When Sonia; a teacher at a school in Rajasthan, introduced learning tablets in her classroom, she almost witnessed a miracle!
Sonia believed that every student was efficient and was able in his/her own unique way. So, to bring out the best in every child, she introduced learning tablets in her classroom. With diverse digital and multimedia content, children were seen to have a greater degree of engagement towards learning.
Sonia’s moment of astonishment happened when one fine day, one of her below-average students came to class with a working model of a musical instrument which he had made all on his own with waste materials and some rubber bands.
Sonia was super-excited to see this. She instantly knew that he could grasp a complex concept of ‘Sound Waves’ and could apply it in real life. And this was only possible because practical experiments intrigued curiosity among children. Watching the lesson-wise and topic-specific videos could ignite students’ inquisitiveness and interest for learning. She was rest assured that no child could be judged as an ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’ grader. Every child was capable differently. Sonia was even more motivated towards putting in better efforts towards her teaching methods. That’s the power of Learning Tablets in teaching!
According to some research and studies, learning tablets can be vastly useful in teaching strategies to meet the 21st century student’s requirement. It is this widespread use of mobile technology that is leading today’s learning world. As per these research studies, Learning Tablets are beneficial for a child’s holistic growth. These devices have been found to be remarkably enhancing skills like creativity, sharing and searching, collaboration and even IT skills among students. Hardware wise, learning tablets are handy, light-weighted and easy to use while having minimalistic chances of wear and tear.
Interpreted change in education system post Covid
Talking about the present times, Covid 19 has certainly shown us the worst of situations while teaching us to be resilient and innovative about everything.
The course of learning in Indian education system is expected to change from here on. Schools might show evolution in their syllabus by including lessons on life skills, adaptability, flexibility, creativity, empathy and may be even emotional intelligence. In other words, the purpose of education would be to focus more on awareness than mere information.
Also, for an influential learning, it would be great if we have an integrated and experiential learning approach with better adoption of technology. It is interpreted that since this generation is already a lot into technology, and as they are the major ones being impacted by this pandemic; they themselves will drive this evolution. We might see a beautiful blend of online and offline learning and students making the most out of it.
Now, the question is post Covid; would we ask our students to get back to life just the way they were before the pandemic? Or will we inspire them to look at the bigger picture? Will they ever come to know the practicality of physiological, emotional and mental health as well? Will we only encourage them to remember environment day, green-house effect, black hole just as concepts and ask them to make some posters on it? Or will we stimulate their conscience in a way that they pro-actively embrace more and more learning on health, society, earth and life?
In these challenging times when guidelines like physical/social distancing, stay-at-home, stay-safe etc. creep in as the new norms, children will have to look at permanent options to learn even beyond the classrooms.
Learning Tablets can have a pivotal role here.
What can be the different ways in which Tablets can serve the purpose in these testing times not only for the students but also for teachers and parents?
Importance of Learning Tablets For Students
We all cannot negate the fact that learning has to continue irrespective of any adverse situation. So, how can tablets enable students to swim against the odds?
Safety: With iDream Learning Tablets, students can securely be at home, can get connected to their teachers online and learn from the digital content (available offline as well) on these tablets. Thus, not having to mingle or come in contact with ten different people reduces the risk to a great extent.
Getting thorough with concepts: iDream Learning Tablets open doors to in-depth and practical learning with the help of multiple categories of multimedia content. Self-explanatory practical videos make for a detailed learning.
Making learning fun even at home: With illustrations and graphical representations of facts, students find learning to be lively, interactive and engaging even while being at home.
Curriculum aligned content: The content on iDream tablets is well aligned with the school syllabus and board. Therefore, students can be rest assured that they won’t go off track and always be in sync with the current syllabus.
Non-judgemental environment: This is always a very important aspect pre and post Covid era. All these years we have been judging and getting opinionated about students’ ways or patterns of learning. This needs to stop utterly.
With iDream tablets that is definitely possible. As the entire learning content from class 1st to class 12th remains available even offline; to understand a topic better students can go back and forth to and refer to any class’s content whenever they wish to. As a result, there is nobody to micro-manage or interfere about their pattern of learning. They get the freedom and environment to pave their unique path towards improved learning.
Learning beyond with life skill videos and story books: As discussed in the initial part of this article, we had enough information-based learning fed to students. It is time to move on and guide them to a path where they learn implementation and connecting theory and practical in real sense. Life skill videos and huge digital libraries on iDream Learning tablets help students learn various principles and behavioural ethnicities of life including values like honesty, anger management, hard work, friendship, kindness towards wildlife and nature and so on.
Pacify stress during Corona times: During such tough times, students’ psychology needs to be analyzed and connected to. Even if they want to study, they might always be in a dilemma as to where they can clear their doubts if they face any. With classroom teaching gone for a toss, students might be in a state of distress and nervousness.
Learning Tablets can calm down such apprehensions. Students can comfortably surf the content available offline, look out for answers online and if nothing works, teachers are there who are always connected on this platform.
Importance of Learning Tablets For Teachers
Personalized guidance: Teachers who too are pretty anxious about their students’ discontinuation of learning, can easily get connected to their students and gauge their progress individually sitting right at their homes.
The assessments scores, usage reports of the students get stored offline on the tablets and synchronize with a centralized dashboard whenever it gets an internet connection from time to time. Teachers quite conveniently can track these reports and assign customized tasks to students who lag behind to enhance their performance.
Source of motivation: When students show improvement, keenness and inclination towards learning with a hint of self-interest, it indeed becomes a matter of joy for teachers. Their willingness to put in efforts doubles up; thus creating a win-win situation on both sides. Moreover, they are empowered to inspire students as much as they can.
Saves time: As the entire course and assessment set is on the tablet; teachers can diligently concentrate on preparing some add-on study material which can again be effortlessly incorporated in the iDream Learning tablets. Also, they save up on time for their self-development and enhancement of existing skills.
Importance of Learning Tablets For Parents
Lesser worry: Talking in today’s context, parents are certainly the ones who probably are the most worried about their children and learning progress. They are pretty unsure about the upcoming academic years of their children and are constantly looking for reassurance. Learning Tablets resume learning as good as classroom teaching and take ahead the academic year in a smooth way.
Complete control over apps: iDream Learning Tablets are so designed that parents get the liberty to lock/unlock apps on these tablets and establish control over what students or children access.
Status of learning tablets post Covid in classroom teaching
Having said about Learning Tablets and their usage at home, this also cannot be negated that Tablets are also going to be an integral part of teaching in classrooms even once schools resume. Since, the demand of tablets are at a surge during these times making more and more students getting indulged with tablet-learning, this trend is sure to be carried forward after schools reopen. Not that tablets weren’t used before in classrooms earlier but now they would stand out to be a supplementary and a complementary element to classroom teaching.
Inference
Covid-19 Pandemic has undoubtedly re-surfaced some questions regarding our education system which we kept ignoring and left them unanswered. With tablets and learning apps; the complete and sudden shift to online learning of course seems to be uneasy and strenuous. Nevertheless, we now have ample time to rethink the directions where we can actually emphasize our efforts. Not only think, but we also need to imagine how and what opportunities could we yield with this change.
