Online Education
Article | July 12, 2022
When you think of a playground what do you think of? Swings, slides, roundabouts?
Many years ago, these would be constructed without too much thought gone into the risks to ordinary children falling or losing grip. I have several siblings. We all sustained injuries at the local park. One fell off the high slide and lost her front teeth. One slid forward on the slippery rocking horse and had stitches in her chin. Another caught her foot on the roundabout as she tried to jump off when another child was pushing it too fast for her liking. I could go on.
Today playgrounds have to meet the European safety standards and safety surfacing has to be installed under swings, slides, and roundabouts. This must adhere to the current standard for impact absorbing playground surfaces.
It is good that playgrounds today meet these safety standards.
Yet. If your child is unable to walk, how will they get on that swing, that roundabout, that slide?
More and more children with disabilities are being educated in mainstream schools. Parents no longer think that a disability should stop their child from accessing the local playground. What is available to students with disabilities in these playgrounds?
Special schools have had to cater for students with disabilities when planning a playground but do ordinary schools? It is an act of discrimination if a child with a disability cannot enjoy being out on the playground as much as the able bodied child.
There was a time when the only wheelchair swing took ages to set up for a child to enjoy just 5 minutes of swing time. Anbakgard in Denmark have designed a wheelchair swing that takes just two minutes to set up and has additional seating for peers to join the experience. To see one in action go to https://YouTube.be/vh4NSOTULdA.
There are roundabouts that include a safety space for wheelchairs and slides that allow adults to accompany children on them for support. There are outdoor trampolines specifically for wheelchairs. There are birds nest swings that allow students with mild physical disabilities more space to enjoy the vestibular sensory stimulation. There are many sites that now provide play equipment to suit all kinds of needs. One such site is https://www.gljones-playgrounds.co.uk who provided our school with a lot of its play equipment.
There are climbing walls specifically geared to wheelchair users. Visit http://www.rockclimbingcentral.comto see the benefits to building muscle strength, endurance, strength, agility and flexibility.
When our children have missed out so much on play during the pandemic it is important that we provide all children with their right to play by ensuring that playgrounds everywhere are inclusive.
Read More
Education Technology
Article | July 20, 2022
Virtual learning is a great way to ensure accessibility and continuity of education. With schools and higher education enthusiastically adopting hybrid forms of online and classroom learning, measuring the outcomes has become crucial. Monitoring facilitates the ability to gain insight into the effectiveness of learning programs. It provides educators the insight and feedback they need to design better educational programs, engage students on a deeper level, build a collaborative classroom, and boost smart classroom management.
This is especially essential when a virtual learning component is involved. With learners scattered geographically, the importance of monitoring students becomes a pressing challenge.
While it has been traditionally done through a variety of approaches like assignments, quizzes, practical exams, and so on, with digitalization in classrooms, educators must now incorporate new monitoring techniques and assessment protocols to ensure they have a solid insight into overall student progress. Here are ways to monitor students with classroom management.
Interactivity in the Classroom
Interactive lessons are one of the best teaching devices. Not only do they engage learners, but they also ensure longer retention of information. In addition, they enable teachers to monitor the benefit of classroom management software. Many classroom management software solutions offer the ability to integrate interactivity within remote learning classes. Some of these include:
Chat boxes that let teachers and students interact with each other. Some tools offer the virtual equivalent of raising a hand in class, allowing students to take part in conversations just like in a physical classroom.
Polls that allow teachers and professors to maintain the attention of the whole class by encouraging them to answer questions, provide feedback, or responses to enrich classroom conversations.
Whiteboard tools give learners and educators the ability to draw, write, or point to images so they can evoke interaction with the classroom while leading a discussion.
Breakout rooms enable students to form smaller groups, which lets teachers assign group projects and activities in real-time.
Seamless Collaboration
Communication and collaboration are the bedrock of effective learning. In a virtual environment, both can take a hit. However, with the right approach and the tools to support it, it’s possible for educators to enhance classroom collaboration and monitor the learning progress of their students. Here are some tools that can help educators ensure collaboration in the classroom:
Video discussion that enables teachers to create video rooms within the classroom to facilitate face-to-face discussion for different topics. Learners can choose to either record videos or communicate in real time.
Portfolio creation tools that let students work on a project and use images, text, gifs, and videos to enrich discussions and improve collaboration among groups
Gamification in online learning combines the best of entertainment and education. For trivia and quiz-based assessments,
Peer-to-peer Feedback
Peer-to-peer feedback in the classroom is often neglected, but it is an important form of collaborative learning. Additionally, it provides a great way to track progress, compare teacher feedback, and monitor collaboration. In higher education, this is an especially vital resource. A significant challenge that educators face in encouraging peer feedback is getting learners to be more specific. This can be achieved through
A study by Springer revealed that students give better peer feedback when it is anonymous. It allows learners to provide more in-depth and specific input. With online tools, this is made easier and faster.
With anonymous feedback, it is easy to get carried away. This is why some tools allow students to flag particular feedback for a teacher’s review as well as add their response, making the process truly democratic.
Receiving feedback is an impactful way to learn, and by learning to give the right feedback, learners get to form a new perspective on a subject, ensuring smart classroom management.
Final Thoughts
Remote learning classroom management software has made it simpler to reach learners and create a thriving educational environment. However, remote learning poses challenges in monitoring student progress. And yet, with so many new tools and classroom management platforms, monitoring in education is easier than ever. Educators can monitor students with classroom management and contribute to building more efficient learning approaches. They can also keep a close eye on the progress of individual students and introduce new lesson plans and tasks based on the insights they receive
Read More
Education Technology
Article | October 7, 2022
In January, we announced our core middle school math program, which pairs the open-source middle school curriculum from OpenUp Resources/Illustrative Mathematics with powerful technology, humanizing pedagogy, and intuitive design from Desmos. We were extremely grateful to receive interest from thousands of sites and teachers. In order to provide the best possible support for as many partners as possible, we’ve decided to limit participation this year to a small set of applicants.
Read More
Article | June 1, 2020
Artificial Intelligence is a branch of science producing and studying the machines aimed at the stimulation of human intelligence processes. The main objective of AI is to optimize the routine processes, improving their speed and efficiency (provided it has been implemented and supported properly). As a result, the number of companies adopting AI continues to grow worldwide. According to Research and Markets, “The analysts forecast the Artificial Intelligence Market in the US Education Sector to grow at a CAGR of 47.77% during the period 2018-2022.
Read More