Hi all,
Colleges and schools are trying their best to find ways to keep students engaged in classroom activities. traditional teaching activities are not being very effective in seizing students attentions anymore.
As numerous studies found That the learners of the 21th century are highly motivated to learn; they are self directed and independent; they want to participate in decision making whenever they can; they need to be convinced on what is being taught to them will benefit them; and time is extremely important to them.
The task of the trainer/teacher/coach, whatever name you use, to keep the learners engaged and motivated in class room is not easy. Using technology effectively in classroom is one way of making the teachers' job little bit easier sometime and difficult at other times.
At my current job, all students have laptops (tablet-pc). Full time access to wireless network and internet connection. I have used many different methods to keep my students engaged. I give them access to my online course. All assignments and projects have restricted submission dates. All mini and major projects are done in groups and requires the use of internet for researching info; and plenty of feedback on their progress. With all these methods of keeping students engaged, i am still searching to get the full benefits and make most of their laptops and internet availability to meet the course objective.
I would love to hear from people with similar settings
Students with laptops and full internet access.. How can we keep them engaged and concentrating on task at hand?
Thanks,
Ghassan
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1 comment:
Hi Ghasan,
I feel the answer to all your questions will be a Promethian Board. I am in a similar situation as you are & we can see that the motivation level of students is very less here.
Please read this interesting article from Marc Prensky (2001) Digital Natives Digital Immigrants. He says that our students today are all native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the internet and we really need to speak in their language to engage them.
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Promethian are highly effective in creating lessons that will totally engage students. You could create wonderful Grammar exercises using Flash & create interactivity on the Promethian boards. Promethian Boards come with it’s own powerful software Activ Studio that helps you to create lessons.
To start with you might it difficult to use but I feel it’s worth it
As Gardner says in his theory of multiple intelligences people with strong visual-spatial intelligence are typically very good at visualizing and mentally manipulating objects. They have a strong visual memory and are often artistically inclined. Students these days have a very strong visual memory and hence we could use this as a tool & develop a creative learning environment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
This is anather interesting article about how they made use of the interactive whiteboards in teaching
http://www.virtuallearning.org.uk/changemanage/iwb/IWB%20Survey%202004.pdf
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