Wednesday, 8 November 2017

Explore the use of your smart device as a teacher




Have you walked into your classroom on a Monday morning and suddenly you remember that you left your flash pen on the dining table where you hurriedly took a cup of tea in order to get to work in good time. What a way to start the week right? Especially knowing fully well that   all the lessons and digital resources you have prepared for the week have been saved on that flash pen. The next line of action is to start thinking of how to hurriedly put one or two resources and lesson plans together in order not to look like a confused individual before your students  or school administrator.

Teaching and learning must be taken beyond the conventional methodologies and we must make adequate use of technology to aid our teaching and learning processes.
With my years of experience as a teacher I have seen cases where colleagues have more than one smart device and yet their world almost come crashing down when they find themselves hooked in a similar scenario I described above. Teachers must learn to make maximum use of their smart devices beyond chatting on social media, taking photo shots, and posting podcast of themselves on the internet.

A 21st century teacher that owns any smart device should find a thousand and one ways to make such device useful to them at work.
Here are some ways you can make your smart device most valuable to you as a teacher:

Ø  Drop box : You can make use of this tool to store up your files and this can give you access to all your files anywhere you are once you can get an internet access.
Ø  Google drive: Another online tool provided by GOOGLE which you can also use to store google files and this tool can be accessed on any smart device that you own.
Ø  Make a recorded video lesson of yourself (Flipped Lesson) and upload on a learning platform for easy access to your students. The interesting part of this is that you do not necessarily have to be present physically to teach your learners. Learners can always rewind, pause and replay the lessons if necessary.
Ø   Microsoft Forms can be used to design test or quiz for students online.

Ø   Share point is a tool that allows you to share a resource online with colleagues . A great resource to use for setting up school’s timetable or a term planner.