Virtual Reality Advances Bring New Possibilities to Higher Education

Education Technology

Article | July 27, 2022

After a busy exam season, students up and down the country look forward to long summer vacations, hopefully with a trip or two! Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, many of us don’t want to catch a flight this summer. But all is not lost! Gale Primary Sources, an online database of digitised primary sources, allows you to explore your cancelled holiday destination in a virtual way – from the safety of your own home! Personally, I’d planned to go to Marseille in June, which is a historic city in the South of France well known for its Roman and medieval architecture and ruins. Instead, I had a really fun afternoon exploring Marseille by delving into some rare and quirky primary sources – and you can go there with me in this blog post!

Education Technology

Article | July 15, 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

Education Technology

Article | October 7, 2022

Across the country, local networks known as Education Innovation Clusters (EdClusters) are bringing together partners and resources to meet urgent needs and envision a new future for teaching and learning. Many of these efforts are rooted in long-standing partnerships across sectors and institutions. As COVID-19 disrupted the lives of students, educators, and families earlier this year, EdClusters sprang into action, leveraging their capacity and reach in ways their networks were uniquely ready to do. Their collective efforts are meeting a range of needs—from internet access to devices to social-emotional supports. As schools prepare for uncertain and complex reopenings, we turn to Kansas City and Rhode Island for powerful examples of community in action.

Article | June 26, 2020

So, you’re shopping for ITSM software. If that is the case, then typically one of two scenarios is usually in place – either you are currently using a very rudimentary ticketing platform that does not truly encompass the full scope of IT Service Management (ITSM), or the opposite – the platform is very cumbersome, overly complex and requires 3-8 resources to administer.