Continuing Education
Article | November 15, 2022
In 2021, Class, a virtual classroom app that combines with Zoom, neared unicorn status after receiving funding from SoftBank Vision Fund II. But, with just 10 months and a string of top edtech U.S. investors to back it up, the app’s spectacular rise only speaks to the boom in online education in the past two years.
Online learning has changed. It went from centering around accessibility to becoming the primary delivery method almost overnight. So when it comes to screen time, this newest addition to our already screen-filled lives is uninvited. Especially for children, it only meant that screen time was highly monitored during lockdown. And that change came with struggles. Between configuring the technicalities of accessing online classrooms and figuring out how to engage students, teachers have faced an uphill battle all along.
There is plenty of research to suggest that too much screen time has negative health implications, but education has to continue at all costs. 2021 was full of stories of students finding creative ways of avoiding classes or not attending them. One 8-year-old found a loophole in Zoom’s app last year that locked her out of her Zoom class. Even Zoom’s technical team failed to find the issue. It led to a goose chase into discovering that the child was locking herself out by inputting the wrong password over 20 times.
Screen Time Vs Screen-Tied
Screen time has five types: television, video games, social media, music, and reading. The key is not just to regulate screen time but also the content that is being consumed. Technology may have evolved, but our ability to use it for long durations and to conduct sensory tasks like learning over the internet hasn’t. Between education, video-games, social media and TV, distribution meant calibrating what type of content should be consumed in order to reduce the negative impact.
Approximately 75% of all teenagers own a smartphone today. In addition, a majority of young adults report video games as their go-to activity in their free time. While research on the use of video games may be inconclusive, prolonged exposure is nevertheless known to rewire developing brains. There’s also a high risk to susceptible minds with regards to unfiltered and harmful messages from social media, which is a massive source of increased screen time for children and teenagers.
All these issues call for a meaningful control of screen time. But in a sea of endless information and uninterrupted content, how do you identify the right balance?
Culling Unnecessary Content
For educators, the aim is clear: to balance screen time so precariously that children do not lose their will to learn or play. Parents and educational institutions must identify the following objectives through the content they are letting their families consume:
Developing digital skills to prepare children for higher education and digital careers
Raising digital citizens that use online mediums to contribute to their communities
Exposing learners to new ideas and concepts in a safe context
Acquiring creative skills, interpersonal expression, and etiquette for engagement online
There is no dearth of educational content online, but it is important to achieve a balance between the educational and the entertainment consumption of learners. On occasion, both can be combined through interactive shows and programs that do not expose learners to addictive behaviors.
Designating screen-free times, activities, and even locations like meals, traveling, or bedrooms can help learners build a habit of controlling their screen time.
To Wrap It Up
There is no doubt that the pandemic provided online learning with a much-needed shot in the arm. This also means that screen time has exponentially increased. Thanks to both virtual schools and a complete lockdown on going outside, young learners were left with no option but to turn to their screens. Whether to connect to their peers, attend classes, or spend their free time, learners are faced with a barrage of screen time that can affect their ability to navigate a post-pandemic world. Parents and educators must take it upon themselves to lay down the guidelines that drive the harmonious use of electronics without encouraging total dependence on them.
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Education Technology
Article | July 27, 2022
Table of Content
What is the School Management System?
Benefits of Having School Management System
Why is the School Management System Required in Educational Institutions?
Conclusion
Managing the day-to-day tasks of the educational institute is not at all easy. There are thousands of things that need to be tracked regularly. Therefore, software development companies have come up with a technological solution that can help the institutes seamlessly perform their daily activities. The solution is a school management system or we can say an ERP system for schools and colleges. In this blog, we will learn more about it and see how its implementation can be beneficial.
What is the School Management System?
The school management system is software that manages the complex tasks of educational institutions like schools, colleges, and coaching centers. It is a tool specially designed to automate the education institutions’ management and operations. The school management system is a paperless administration that helps in avoiding costly errors and also saves a lot of time.
Benefits of Having School Management System
The main advantage of school management software enables the students, teachers, and parents to connect with each other. Besides this, there are some other benefits of implementing the management system in educational institutions and they are -
1. Increases Productivity
With the use of the school management system, educational institutions can boost their productivity. The reason behind the increase in productivity is that the system decreases the time to maintain the track records and organize the data. This makes the work progress of the institution very accurate. Besides, the lesser time the institute takes to manage the data, the more productive it becomes.
2. Anywhere Access
The school management software can be accessed from anywhere and at any time. It keeps the record of everything and those things are easily accessible. Basically, the software is the way to provide information at the immediate measures.
3. Student-Teacher Collaboration
With the use of cloud-based management software, the collaboration between teacher and student becomes beyond the classrooms. It helps to increase the interactions between the students and the institute’s staff members. This interaction happens through the application.
4. Reduces Workload
The digital platform reduces the workload of the staff members. They don't have to manually note down the data of the students or create studying materials manually. So be it the administration department or teachers, all can be relaxed and do their tasks digitally with fewer efforts.
Why is the School Management System Required in Educational Institutions?
School Management System is a digital platform that enables educational institutions to regularly manage administrative and academic activities like admission, online fee payment, attendance, online classes, and more. Besides this, there are some more important reasons that make school educational software an essential element in schools and colleges. They are -
1. Easy & Smooth Communication
With the school management platform, the communication between the school authorities and students becomes easy and fast. It makes the communication channel between the teachers, parents, and students very convenient. The school can send fee reminders and student’s report cards to the parents through this school software.
2. Creates School Branding
In this technologically advanced world, not having a school management system can make the education institute look underrated. The schools that use this type of software have a positive impact on the parents, students, and teachers. And this positive impact can help in building a good brand value for the school.
3. Transparency
The school management platform makes all the information transparent for every user. For instance, if the student is absent for one day then it gets visible on his curriculum. Besides, if parents are busy and cannot attend the PTA meeting, then they can check the meeting details on the application.
4. Student Management
The education software allows the institution to save the data related to the student’s promotion, performance, homework, attendance, projects, admissions, and more. This makes it easy for the school to check a particular student’s details as per their grades in one place.
5. Managing Employee & Their Payroll
With the help of the school software, the administration can easily manage and keep track of the salary of the teachers and other staff members. Besides, they can also keep a record of the other salary-related works like leaves, deduction, bonus, and more. The software helps in calculating all these things without any error.
6. GPS Tracking
The school management system can help the education institute and parents to keep track of student’s safety and security. The software provides GPS tracking of the school bus which can be accessed by the parents and the school administration. They can track the transportation route of the bus and if for any reason the bus is not on time, they can check its location and see to it when the students will reach the school or home.
Conclusion
As seen in this blog, there are many advantages of implementing a school management system in educational institutes. It facilitates the schools and colleges to manage their operations with ease. And it also covers the loopholes of the traditional education management methods.
To sum it up, having a school management platform can lessen the workload and increase the productivity of students, teachers, and administration.
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Education Technology
Article | August 4, 2022
If you’re using the Relay Filter, you already have Safety Check – a complete student monitoring platform that can help increase your school safety! If you aren’t using it today, you probably don’t know about. This is definitely a case where what you don’t know CAN hurt you. And Safety Check has seen it all. Safety Check uses machine learning to monitor and analyze activity across the web — across platforms, on search, in G Suite, in chat and mail, and more. And it sends real-time alerts on identified safety risks to designated Safety Check administrators (counselors, safety resource officers, administrators, teachers)
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Article | August 25, 2020
You in the community seemed so impressed with this recent Boston Dynamics–inspired build that we decided to feature another. This time, maker Harry was inspired by Boston Dynamics’ research robot Handle, which stands 6.5 ft tall, travels at 9 mph and jumps 4 feet vertically. Here’s how Harry made his miniature version, MABEL (Multi Axis Balancer Electronically Levelled). MABEL has individually articulated legs to enhance off-road stability, prevent it from tipping, and even make it jump (if you use some really fast servos). Harry is certain that anyone with a 3D printer and a “few bits” can build one.
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