will likely not find out […]
3 Reasons Why AI Could Be Your New Teaching SidekickSpread the loveArtificial Intelligence, or AI, is a relatively new technological advancement becoming increasingly popular in the classroom. There are plenty of reasons for this. For example, AI is much better at explaining and describing abstract concepts to students than actual teachers. In this article, we will be discussing why AI can be used as a sidekick for teachers in the classroom. AI Can Assist In Providing Better and More Constructive Feedback Many teachers enjoy using AI specifically to provide their students with more personalized feedback. However, this is just one of the many benefits of artificial intelligence. AI is […]
Video Conferencing to Virtual Cadavers: Classroom InnovationSpread the loveDeveloping systems to manage curriculums and changing anatomy classes are only two examples of how UCSF’s TEE (Technology Enhanced Education) team collaborates with medical education. Their goal is to improve medical education with technology and support the entire digital curriculum. TEE has incorporated various projects, such as Ilios, a robust system used by many schools to manage curriculums. Another program can show medicine students how they compare to their classmates regarding their knowledge of various topics. Let’s take a look at some more ways that the TEE team is promoting classroom innovation. Innovation is Top Priority Innovation is […]
5 Ed Tech Trends Redefine the Connected CampusSpread the loveTechnology is a wonderful tool that allows us to streamline and revolutionize different aspects of our lives and society. Every day we read about some new invention or gadget that enables us to complete some task more efficiently, so it was only a matter of time before society’s educational sphere became affected. Now we hear of fantastic new ways to spread education and information far and wide. We hear of concepts like remote teaching and the connected campus, the latter of which we will be discussing in this article. Here are five different technological trends in education that […]
Leveraging the Power of Discussion in Online LearningSpread the loveFor some odd reason, most educators and learning developers don’t like engaging learners in discussions. As a result, most classes and learning products lack options that allow learners space to interact with other learners or even with the teacher. We are always learning, absorbing knowledge and skills from pretty much anything! So why even bother with discussions? Why encompass interaction with other people? Also, we have to keep in mind that online discussions can devolve into endless posts that learners dread scrolling through. Along with other kinds of social interaction between teachers and learners, a discussion is a […]
The Remote Learning: Embracing The New NormalSpread the loveAs the world continues to be troubled by the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, more and more students turn to remote learning for their studying and educational needs. This education style is backed by plenty of technological advances, such as developing new innovative apps and tools. Remote learning is seen as the future of education, meaning that it might be worth your time to start embracing it. This article will discuss everything you need to make this form of learning much more accessible and convenient. Apps And Tools As we have already discussed, there are plenty of innovative apps and […]
Building a Strong Academic Scaffold with EdTechSpread the loveIf you aren’t sure what to expect in this coming school year or are unsure whether your school district will begin the year with face-to-face classroom instruction, then you are not alone. Many teachers are grappling with these questions, and the uncertainty that COVID-19 has caused in the education sector can be felt around the world. It is crucial to prepare for a variety of possible teaching scenarios. However, regardless of how your district plans to provide its instruction at the start of the new academic year, teachers must have a strong academic scaffold that they can depend […]