Top 7 Technology Tips for New Teachers

Now educational technology for teachers made a huge influence on the modern society, in particular on the young generations. Parents claim that their kids now are more likely to staring at the phone than studying, which is not valuable for their future. If you are a teacher, who faced up with educational process issue and doesn’t understand how to make your students learn your subject, here is 7 tips, which will help you to make your classes more enjoyable.

1. Find out your students’ interests 

The old-fashioned way of teaching, which was built only on professional relations between student and a teacher is not effective anymore. These days, if you want to encourage a student to learn your subject, ask what he likes, find the connection between him and your methods. Ted talks will help you with it. It has plenty of educational programs for everyone, developed by quite successful and respectful people from all over the world. They have plenty of interesting and even instructional ideas. It may be considered as a pedagogical practice not only for teachers but also for students. 

2. Unusual approach 

These days the biggest problem is the boredom of students. They are tired of making the same tasks, which are extremely annoying, though educational. Search for new ways of presenting and interpreting your material. Make it more interactive and allow your students to use their phones for training purposes. Test some educational apps and demonstrate them to the young audience so that they could study in their free time as well. Interest them in your subject through things they like, which are appeared to be any helpful resources on the Internet, like Ted talks or edubirdie canada (which was used in my previous investigations).  

3. Competitive spirit 

Many teachers think that competitive spirit in class vanishes when kids are turning into teenagers. It is not true, though. Teenagers are always trying to prove themselves, and this factor in their behavior may become crucial in their studying. Class Dojo app will help you encourage students to learn your subject. This app is a perfect way in teaching new technology in the classroom. It can serve as a virtual class with a quite cool design, where you register your students and can give them points for their studying improvement or vise versa. It shows students the determined reason of good/bad mark and also provides them short feedback about studying process in general. What is more important, other students in the class may see it and make notes as well.

4. Don’t distant yourself from students too much 

Children, especially teenagers, are curious to know everything that is going on around them.  If you are a young and inexperienced teacher, don't distant your students too much, but share information they want to know, be closer to their personal interests and everyday problems. However, you have already know the best method: get a Twitter account for instance or any other social network to build a connection. Therefore, it gives an additional benefit. You will be able to share stuff in your free time, follow some of your students and understand why they behave that way. This is a good strategy if you are working with problem-solving classes. 

5. Improve yourself 

Being a teacher means studying for the rest of your life. Technologies change so quickly that you need to be aware of it every single minute. Luckily, there is no reason to visit seminars, which are taking too much time. Now, there are a lot of educational websites for teachers, and you can just Google any specific site and read useful articles or do some exercises to refresh your memory. The best one is learner.org, but you can find something else that fits you more. 

6. Be organized 

Being always prepared and well-organized for the lessons is not that much easy as it may seem. Perhaps, it is the high time to give paper notebooks and take up online ones. There is an enormous amount of them, like Adittio and many others. Search for planners that was designed especially for teachers. They differ from the usual ones very much, because they have special tools. They will help you to carry less unnecessary things and be always equipped with the material for your classes. 

7. Involve parents in their kids’ studying 

Many parents urge to know about their kids’ success, and that is normal practice. Instead of wasting your time on parents’ meeting, offer them to use a special app such as Seesaw for instance. It allows students to upload their work, on the other hand, the teacher can check it there, and the parent can see the final result. This app facilitates control for both: teacher and a parent, making everything as fair as possible.