The digital revolution trend has also heavily impacted the education industry. It has changed the way of teaching and learning in classrooms significantly. Furthermore, the implementation of technology in education has been accelerated by the COVID pandemic. Digital tools and multimedia have aided many students to continue their learning from the comfort of their homes. Therefore school, college, and universities also change their traditional method of teaching by incorporating educational technologies. Teachers and students could commence online classes without affecting the quality of education. This dynamic change in the learning model has transformed the way students are being taught as compared to the past. In this blog, I will discuss the 2 effective trends that I witnessed during my experience of working as an educationist.

Virtual reality technology to train firefighters

Virtual reality technology in the learning environment has undergone a tremendous change and learning has become much more immersive than traditional methods unlike using books, practical tasks in the lab. Students can now view the enhanced version of the image and object using digital tools and the virtual reality trend in educational technology is making learning a completing experience.

An example from my teaching experience is using virtual reality technology to train our health and safety trainees with firefighting skills. The idea is to intersect technology and science to create real-world immersive learning solutions, in safe virtual environments, for training in hazardous and emergencies.

The trainees go through the virtual reality side, equipped with the heads-up display that contains the virtual reality goggles and headphones for the audio side. Therefore, they will have an overall impression of the whole environment in case there is fire. The trainer/instructor is giving continuous feedback regarding the technique and distance the trainee should maintain.

Video on VR for fire fighter training by FLAIM Systems

Key benefits of virtual reality in education are highlighted below:

  • A virtual and protected environment with 360-degree views.
  • Portable learning environment. training anytime and anywhere.
  • Creating specific simulated and three-dimensional environments for accurate training.
  • Preserving resources and personal protection equipment.

Social Media in Education:

Student’s experience:

Social media plays an important role in every student’s life. It is often easier and more convenient to access information. Instructors and students can be connected and make good use of these platforms to enhance the teaching and learning experience. Using this approach, the group project can be assigned to the trainees which encourage collaboration, and students team up together to work on a task. They can share their weekly progress and findings using their social media account. They also post weekly blogs as a reflection of their lessons, furthermore, resulting in interactive peer-learning. Communication is not just established between classmates and teachers, but they can also reach a wider audience such as a group of students working on a similar topic or course from another university or other country. This wide network boosts up their creativity, confidence, communication, and aid in identification development.

Teacher’s experiences:

In current teaching practice, all teachers implement technology in teaching based on their existing knowledge and experience although they might face a challenge in terms of content creating and time-consuming editing process ultimately the whole process is interesting. Teachers who already have experience with technology know what to expect while it was quite surprising for the other one who never incorporated social media in education. Teachers can use the mini storytelling and post it on social media that is a way to interact with the parents as well. Hence it is evident that digital stories in teachers’ experience brought a lot of creativity and fun while making their communication with the students and parents even better.

The whole process is rewarding as the experienced teacher in terms of personal touch in the lesson and better communication. The teacher can incorporate their subject specialty while creating a blog or digital storytelling. Whereas posting on social media there is a huge network of assessability that a teacher can build and share. 

Social media is not limited to networking with students and parents, but teachers can share their work worldwide using various communities and platforms. The reflection and communication with the mentor-ship for the new teachers help them to have a strong grip on teaching. When new teachers network with educational professionals they can share their challenges and learn from the senior’s advice similarly the discussion can be done with the colleagues who might be teaching the same group and are in a better position to suggest. In this way integrating the feedback from seniors or peers can be an asset to build a teacher’s professional identity. For example, in my college, we have introduced a new platform for trainees to submit their work so one of the very technical teachers created an instructional video on how to use the platform and upload the student’s work. She shared that video in the social media group that I created for my department. From there, our Dean picked that video and share it with other campuses using the same platform. It is just a small example that how social media is making our life easier as educators.    

Video on benefits of social media in education by I. Lopez

Key benefits of social media in education are highlighted below:

  • Develop new digital literacy skills.
  • Improve knowledge retention and understanding.
  • Boots up class participation and students’ creativity.
  • Personal and professional identification.
  • Building community connects students, teachers, and parents globally.

References:

Lopez, I. (2021). SOCIAL MEDIA Enhancing Student’s Academic Performance. Youtube.com. Retrieved 16 November 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM5bxbosgD8.

Sprigg, S. (2021). US Fire Administration encourages the use of Virtual Reality for firefighter training | Auganix.org. Auganix.org. Retrieved 16 November 2021, from https://www.auganix.org/us-fire-administration-encourages-the-use-of-virtual-reality-for-firefighter-training/.

Systems, F. (2021). FLAIM Trainer Product Video – Portuguese subtitles (Brazil). Youtube.com. Retrieved 16 November 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYaWKIqZiWg.