ischoolslasconia

“e-Classroom Strategies”

by Rogelio B. Lasconia Jr.

Many students nowadays are used to go in internet cafe for gaming, video conferencing, researching, blogging and engaging in social networks. Having these enormous net activities, a new breed of people who uses technology coined as “netizens”. Most of netizens spend their precious time in the net, bringing their laptops anywhere, browsing their wap configured mobile phones, tapping their ipods and ticking their netbooks.

To address this “netizens” phenomenon, Universities throughout the Philippines are now installing wifi zones and maintaining its public domain to have open-universities which offer distant and modular learning. Learning from the internet becomes everbody’s business. Students and teachers are bringing their gadgets to get wireless connections for e-classrooms.

In the foundations of education, There are lot of strategies listed to make classroom learning productive. To cope with this so called “netizens”, below are some suggestive e-classroom strategies to be used both teachers and students in maximizing the used of technology.

Online Teaching as Strategy

Classroom teaching is now more on the digital age. The teachers are being transform into online teachers with 24/7 schedule. The teachers design lesson plans digitally and interactively using websites that offers free blog content such as wordpress.com.

Online teaching is an emerging strategy in showcasing the lessons to students beyond the four walls of the classroom. The teaching process is now done in the internet by posting students answers and comments online. These online responses are being moderated by the teacher.

Another great innovations in online teaching is conducting of the examinations and quizzes which are paperless. By keying in the questions and answers to http://www.thatquiz.com, the students are notified through emails having their test codes in order to take the test.

Also, the pictures of students outputs in classroom demonstrations are posted and be voted upon if viewers like it by clicking vote button. One of the examples to this online survey is on http://mythologysksu.wordpress.com/pictures.

Mobile Phones with bluetooth as Strategy

Inside the classroom, by sending e-books to be read and pictures to be viewed in the cellphones can be an strategy. Some of the lessons are needed to be copied and be read but doing tiresome job is time consuming. The students spend their time in copying the lesson which is a tedious work.

Reading e-books makes students easy to comprehend the lesson presented or viewing pictures like greek gods and goddesses lets students visualize the characters presented in e-books.

Laptop as Strategy

Though it is expensive to buy laptop but both teachers and students should consider its advantage for today’s technology driven society.

Lessons of the day is best presented if laptop is used. The teacher uses PowerPoint presentations in imparting important class generalizations of a particular topic like “Mythology and Folklore”.

Similarly, using laptops, the students are viewing the video on “Percy Jacksons” and “The Clash of Titans”. After viewing, a learning log is being answered as an assessment.

“Hence, beyond these strategies, both teachers and students shall set ground rules to enjoy the benefits of technology in and out of the classroom. Setting the ground rules like : 1)cellphones are off during class discussions but cellphones are allowed to be on after the class or transferring of data, 2) do not reveal your password to your classmates and 3) always acknowledge your sources.”

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