By Rovelyn Fuggan Ayonayon
The education department is currently taking the lead in the government’s campaign to eradicate poverty through an aggressive campaign to reach out to the farthest barangays in the country to bring all out-of-school-youth inside the classroom.
With the K to 12 program already in full swing, the education department is now looking at the latest in today’s technology that can be used to improve teaching and learning and help our students, including out-of-school-youth, become successful.
With the proliferation of laptops, iPads and smartphones, teachers know that education does not have to stop at the end of the school day because students can now connect with their teachers online, and access educational resources such as e-books via the Web for their well-rounded education. Indeed, the future of education is at hand for today’s students.
However, parental involvement is still essential, especially in the process of allowing and monitoring our kids’ access to the Internet, where a lot of things have the potential to cause harm instead of helping them excel academically. This is evident in a recent teachers’ survey that shows students who spend five to eight hours a day on computers or smartphones tend to lose their concentration and harm their writing and communication skills.
Among the various media, the most problematic, according to the teachers, are video games for elementary students, and texting and social media for adolescents.
For this reason, parents should monitor their children in order to ensure proper use of the Internet, both for research or educational purposes, and for time spent on other web sites for entertainment. Today, children around the world are getting in touch with virtual friends through social media at a much younger age. But some of these kids are also being exposed to all kinds of danger that the Internet has spawned. Online gaming is an example. Some children have learned to create their own account with the intention to gamble online. This is a truly alarming development. As secondary school teachers, we can guide our students to improve their learning ability through various online strategies using different aps and sites.
For example, we can use Twitter to contact well-known academic personalities or to create hashtags about a relevant classroom topic and see if this can generate students’ participation. Educators like us consider it a challenge to arouse the interest of our students in this kind of academic interaction. We can also try to expand online interaction with parents, or with the community in general, where the welfare of our students are concerned.
We can make our students take turns in reading passages from an e-book, for example, or schedule an online discussion on a specific topic through group chats. This modern method of educating the youth could be challenging. But if we can show to our students how easy it is to broadcast their thoughts to the world, complete with handy references, there’s a good chance we can revolutionize the learning process.
Here’s how we can harness the power of Excel: When working with students on a mathematical or budgeting exercise, have them work with a spreadsheet program, like
Microsoft Excel, to promote understanding of both simple and complex calculations, as well as how such tools can be used to enhance productivity. Educators may be surprised at how well basic financial planning concepts are grasped when they focus on real-world scenarios.
Technology advances and evolves so fast. As educators, we need to keep up with the times in order to best prepare our students for this ever-changing world that we live in. With proper implementation, advanced technology can help us realize the educator’s role in helping Filipinos escape poverty through the power of education.
****
The author is Teacher 3 at Licerio Antiporda Sr. National High School in Buguey, Cagayan.