We live in a highly advanced digital world. Technology is an essential part of all different fields of life and same goes for the education sector. It has been almost 20 years since the first computers arrived in the country’s classrooms. Schools across the nation have spent zillions of dollars on introducing technology to the schools since then. Integrating technology into Education sector and lesson planning has facilitated us thoroughly. The perspectives on how technology can be utilized in the Education sector are many. We believe that technology has become a vital part of our education system. Today, we witness that students have access to systems, gadgets, and internet on schools and campuses. While at homes, they are facilitated with subscriptions to high-speed internet providers such as Spectrum Packages to make their educational research.
Let’s discuss the role of technology in the process of lesson planning.
How Technology can Impact Lesson Planning Process
Consider how technology can play an efficient rolein designing computer-based classroom activities. Technology can be used to organize, demonstrate, acquire, and communicate information. Technology integration makes the lesson planning process something similar to curriculum planning. The main difference comes as to how the students essentially acquire skills and knowledge. Technology also makes a difference in how theyapply and demonstrate their acquired skills and knowledge. It also helps in assessing and evaluating their learning. Incorporating the use of computer influences the basic structure of a lesson plan.
In addition to how technology helps in planning lessons, polishing students’ essential technical skills should be a priority. Teachers should not assume that students would figure out the technical stuff on their own.
Consider a Sample of Lesson Planning
To make an effective use of technology as a teacher, consider looking up samples for lesson planning. We are going to jot down certain helpful steps for you to consider and design your lesson plans accordingly. Let’s take the instance of a unit on some endangered species. Let’s figure out how we can plan it.
Step 1: Determine the technical knowledge and skills of your students.
You need to gauge how well your students are acquainted with technology. They need to know the basic computer skills. If they are not aware of anything, introduce the use of mouse, keyboard, and screen. Train them about the basic functions of opening, closing, and saving the files, looking up things on search engines, and a little knowledge of commonly used software programs such as Microsoft Word.
Step 2: Skim through the Curriculum Documents and choose a topic with well-defined learning objectives.
As an essential part of this lesson plan, your students should investigate as to how animal adapt to their environment and what are their struggles and strategies for survival. You can also tell them to analyze how human activities affect their habitats. A simple integration of technology in this very step could be the use of search engines such as Google. Students can look up images, videos, infographics, and other related material about the survival strategies of the members of the Animal kingdom.
Step 3: Choose a technology product.
Consider selecting a technology product and incorporate it as an essential part of each lesson plan. For instance, you can tell your students to write their report about the endangered species on a word document. Encourage them to make their reports interesting by adding images and facts. With this integration of technology in your class activities, you make your student more creative and engaging.
Step 4: Pick an assessment method and effective evaluation criteria.
After their reports are ready, evaluate their work. It would be ideal if you can incorporate technology at this point too. Assess their design, content, methods of presentation, and gauge their use of technology too.
Plan Ahead and Make the Best Use of Technology
Planning ahead is always a good practice. It helps you figure out and brainstorm effective methods of teaching and introducing technology in creative ways. In addition to this, many technology utilities essentially facilitate the teachers, other than assignments and evaluation. Teachers can save their time and energy and can use them in other creative activities in the classroom. They can use technology in creating attendance spreadsheets instead of using the long, conventional ways of keeping attendance tracking. Having easy-to-access and well-organized folders containing student information, contact information, grades, and assignments also helps teachers in storing class-related information digitally. This essentially reduces the clutter on their desks and improves their focus.
If you are someone who is entertaining the idea of pursuing teaching as a career, consider subscribing to an Internet package, such as Spectrum Plans, and read online about the effective integration of technology in classrooms.
