Page 26 - YOUTH DIGEST

Waid’s head of social subjects and religious education, Scott Duncan,

added that extending technology beyond the classroom has helped staff

get to grips with new ways of teaching. “We have access to technology in

every room,” he says. “That really allows staff to engage in technology to

become more confident with it and also enhance learning and teaching to

make it more interactive for our young people who engage with technology on

a day to day basis.” However, technology isn’t going to provide an out-of-the-

box teaching solution by itself – it has to be merged with good teaching

practices to truly work. A 2015 OECD report revealed that technology won't

improve results without better teaching practice, whereas best practice will
lead to good results without the use of any technology. The same study also

found that some countries with low educational technology adoption scored

the highest on literacy and numeracy. Despite this, there are clear signs that

good practice and the right technology will produce the best results of all,

making it vital that the two are combined well. There are glimmers of hope in

the industry, where companies are working to create products that are

designed from the ground up to be classroom aides and address these

shortcomings. One example of this is the interactive display. Historically, the

iconic blackboard was replaced by the more functional and easier to use

whiteboard, helping to reshape how a teacher delivers a lesson. Now,

interactive displays are helping to mix meaningful learning experiences with

the functionality of an internet-enabled device. Interactive displays, provided

by companies such as SMART Technologies, are helping to turn the classroom

board into a collaborative hub. Unlike typical touchscreens, on panels like

SMART’s 7000 series interactive display, students can use pens, erasers and
fingertips to work on the board simultaneously, creating the same

opportunities for collaboration as you’d find on a traditional whiteboard.

Android, iOS and Windows devices can also be synced so that each student can

make personalised annotations on their machine, which are instantly displayed

on the main board.

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