In a recent article in Campus Technology, a panel of five higher education discuss Ed Tech trends, narrowing the field down to 11 tech advances they feel will have the most impact in the coming years. In addition to high-tech classroom options such as augmented reality, mixed reality, and artificial intelligence, many of the top Ed Tech trends the panelists recommend are more fundamental, getting to the core of educational philosophy and how students learn and retain information.
Our Favorite Ed Tech Trends for 2017
What the Panelists Say: “Gaming technology is fast becoming an immersive and interactive tool for teaching and learning. To be sure, gamification makes it possible for students to actively learn by doing—both individually and collaboratively—through repetitive and thought-provoking practice, within a safe and multisensory environment, designed to simulate real life.”
How Clear Touch™ Can Help: Teachers have been creating hands-on, collaborative learning experiences for their students for decades, but technology makes this kind of classroom interaction easier. With Clear Touch™, teachers can create multimedia presentations, encourage small group collaboration with 20 points of simultaneous touch, and turn complex topics into fun, engaging classroom games with Snowflake.
What the Panelists Say: “Adaptive materials enable students to learn in a ‘choose your own adventure’ format, where they can interact with information at their own pace and discover individual learning pathways. The goal is to meet each student’s personalized education needs and support student learning, with the assistance of automated and predictive course feedback that is available to students as well as instructors.”
How Clear Touch™ Can Help: The educational software suite included with every Clear Touch™ purchase makes it simple for teachers to create lessons with multiple learning pathways. In addition, teachers can more easily conduct formative assessments through polling or flash quizzes to discover how well students are understanding the material and share what’s on a student’s screen for the benefit of the whole class.
What the Panelists Say: “While previous generations first experienced technology at work and then found ways to make use of technology in their personal lives, today’s students first experience technology for entertainment and social communication. This path to technology leaves a gap between students’ perceived ability and the skills employers expect from graduates…The intent of [digital integration] is to help students become self-directed learners, who know how to find up-to-date information and put together available technologies to create new solutions, in whatever field they enter after graduation.”
How Clear Touch™ Can Help: Since Clear Touch™ displays are software agnostic, students and teachers alike can connect with any device they want and use any software. This level of digital flexibility supports self-directed learning and greater digital literacy in the classroom, especially when teachers are able to demonstrate mastery of the technology.
Learning Inside & Outside the Classroom
What the Panelists Say: “Formal and informal learning spaces are going through a fundamental redesign as we look at how student learning extends outside of the classroom. Our formal classrooms are becoming increasingly collaborative spaces as we develop more digital learning content for students to consume outside of class and as we flip the in-class learning experience. We are moving away from traditional lecture spaces to interactive spaces with flexible and movable furniture and collaborative technology, such as multiple large-screen displays that enable students to work and learn as teams.”
How Clear Touch™ Can Help: Schools are increasingly recognizing that students don’t learn at the same pace, in the same ways, or in 50-minute blocks of time—and that much of what students learn and retain happens outside the traditional classroom. By combining their Clear Touch™ display with our convertible stand, teachers can design a completely flexible classroom, move the interactive display anywhere, easily create different learning zones for students, or set-up a small group work table for early finishers. Our educational software suite also enables teachers to connect with and interview experts outside of the classroom and design learning experiences that extend beyond the daily lesson plan.
New Learning Models
What the Panelists Say: “New technologies have historically had an impact on employment and the workplace: They have forced people to reinvent themselves, to adjust to the realities of the changing marketplaces. In the next several decades, people will increasingly have to reinvent themselves multiple times throughout their careers, and extremely quickly! They will need to come away from their learning experiences with skills that will be immediately marketable/applicable.”
How Clear Touch™ Can Help: Keeping up with the pace of technological change can feel daunting—but Clear Touch™ makes it simple. Our walk-up ready platform requires no complicated driver installs, works with any software you choose, and can connect to any device you want so that you can stay ahead of the trends without overhauling your entire classroom or investing hours of your IT department’s time. We also help teachers stay technologically adept by providing training through Clear Touch Academy and collaborative lesson planning through the Snowflake Multi-teach community.
Clear Touch Interactive® displays enable both teachers and students to collaborate and design new ways of learning together. To find out more about how Clear Touch™ can help you create a more flexible, technologically savvy classroom or to schedule a demo, contact us today.