Easy to Set Up and Use

Airtame products are designed for ease of use. You can have an Airtame device up and running in minutes, and the intuitive interface means that educators and students can start sharing their screen in no time. IT admins save time with an intuitive interface for users, and simplified management, such as remote updates.

Wireless Sharing at Its Finest

With Airtame, educators and students can screen share wirelessly, eliminating the need for cables and making content sharing easier. Educators can easily switch between presentations and videos, and students can show off their work to the class with ease. Fewer cables mean less equipment needs replacing – helping to slim your IT budget.

Compatible with Everything

Airtame is compatible with commonly used classroom devices, from Windows, macOS and Chromebook, to iOS and Android. Users can cast their screen with the Airtame app, through a web browser or via the standard native protocols Google Cast, AirPlay or Miracast (Powered by ). This means that no matter what tech your educators and students are using, they can share their screen with ease, making communication simpler than ever.

Digital Signage to Transform Spaces

Want to display schedules, news updates, or an emergency alert on screens around the school? Enable instant communication of important information to students, staff, and visitors with highly customizable digital signage that’s easy to create and deploy. No need to print new materials or manually distribute them around campus.

Centralized Management

Control each Airtame device from a single dashboard with Airtame Cloud – it’s easy to update software, adjust settings, and keep an eye on usage and performance. Organize Airtame devices into groups according to their location (e.g. specific building on campus) or function (e.g. classroom vs. meeting room). The Cloud account owner can invite multiple members of staff to join, assign certain user roles with different permissions and access levels. This means, you can assign someone else to manage your digital signage, without risking them tampering with any networking settings.

Secure

Security is likely a top priority for your school, and Airtame products are designed with this in mind. We use the highest level of wireless security available, WPA2 Enterprise encryption, and can be configured to meet your school’s security policies.

Reduce Support Tickets

Minimizes stress, as device performance can be monitored regularly from the Cloud. This reduces the number of support tickets, which means IT admins can focus on other important tasks.

Budget-Friendly

Airtame products are affordable, making them a cost-effective solution for every school. You can purchase multiple devices and use them throughout the school, creating a comprehensive wireless screen sharing and digital signage solution without breaking your budget.

To sum it up, Airtame products are an excellent choice for IT administrators in educational institutions for wireless screen sharing, digital signage, and more. They’re easy to set up and use, compatible with all devices, centrally manageable, secure, and affordable. By incorporating Airtame into your school’s technology infrastructure, you can simplify your workload – and your faculty, staff, and student body will love it too!

The post Tech Made Easy: Top Ways Airtame Solutions Simplify IT Management in Schools appeared first on Airtame.

1. Wireless Screen Sharing

All Airtame solutions allow you to share your screen wirelessly, eliminating the need for cables and adapters, making it easier for you to present information to your class. No longer tethered to a desk or podium, you are empowered to roam around the classroom and check-in with students in a more natural way. As Instructional Technology Coordinator of Warren Country Public Schools, Matt Kresslein, can attest, “We have transitioned to TVs with the Airtame platform, which has freed our teachers to move around the room as they lead digital lessons delivered wirelessly from mobile devices. This has proven to be far more impactful than standing in the front of the room while students use their Chromebooks.” It provides students with the opportunity to ask questions and receive tailored 1:1 support, without needing to pause a lesson midway through. You can wirelessly share your screen through a web browser, through native protocols such GoogleCast, Airplay, and Miracast, or through the Airtame application (which brings added functionality, such as the ability to share wirelessly to multiple displays at the same time).

2. Improved Student Engagement

With Airtame, you can bring your lessons to life and engage your students in new and exciting ways. You can share videos, images, and presentations to your display, making it easier for students to follow along and understand the material. Wireless screen sharing allows students to share their work to a central classroom screen, making group presentations easy, and fostering feedback from their fellow peers.

3. Encourage Active Learning

Active learning involves students learning by either enacting or explaining the subject matter to their peers. With Airtame’s bring-your-own-device policy, students can connect to Airtame from almost any device, including Chromebooks, Macs, Windows, and Linux computers, as well as iOS and Android devices. This cross-platform compatibility facilitates active learning, allowing more students to present in front of their class or larger groups and makes Airtame perfect for both 1-to-1 and BYOD environments. Moderator mode lets educators and other staff members disconnect anyone from Airtame, giving you the power to allow screen sharing and disconnect students when needed.

4. Promote Educational Messaging

In addition to providing wireless teaching and presenting, Airtame also provides digital signage options for your classroom display. Airtame Cloud enables the setup of a single image or website, a welcome message, and screen sharing instructions across all Airtame-enabled displays. You can also showcase various multimedia as digital signage, such as student projects or artwork, class schedules, upcoming sporting events, daily cafeteria menus, and more. Leverage your digital displays to promote health and safety guidelines throughout your classroom and common areas. Here’s what Warren County Public Schools had to say about Airtame’s digital signage: “Airtame has empowered us to share district-wide signage and videos, such as the student-created projects we displayed during Digital Citizenship Week to celebrate students’ digital agility and safety.”

5. Aid Punctuality

Use the Room Overview feature in the Airtame App to synchronize with your school’s Microsoft or Google Calendar and create a timetable, which can be displayed in hallways, break rooms, cafeterias, libraries, and other areas. You’ll also save time with Airtime’s wireless capabilities, eliminating the need to search for cables.

In conclusion, Airtame products are an excellent solution for educators who want to simplify the use of technology in the classroom while creating the perfect learning environment for student engagement. With features such as easy wireless screen sharing and digital signage, Airtame can enhance your teaching experience, save you time and effort, and improve your students’ learning outcomes. As Rob Cover, Assistant Manager – School Technology Operations for York Region District School Board states, “These devices are all about providing a classroom environment that is more engaging, and richer for learning. Does the product enhance or ease the classroom environment? In both cases, it does just by virtue of its connectivity and agnosticism. It simplifies display technology for the teacher, which enhances the curriculum and the teaching”. By leveraging Airtame’s capabilities, you can create a more interactive and dynamic classroom environment that will benefit both you and your students. So why not give Airtame a try and see how it can make your life easier as a teacher?
 

The post 5 Ways Airtame Products Can Revolutionize Your Classroom appeared first on Airtame.

What defines immersive technologies?

Immersive technologies are any kind of technologies that extends reality or creates new realities. It enables users to look anywhere and see and experience content and a new reality. 

Immersive technologies are highly interactive, visual and engaging technologies that connect the real world with a digital one – or creates an entirely new one. There are a wide variety of VR applications that can help educators create a whole new world to interact with for students. 

Art projects, data visualization, science projects – even ‘traveling’ – can happen with immersive technologies. It gives students the opportunity to experience places and explore ideas they would otherwise never be able to reach. 

Take a look at these inspiring edtech companies around the world that are pioneering digital learning. 

Gamification feeds into the brain’s reward system

Gamification is game-design applied to a learning situation. It’s easy to understand for most students, as they have generally all tried some digital game or another. One very well-known gamification application is DuoLingo, the language learning platform that teaches people, not just students, new languages by making it into a quest with rewards where you can compete with other learners. 

So because students are already familiar with a gaming world that includes rewards and challenges that gradually become bigger and harder, it’s the perfect pairing for a learning environment. 

There’s also the added effect of dopamine being released in the brain with every reward, the chemical that triggers pleasure, motivation, and positive reinforcement. This makes the learning experience positive and ensures that students want to keep going. 

Virtual reality takes you places you couldn’t otherwise go

Virtual and augmented reality applications offer students the opportunity to step into new places, situations, and roles that are otherwise impossible to access. 

These are the top edtech trends of 2019 that you should look out for. 

Besides the fun aspect of doing something ‘outside’ the classroom, virtual reality can be used to design experimental learning, training for a specific situation or even empathy learning. 

Students get to travel to scenarios in the past, discover career paths, different ways of living or environmental issues. All of it without leaving the classroom. It’s exceptionally popular with students studying medicine because it allows them to explore anatomical functions or even situations where they have to handle emotional distress – without having to actually harm anyone. 

Too much factual information can have the opposite effect than intended and make students disengaged and tired of trying to understand. Virtual reality is the perfect tool to make learning fun and easy to comprehend. 

Learning by doing in, for example, a lab situation also becomes easier as failure doesn’t result in an abrupt stop. Rather, students can start over immediately and try again. 

Why you should open up for immersive technologies in education

Immersive technologies are truly changing the way we experience the world and for educators, that’s a fantastic evolution in learning they can use to enhance their teachings. Of course, they don’t work without a dedicated setup and educator to back up the format. Instead, they should complement conventional teaching in making abstract and theoretically heavy subjects easier to comprehend. 

We know that people, especially kids, learn better by doing than by watching, which makes immersive technologies a powerful teaching tool. Not only do they create empathy by putting the student in other people’s shoes, it also makes complex scenarios tangible and easy to comprehend. 

Training skills, sharing knowledge … Almost any type of learning can be taught or improved with simulations through virtual and augmented reality and gamification. What are you waiting for?

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What is the flipped classroom?

Flipped learning or flipped classroom refers to a teaching form that flips the traditional teaching structure. 

How, though? Traditional teaching usually requires students to listen and stay passive in class as the teacher presents their material, and afterwards, the students do their homework actively at home. In a flipped classroom, students watch teacher-produced material at home where they can pause, skip or go back in the material any time they please, and then work on collaborative assignments in class.

Did you know that Lake Superior College saw a 70% decrease in IT support tickets after implementing Airtame? Learn more here. 

More control

In a flipped classroom, students have more control over their own learning. They are given the freedom to study at their own pace at home and take the time they need to understand difficult topics before asking questions in class. 

Student-centered

The whole point to a flipped classroom is going from a top-down teacher-centric approach to a pedagogical shift that puts students in center. By allowing students to collaborate and participate in their own learning, students can feel encouraged about their own education and at best help them stay devoted. 

Online access

Because classes and tutorials are online, there are no excuses to stay up to date with the most recent class material and homework. It means students can catch up easily and it gives them a lot of flexibility. It could also eliminate the need for many heavy paper-based books. Online access gives parents a better insight into what lectures their children are watching or have missed.

What’s in it for students

What it means for students is that they can get all the help they need when they’re doing their ‘homework’, because it’s happening when they’re in school. They can ask their classmates for help, and they won’t get left behind.

The best part is that all students don’t have to follow the same goal. It fosters personalized learning and a less stressful environment.

Parkland School District amplifies the student voice with Airtame. See how right here. 

What’s in it for teachers

For teachers, it results in much more freedom because they’re no longer in the center. They don’t have to concentrate on delivering all the answers and information on the spot but can help students search for them. It’s also easier to set up goals and success criteria as teachers can monitor students’ progress in class rather than trying to assess it from the traditional form of homework.

Downsides to flipped learning

Done properly, the flipped classroom can provide a strengthened learning environment where teachers can focus on the individual and students get more free time and flexibility. There are some cons to the process, however. 

First of all, teachers have to trust that students prepare and study at home. Without a dedicated preparation, teachers can’t go over the same material as the class can’t follow the lecture. 

Moreover, the flipped classroom relies on some sort of tech inclusivity. Meaning that students who aren’t necessarily as tech-savvy as their peers or don’t own the same equipment in a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) environment might get left behind. It’s important to think about what technological implementation everyone, no matter their background, will be able to use and understand. 

Airtame is a BYOD inclusive, wireless screen sharing tool. We cater to K12, higher education, and universities alike. 

Another significant downside is the amount of screen time students will be forced to endure. Screen time isn’t inherently bad but can be problematic if it’s consistent throughout the day as the only educational tool. 

Conclusion

The flipped classroom can be an effective way of engaging students and aiding them in being a part of their own education. Done right, it’s a flexible solution that suits both students and teachers. 

Interested in how wireless screen sharing can help create a better learning environment? Book a personal Airtame demo right now.

The post Turn traditional teaching upside down with the flipped classroom appeared first on Airtame.

The annual ISTE conference (International Society for Technology in Education) is an epicenter for edtech enthusiasts, especially within K12, and this year in Philadelphia was no different. Naturally, the Airtame team was present too.

The Airtame booth was on fire

Following the recent success at InfoComm in Orlando where we won a ‘Best of Show’ award, the Airtame team was ready to take on a new conference – and slay it! And that’s exactly what happened.

Thanks to everyone who dropped by our booth, from all of our fantastic Airtame ambassadors to distributors and curious souls. Our sales team and tech specialists literally lost their voices at the end of the conference because of the number of conversations and pitches. 

The ultimate stamp of approval

When it comes to ease-of-use, Airtame is definitely a top player. We spoke to several of the Airtame IT admins and end users who have been directly involved with deploying Airtame, and all of them highlighted how simple it is to manage and use. 

Parkland School District in Philadelphia are also avid Airtame users and made a small announcement during the conference about their experience. This is the best praise we could ever wish for and we’re humbled by the kind words. 

Here’s Tracy Smith, Assistant to the Superintendent for Operations at Parkland School District:

Edtech trendspotting at ISE

While many booths were displaying incredibly innovative solutions, some seemed stuck in the past. To me, at least, some booths had a faded idea of what a modern classroom looks like and who benefits from smart technologies. 

Specifically, I’m talking inclusivity. Edtech needs to be for everyone, and that’s something most of the ISTE exhibitors took a stand on. Whether students come from a background with or without technology in their lives, the classroom needs to include both – and everything in between. 

That’s why I want to highlight ease-of-use as the main trend at ISTE. Whether it was robotics, spell-checking or, obviously, screen sharing, there’s a need for technologies that work for everyone in the classroom, students and teachers alike and no matter their background. 

The post ISTE2019 recap: The no. 1 edtech conference appeared first on Airtame.

Code Your Future is one such example; a non-profit organization that teaches refugees how to code in order to have better job opportunities. They’ve got locations in London, Manchester, Glasgow, and now Rome too, with more than 100 graduates so far.

Because of the many cultural backgrounds of the refugees, it’s vital that the tech they use at Code Your Future is simple, reliable, and easy to use. That’s why we’ve recently gifted them four Airtames in order for them to succeed and create a better, open learning environment.

Germán Bencci is the founder of Code Your Future. We asked Germán for a chat about cultural differences, the modern workspace, and why coding is a great place to start if you want to learn a new, high in demand skill fast.

How did Code Your Future come to be?

The refugee crisis in 2015 hit me pretty strongly. I’m from Venezuela myself, and over the past years, many of my countrymen have had to flee as well due to the political climate. So when I experienced it in Europe too, I immediately started thinking about solutions.

I think what really drove me to start Code Your Future was the fact that big tech companies made a lot of promises and pledged to have a positive impact on the crisis, yet nothing happened. That’s when I knew I had to step in and present something tangible, and it was natural to me to use tech as an enabler.

Code Your Future helps create better job opportunities for future tech employees. But why coding?

No matter their academic background or if they have one at all, many refugees find it almost impossible to get jobs other than cleaning, repairs or sewing, etc. Coding gives you a lot of other opportunities and skills that are highly sought after, but without having to spend many years training.

It doesn’t take a lot of time nor money to learn how to code, and it’s one of the very few skills that makes you likely to get a good job instantly. Coding ignores ethnicity, religions, and cultural background completely.

What fuels your mission of helping refugees code? What’s the reward?

The opportunities and networks we have access to aren’t distributed evenly in society and, consequently, there’s a lot of social inequality. Disrupting that is pure magic! Of course, meeting new people and connecting with different, rarely represented cultures is also a fantastic bonus.

I guess it’s really mostly about taking the small steps towards change that inspires people to take the same small steps themselves.

What does it take to become an innovative organization, like Code Your Future?

People! People that want to make this happen. And a good portion of determination, welcome attitude, risk-willingness, and continuous yearning for improvement.

I’d also have to add that your ego should stay out of it. Working with what we do requires you to be selfless and open in a way we rarely are today. We’re non-profit, so we simply can’t think of it as a traditional business venture.

In relation to that, what do you think tech companies should do to accommodate employees with all sorts of backgrounds?

First of all, I genuinely feel that there’s a lot of good will and intentions in the tech industry. Tech products are used by millions of different people with tons of different backgrounds, so in order to cater to them, tech companies have to understand them and embrace their differences.

I think tech companies should be aware that they still have biases and then try to let go of them. They’ll be pleasantly surprised if they go outside their comfort zone a bit more.

Employees are one thing. What do you think the modern workspace should look like?

The most important thing for a modern workspace is understanding where their workforce is coming from. The same thing that goes for, say, Italian culture isn’t always a given for people with other backgrounds.

With the proper training, an open attitude as well as transparency, companies can come a long way. It’s imperative that companies figure out exactly what kind of company they want to be. What does the hierarchy look like? What about daily communication? Are you only considering a certain personality type? And so on.

When companies do that bit of ‘soul searching’, they’ll understand what they have to do to get to where they want. And maybe if the structures that are already implemented should be disrupted.

What have you learned through the process of establishing Code Your Future?

The most amazing thing I’ve learned is definitely that people are more than willing to share knowledge, help out, and make a difference. On the other hand, it’s equally amazing how willing the refugees we meet are to learn something new.

People basically want the same thing. They want to feel part of a group, they want basic safety in life and a sense that what they do matters. I’ve found through Code Your Future that it’s all possible if we’re open and treat other religions and cultures respectfully. We can achieve so much if we just acknowledge how alike we are deep down.

What do you wish every workspace had in terms of gear?

I can only speak for Code Your Future, but I believe this is applicable for other businesses too. Everybody needs work equipment that’s easy to understand and simple to use. Dashboards and big screens, for example, can quickly give workers a summary of the company’s impact and metrics. Tools like that empower your employees to feel connected and are a conversation-starter cross-team.

Can you describe one particularly meaningful student success story?

We have so many, it’s hard to just pick one. I’ll tell you the story of Louis who fled from Cameroon and rose from homelessness to a full-time developer.

After fleeing Cameroon, Louis found himself alone on the streets of London, scrambling to get by. He lived on the streets for a full year, after which he found a job as a cleaner and simultaneously enrolled in college to learn English. With no prior experience, he was afraid Code Your Future wouldn’t accept him into the course, but I told him to apply anyway.

He graduated from Code Your Future after just a few months and landed his first full-time job as a developer immediately thereafter. He laughed and told me he could have never dreamt of a life like this before, yet here he was! That made me so happy.

We try to give people the skills to become independent in a foreign country, and it’s amazing every time we succeed. It’s possible because we teach not only coding, but also communication, and how to work in a professional environment. Louis tells me he has a new dream now: to become a full-stack developer and teach others, just like we do, how to code. I’m confident he will do just that and help those who are in the same situation he was.

How can technology, like Airtame, help improve the workspace?

One of the reasons why Airtame has helped us so much is that you can be in a room with 30 laptops and people sitting in front of their computers working but still share the same experience. Airtame creates a unified feeling where everyone can be part of the same storytelling experience.

For us, it becomes a classroom environment where we break down hierarchy and let everyone be part of the discussion. Airtame allows people to tell their own story smoothly, no matter their cultural background, and share their problems in a visual way, and it’s very empowering to be a part of.

We look forward to seeing Code Your Future bloom.

If you want to know how Airtame can make a difference for your workspace, please don’t hesitate to book a demo with us now.

The post Interview with Code Your Future: How coding changes lives appeared first on Airtame.

Edtech tools and technology in the classroom is generating new learning opportunities through personalized teaching, engaging learning strategies and a lot more collaboration than before.

What do we mean by technology in the classroom, or “edtech”?

Edtech – or education technology – is about applying digital technology to support better, more personalized learning. It’s everything from the use of computers to teach math and reading to online testing, immersive experiences, screen sharing, AI-fuelled feedback, and so much more.

Furthermore, and despite popularly held opinion, technology in the classroom can be cost-efficient. IT administrators and CIOs at schools or universities need to stretch tight budgets to accommodate the best, most regularly usable tech. Read more about such budgeting dilemmas in our $1k classroom upgrade interview with Minnesota’s Lake Superior College.

Why do we need technology in the classroom?

Students today are immersed in their digital personas and personal tech outside of school.  Therefore, the education sector can piggyback on that mindset and use it to drive engagement.

Early learners, as well as older students, can benefit from the implementation of edtech. By incorporation play, creativity, and familiar digital tools, students are much likely to stay interested.

Edtech doesn’t have to be futuristic and costly, it can be something as simple as using current technology in a new and fun way. That way, no one gets left behind and the whole learning environment becomes – and stays – collaborative.

BYOD, or truly inclusive environments

The BYOD or Bring Your Own Device educational approach is becoming increasingly popular in the classroom. In a BYOD environment, students can bring in their own equipment.

As most students already have their own smartphone or tablet they use for leisure activities, incorporating them can cut costs significantly for a school. And since they’re already using their devices in their private lives, why not embrace it in the classroom too?

In a school environment, students are likely to have a myriad of different devices and operating systems that somehow need to work together. Some prefer Apple for their intuitive design and variety of easy-to-use products, while others would rather go for the straightforward and more widely accessible Microsoft suite.

But the number of Chromebooks in the classroom is rising. Using Chromebooks for teaching purposes is quickly becoming teachers’ favorite because it comes with Google’s education tools and because it’s a much cheaper choice than Microsoft and Apple’s products.

Smartphones in the classroom isn’t an alien thought either. Because so many different types of devices and operating systems are in place in a BYOD environment, the other digital tools implemented in the classroom also need to meet the requirement of several different platforms.

Ditch the paper versions for digital resources

One way to go digital that isn’t just sustainable but also more interactive is to switch to digital textbooks. Digital textbooks are not just online versions of their paper counterparts. Nowadays, they’re much more than that, with incorporations of intelligent software, databases, and individualized training. They can be easily updated and won’t get worn out in time as a regular textbook will.

Aside from saving a lot of money and paper on physical resources such as textbooks, digital learning tools like digital textbooks and online learning academies have the advantage of customization, meaning that every student can get a version of the course that best suits their needs.

Schools can make a tremendous contribution to a healthy and sustainable learning environment by significantly reducing paper waste. Going digital will help curb deforestation and develop awareness around a ‘green mindset’. Learn more about a ‘green mindset’ in schools in our edtech trend piece here.

But besides digital textbooks, we want to highlight Khan Academy, which is a set of online tools mainly based on their YouTube videoes. The YouTube videos serve as a basic understanding of a specific topic, for example, geometry.

Khan Academy’s website provides a set of practice lessons and progress tracking that can be used as a supplement to the videos. And while Khan Academy’s teaching tools aren’t a replacement for regular teaching, they certainly offer great support for more personalized learning in the classroom.

Khan Academy is available in many different languages, including English, French, Spanish, Turkish – and plenty other partial translations. It’s non-profit and can be used by anyone, and there’s even a mobile application for easier access.

Chalkboards, whiteboards, and now smartboards

Smartboards are interactive whiteboards, and they’re increasingly popular examples of technology in the classroom because they allow students and teachers to interact in a whole new way that’s more collaborative. Where whiteboards only allow writing, smartboards often use digital markers to record what is written. It’s an incredible visual aid that can support both teachers and students.

The Promethean ActivBoard Touch is a great example. An electronic touch board that allows students and teachers to create great content and manipulate it afterward using digital markers.

It allows multi-touch functionality, dry-erase writing and drawing, and compatibility with both MacOS, Windows and Linux.

Promethean even offers more than 60,000 free teaching resources for the smartboard that truly make learning come alive and interactivity an incorporated part of the classroom.

Another smartboard display we can recommend is the Samsung Flip. More on that – and its integration with Airtame – here.

Wireless presentation

Presenting to a TV or projector n the classroom is an absolute must for a teacher in the modern classroom. But wireless screen sharing can go way beyond just teacher presentations.

Airtame is a wireless screen sharing solution that works in a BYOD environment – all devices and platforms included. It not only lets teachers present to the screen or projector in the room with ease, but the students can.  

Wireless presentation also has the benefit of getting rid of messy cables and adding some freedom to the classroom. The cables might not be the biggest concern for most people, but in a classroom with young adults roaming the room, cutting the cables could cause fewer accidents.

Add to that, wireless presentation tools such as Airtame grant teachers the freedom to walk around the room and give their support to individual students, all without losing sight of what’s on the screen.

Having an inclusive screen sharing tool like that will significantly increase collaboration and engagement in the classroom. If you’re curious to learn more about Airtame, just watch this quick video:

Nothing without great teaching

Edtech does not create better education of its own accord but can help facilitate teachers to become the best educators they can be. What we’re saying is that edtech should be used as a tool, not necessarily as a complete replacement.

The main idea of implementing technology in the classroom is to create a more dynamic and flexible learning environment.

Using technology in the classrooms allows teachers to give immediate feedback and experiment with their teaching, it can automate otherwise tedious tasks, provide fun and engaging learning environments for students, and help shape the online identities of the modern, digital citizens that the students will become.

Are you a fan of edtech? Perhaps you’ve already implemented classroom technology? Let us know what you like the most about edtech – and perhaps what you find challenging as well

The post The essential technology in the classroom appeared first on Airtame.

In one of his case studies, he let students attend lectures and then gave them a pop quiz right at the start of the next class. The performance was abysmal. A few weeks later, the results were deteriorating further, which indicated that the students were only retaining a minimal amount of what was taught during the lectures.

The solution to this problem meant a radical change to the traditional methods of teaching, but something that was very much possible. Here is a glimpse into some of the essentials that you need to consider for your classroom next semester.

Active learning methods to replace long lectures

Active learning is a new teaching approach that progresses with a student-centric mindset. In this approach, the teacher wants the students to take back something and probe into it. One of the most effective active learning methods is to divide a problem into subproblems and assign it to several small groups within a class. Occasionally, the teacher should group them back together and also guide them in the right direction.

Another active learning method is One Minute Paper or The Muddiest Point Paper in which the students are given the opportunity to write down the most important points from the day’s session or the least clear point (muddy). The responses can be later addressed in the next class or through online groups.

A popular active learning method is brainstorming where students are encouraged to generate ideas on a certain topic or a particular category. The ideas they pitch are written on a blackboard and all of the ideas, however improbable they may seem, must be noted.

Active learning is not just about handing over responsibilities to the student, it involves a great deal of effort from the teacher’s side as well. The teacher must not only know the content but should also know how to create interactive experiments and challenging scenarios.

Laptops are not the biggest source of distraction in a class, it is boredom and irrelevance. Students tend to stay attentive to topics that grab their attention and has an impact beyond the classroom itself. Teachers should look into changing the way they construct their lectures and incorporate new teaching methodologies to enhance student throughput.

Building a dynamic study environment through tech

The smartphone penetration in Europe was 84% of the total population at the beginning of 2017 and over 23% of the total population is under the age of 24. This opens up a huge potential for bringing flexible and innovative learning methods through technology to a large population of students.

Most of the existing classrooms have a specific set of hardware that the students and teachers are expected to comply with. This creates a lot of cable clutter, confusion, and difficulty for maintenance. But incorporating a device like Airtame into the classroom removes the necessity for cables when it comes to presentations and seminars and eases the maintenance overhead on the IT admins.

It also opens up the entire classrooms to learn collaboratively by allowing every student and teacher to mirror the contents from their device to the monitor independently.

Students nowadays don’t just want to learn about something, but they want to feel the context. This is where some of the most popular gadgets and technologies come into play. Virtual reality headsets can prove to be a boon for teachers as it allows students to virtually experience what is being taught.

Whether it is learning about the solar system, different parts of a car or historical monuments these headsets can elevate the learning experience to a whole new level.

Hands-on learning is crucial

Knowing concepts but failing to understand where to use them renders the knowledge useless. This is a very relevant statement in today’s world wherein students are only taught the high-level outline of concepts but are not encouraged to move deeper into the subject.

Hands-on learning through Arduino kits, 3D printers and more are proven to be better for the students in terms of retention capacity, problem-solving capability and better engagement.

The post The essential teaching tips you need to bring to your classroom next semester appeared first on Airtame.

Technology is evolving exponentially and it is opening up several avenues for the education sector that will allow students as well as teachers to eg. Take the example of BYJU’S, an online tutoring company that shot to worldwide attention after being funded by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia Capital, Sofina, Tencent and others for over $240 million.

Airtame, with over 80,000 devices sold worldwide, has made wireless screen mirroring accessible to students and teachers alike, reducing the need for multiple cables in the classroom and office.

Moving Towards a Digital Classroom

According to Angel.co, there are nearly a thousand edtech startups in the United States with an average valuation of $3.4 million. We can say without a doubt that the education sector is taking giant strides through the incorporation of technology. New teaching methods include the use of devices and apps that give more importance to the student’s input rather than the teacher’s.

A simple, yet effective device like Airtame can make a huge difference when it comes to seminars or presentations conducted from the student’s laptops. There may be a lot of conflicting hardware among students’ laptops and other devices, which makes it difficult for a smooth studying experience. Not to mention the plethora of different cables like VGA, HDMI and other connectors and adapters that are needed to ensure uniformity between devices.

With Airtame, all they have to do is install the app on their laptops and get ready to press the mirroring button to start wireless screen sharing. They can then quickly stop sharing, and pass on the responsibility to the next student or teacher.

Creating a Flexible and Collaborative Learning Space

Pedagogy is slowly changing with institutes like Hult International Business School, Parkland School District and Lake Superior College making use of devices like Airtame for an extremely flexible and collaborative learning space.

Let’s take a look at how Lake Superior College is using Airtame to introduce new teaching pedagogy. Before the introduction of Airtame, it was tough for them to find a universal mirroring solution that works with all devices, independent of the operating system. It was also difficult for IT admins to cater to all the support tickets that came their way due to technical difficulties during presentations.

With Airtame, they have been able to reduce the support requests and the downtime between various presentations are minimal due to the ease with which Airtame can juggle between users.

Business schools and colleges have lots of presentations to be done, both by students as well as teachers, which makes Airtame very relevant for such a use case. Since most of the classrooms are still analog, a complete wireless solution that is both cost-effective and platform agnostic makes for a considerable upgrade.

From Passive to Active

The biggest advantage of using technology in the classroom is making students active instead of being passive like in the traditional classroom. Students are participating more in the learning process which is centered around them, rather than “the big lecture”.

Incorporating digital devices like Airtame has not only allowed teachers to include more students into the learning space, it has also become a boon to the IT admins at schools and colleges due to the lack of cables as well as the universal cloud management tool that allows them to configure it remotely right from their desk.

The introduction of technology into classrooms will take its time and the process has already begun. There will come a time when textbooks will no longer be in use and the whole classroom will be digital.

Looking for more education inspiration? See our prediction on what classrooms will look like in the future.

This post was originally featured on teacherswithapps.com

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