Examples of technological tools applied to education

Greetings friends of the Project Hope community.

Nowadays, talking about technological tools is nothing new, the development of digital applications follows a dizzying pace. And the technological tools applied to education, as well as any other tool, is a resource designed to facilitate the work, and allow a rapid exchange of information and knowledge within the educational context.

Image credit: pxhere.com

And in this context, since the computer appeared, it is very common for students and teachers to resort to a technological tool to organize their classes and do their homework. It is undeniable that many of these have facilitated the work, just remember how long it could take to type a report (well, those who can still remember this experience) or how long it took to go to the library and do research. These are examples of procedures that no longer have a place in the educational process, since any consultation and report writing can be done from home with a computer or device with internet access.

These tools have been very useful, and will continue to be, for teachers and students, helping them to carry out the teaching and learning process in a more dynamic way, in which many times the teacher learns by teaching, since students tend to master the technology much earlier than him, especially when it comes to older people. The important thing to note is that the level of competencies developed will be higher the more information and communication technologies (ICT) are used to carry out school projects, homework and class exercises.

Therefore, especially nowadays, the mastery of technology and digital resources is a necessary skill for teachers, since they went from one moment to another from giving face-to-face classes to virtual classes, and their role became that of accompanying their students in the learning process. Therefore, let's take a look at some examples of the technological tools that are being applied in the educational context:

• Educational platforms

These are programs designed with the purpose of supporting the teaching and learning process; their use requires pedagogical and computer skills and the knowledge to be disseminated. Their main function is to facilitate the creation of a virtual environment to impart knowledge; these programs allow us to organize the content of classes, manage classroom enrollment, follow up students' work and create a communication space to resolve doubts interactively and in less time.

Therefore, to be effective, educational platforms must be composed of different tools such as: Learning Management System, which is the place where all users of the platform can be contacted, and the Learning Content Management System, which is the tool that allows the management and publication of the content to be disseminated, in addition to communication tools for the exchange of information through chats, and also administration tools to manage the different access permissions that students and users will have on the platform.

Some examples of these platforms are: Moodle, Claroline and Google classroom.

moodle dashboard example. Image credit: Wikimedia.

• Educational Apps

Technological tools for teachers are becoming more and more practical, and educational apps are multimedia programs designed to be used on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. They have given rise to a new approach to virtual education known as m-learning or mobile learning, enabling more personalized learning in any situation and context inside and outside the classroom. They are very important because they usually contain an interesting ludic component, as they integrate the typical dynamics of a reward game to achieve the learning objectives, allowing the student to learn by playing.

With the internet and smartphones, apps have burst into education. Image credir: Wikimedia commons.

Some examples of apps are: smartick to learn mathematics, Anatomy, an interesting application to learn anatomy, Verbos, an application to consult the conjugation of verbs in the Spanish language, Planeta Geo, designed for learning geography. And no doubt in your app store you will find many more for each case.

• Educational Websites

These are websites designed to help students achieve certain pedagogical objectives, manage certain procedures or acquire certain skills. They are also often used by teachers to inform about the planning of a subject, share materials and facilitate communication. They also function as a database so that material is always available and can include multimedia content to facilitate the study of a subject. More and more teachers are publishing a website to support the teaching process.

• 3D printers and interactive whiteboards

Not all are resources available on the Internet to support distance learning, currently many schools and training institutes are incorporating electronic devices to support classroom teaching, as in the case of interactive whiteboards, a sensitive screen connected to a computer that combines the versatility of the traditional blackboard with all the new resources of ICTs, through them you can create and modify the content using a pointer or finger and this is projected on the screen.

Music class on an interactive whiteboard. Image credit: Wikimedia commons.
On the other hand, 3D printers are another example of technological tools applied in education, although they are mainly reserved for some subjects of higher education, such as those that need to replicate parts of the human body for a study of biology or medicine, or print reliefs for the topographic study of a terrain.

Well friends, as we see there are various tools and technological resources that are facilitating the teaching and learning process, we can not fail to mention the communication apps like Telegram and Zoom, which have also become a standard in distance learning classes.

I hope you liked the information, see you next time!

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