Are K-12 teachers struggling to keep up with edtech?

Education Technology

Article | July 27, 2022

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with math, leaning heavily towards the latter. It was always something I was good at, but didn’t enjoy. Quite frankly, it still stuns me on a regular basis that I’ve ended up working for a math company. Let me try to parse this out by saying that math has been intrinsically tied to every definitive choice I’ve made, consciously or unconsciously. Flash backwards—I’m 4. My mom is teaching me long division, insisting that this is absolutely crucial for how I map the rest of my life. I assume this is how the rest of my peers spend their time, completely oblivious to the fact that other neighborhood children are outside, running around on playgrounds, doing cartwheels up and down their sunlit front yards. Instead, I’m grinding away. I think I remember this as fun. I think I ask my mom to give me another multiplication problem.

Education Technology

Article | August 4, 2022

Experts suggest that 80 per cent of our future jobs will require maths. So can we ignore the fact that women are significantly under represented in professions related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics? Recent education research in New Zealand has revealed a significant difference in the way girls and boys engage with mathematics. According to a TIMSS report, more New Zealand Year 5 boys were very confident in mathematics, while more Year 5 girls were not confident in mathematics. It’s our job as educators to find ways to encourage girls to pursue mathematics and foster a love for the subject. One way to do this is by connecting classroom maths with our learners’ real-world environments, showing them that maths is relevant to the everyday activities they value and love.

Online Education

Article | July 19, 2022

Imagine a virtual world where people socialize and work, and are represented by their virtual avatars. The concept may date back 50 years as part of sci-fi stories. Thanks to advancements in digital technology, it is seeing the light of the day in the form of Metaverse. The concept has been contemplated by many scientists, writers, and artists alike. However, the release of Metaverse proved to be the pinnacle of the many possibilities that digital transformation holds in store. The most exciting part is innovating powerful applications of Metaverse across industries, and Facebook is already on it. Not just employees, but any institution that no longer requires its stakeholders to be present physically, from banking to socialization to education, will discover the biggest opportunity for transformation. Learning in 2-Dimension Online education has received a shot in the arm in the past couple of years, more out of necessity than anything else. From K-12 to higher education, children are affected and protected by online learning in educational institutions. Inclusive online education is the biggest challenge faced by educators. Next, engaging students in an environment that does not employ their full sensory capabilities hampers learning. Despite these challenges, virtual classrooms remained the bastion of academics and learning at a time when many industries came to a standstill. The phase allowed software providers and institutes to identify challenges, assess their needs, and contribute to driving innovation in the edtech space. Thanks to the exponential increase in the demand for better solutions, edtech can now consider moving from a virtual classroom that shoots up screen time to a classroom simulation that is much more immersive, engaging, and effective. Virtual spaces have been around in some form for some time now, especially in the gaming world. With games like Second Life, Minecraft, and The Sims, many children and young adults are already familiar with the use of technology to live and play virtually. Metaverse will only make it easier to transform education completely. Anywhere Classrooms Although both online learning and virtual spaces have been around for a while, the conflux of both will engineer a new dimension and disruption for education. The blurring of physical boundaries and geographies is one of the most significant advantages of the Metaverse.While access to virtual classrooms still remains a big hurdle, the value addition from VR-based classrooms could solidify the case for virtual only classrooms. Compared to reading and lectures, which have a knowledge retention rate of 5% and 10%, respectively, VR has a retention rate of 75%. The high retention rate can encourage educational institutes to redirect their teaching equipment budget to educate more children, say, at the NASA space station or in the Amazon rainforest, all without them having to leave their homes. Anywhere classrooms may just be the detour that education needs to leverage the current landscape and create a powerful transformation for the industry. To Wrap Up Education is heading for a rebranded future with classrooms being replaced by virtual reality in the pursuit of remote learning. Anywhere classrooms will help eliminate virtual walls that are currently nowhere near providing the experience that a real classroom can. With children being well-versed with virtual reality ecosystems, Metaverse will further simplify the seamless adoption of a two-dimensional learning space that offers better education, near hands-on experience, and actionable knowledge.

Article | August 14, 2020

Those of us who work closely with students with autism know that they can exhibit unique learning characteristics. And in order to best meet students’ needs in the classroom, teachers rely on strategies that are most effective for learners on the spectrum. Through the work of the National Professional Development Center for Autism (NPDC), National Standards Project, and most recently, the National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice (NCAEP), we have a clearly identified set of practices that are proven to work best for students with autism.