Education in the Information Age

In this blog I will be talking about education and how much technology is involved in it in our every day lives.

Registration and Student databases

In most schools today, the children are registered using special record keeping software.  This would be used at the beginning of every lesson by the teacher.  The teacher has a specific list of names for specific lessons and they mark the child either present or absent with specific symbols, such as a / for present or a N to say they are absent.  This would then be saved to the school database and would go against the students records.  This is a more environmentally friendly way of registering because there is no paper required and it saves the time of the office staff because they don’t have to enter it to their computers.  This software is also a database for the students history and saves their grades, achievements and conducts.  This can be viewed at any time by teachers so they can see how they are getting on with their school work. 

Advantages of registration and student database

• It saves paper which is good for the environment
• It is easily accessible by the teachers and office staff
• It is reliable and easy to use

Disadvantages of registration and student database

• The information is confidential and private so it has to be very secure
• If mistakes are made then it is not easy to rectify it because only certain people have access to change things for security reasons
• It is expensive to have a computer in every classroom to do the register

In my opinion, this is a very good use of technology in education and it makes it much easier to store the information.  In the future this will probably be implemented into every school and it will be improved to be even easier to use.

Interactive whiteboards and computers

In most schools, teachers have stopped using whiteboards and now use interactive whiteboards.  This is a whiteboard that is connected to the classroom computer and what ever is shown on the computer will be projected onto the screen for the whole class to see.  This is extremely useful as it is useful for many different teaching methods.  It can be used to show educational youtube videos or it could be used to show an example of someone’s good work.  Teachers can also teach a whole lesson by going through a PowerPoint on the board instead of reading through a boring text book.  Another feature of the white board is that it is interactive.  This means that the teacher can get some students to come up and work something out, drag something around the board and have fun in the classroom on a big screen for everyone to see.  The big advantage of the whiteboard is that it is connected to the computer so what ever you can show on the computer, you can show to a whole class on the interactive whiteboard.  Sometimes the teachers will want to show the class a DVD and normally they would have had to drag a small television into the classroom and try and get the class to gather around its small screen.  However, with an interactive whiteboard, you can put a DVD into the computer and it will be displayed on the massive whiteboard by the projector.  This means that the whole class can see it from their desks.

Advantages of interactive whiteboards

• Makes it easier to teach
• Children would prefer learning from the interactive whiteboard rather than a book or a normal whiteboard
• They are impressive and parents are more likely to send their children to a school with good teaching technology such as this

Disadvantages of interactive whiteboards

• Some older teachers might not find it easy to use the technology
• It is very expensive technology and some schools might not be able to afford it
• If there is no power then it makes it hard for the teacher to teach without a whiteboard

In my opinion, Interactive whiteboards are the best way to teach.  They are able to display so much content for the students to see and it makes it easier for the teachers to prepare lessons because they can use powerpoints.

Virtual Learning Environment

A virtual learning environment is a set of teaching and learning tools designed to enhance a student's learning experience by including computers and the Internet in the learning process.  An example of a Virtual Learning Environment is something called Frog.  To access from all you need is your usual school login and then you can access lots of useful content.  The virtual learning environment is run on school servers and is accessible through the school computers and also over the internet while you are at home.  One of the things that the VLE is used for is the individual student timetables.  A student can log on and see what lessons they have every day and they can check the times of those lessons.  Another useful feature of the VLE is that students can access their school drives from home so they can finish their work and then re-upload it back to school.  Another feature is that the teachers can set homework or lesson work while they are not there and the students can just log on and find all the information and the work that the teacher has set for them.  The students can also upload it to the teachers to mark and they can notify the teacher of the works completion.  One of the useful features for teachers is that they can book the computer suites in advance for future lessons.  This is all saved on the school servers so everyone will be able to see who has booked which rooms and when.

Advantages of VLE

• Easy to login and use because they are made especially for students.
• Makes homework easier because students are able to download their school work at home in just a few clicks and they can submit it to their teachers easily
• Each student has their own personal login which makes it easier to display their drives and timetables
• You can access it any time, anywhere

Disadvantages of VLE

• People that do not have a computer at home will not be able to use it
• If someone’s internet goes down then they can’t submit their homework or complete school work from home

In my opinion virtual learning environments, such as Frog, are going to be the future of accessing documents anywhere.  It is an extremely useful way to manage your work by uploading and downloading work from your school accounts and then sending it to the teacher to be marked.  It will save on paper which is better for the environment because work is being done more on computers now.  It also makes things more reliable because there cant be any excuses for not handing the work in on time and teachers wont be able to lose the students work and grades by accident.