In an historical period in which a pandemic forced all the students of the world to stay at home, they have found in technology the only way to continue attending school and hang out with friends.
Experts in the world of technology and education reveal their secrets to us... so that we will be ready for everything!
We will be:
More skilled
More self-confident and motivated
Able to present our projects in a more creative and engaging way and capture the attention of the audience, learning from others and with others (peers)
Mauro BordignonInterview
OPINION ABOUT TECH & LEARNING
Electronic devices that we use nowdays, are the books we used to read in the past: we have technology in our school because we wanted to try something different! In this case, different is better, so, I have a completely positive opinion. About technology and education, iPad is a tool that can also be used for our learning: education is fun, but fun because you’re happy to learn.
CHANGES IN STUDENTS, PARENTS & TEACHERS
Student needed to understand that they are using iPads for their learning, indeed for some of them this was really incredible. It was difficult to explain to parents and teachers (sometimes) that we can use electronic devices as tools for our learning. At the beginning some of them were doubtful, then they realized the positive impact to our students.
NEGATIVE ASPECTS
Tech is just a tool, it reduces our effort: it should not be used as the only learning tool.
POSITIVE ASPECTS
Imagine the pandemic without tech, we would be isolated from everyone! Online learning can’t be a substitute of teaching because be it is fundamental to have and create human relationships and physical presence.
NEXT GOAL
My next goals are introducing the Virtual Reality in school. VR is a tool, a support but it can’t substitute education and studying how VR can affect and improve our learning.
“With will you go everywhere” & “Sometimes, we are worried about what we don’t know”
-Mauro Bordignon, Head of Academic H-Farm International School
Marco SaviniAt Big Rock, an Institute of Magic Technologies, the founder Marco Savini takes us on a tour to visit the school. The tour is amazing and very useful to make me understand the right path I need to take to start my site and the importance of graphics to capture the attention of those who consult it. Marco Savini, underlines the fact that the students' greatest difficulty is that of making a well-made and well-finished product-design, which must be “bowed” (layout) before being presented to the public.
He advised me to use WordPress as a platform to create my website and gived me invaluable information on how to start my work, remembering me that I have to choose the contents that must be interesting to my audience. During the summer there will be summer camp courses for kids interested in design and other activities that I saw during the tour. From September there will probably be a collaboration with our school in which students can participate in interesting courses even in the afternoons after school: Marco says we will be also able to use virtual reality at the PYP from September, since the pandemic has blocked the programming they had to let us use it too.
“Technology is magic! & “Making a well-made, well-finished product-design, which must be “bowed”
-Marco Savini, Founder of Big Rock
BigRock Google Map ⬆️
“Engaging presentations capture people’ attention”
-Steven Sanders, MYP Digital Design and Computer Science Teacher
Mr Sanders teaches Digital Design and Computer Science: he has always loved aesthetics in film, photography, animation. In his opinion, the mistake students often make is to write too much in the slides, but since it’s called "keynote", it would be better to write only the keywords: less text is better.
Considering the difficulties of the students in online learning, it was a lack of attention and organization.
ADVICES & SUGGESTIONS
For my website Mr Sanders suggests me to use platform "Wix" or "Squarespace" but to do not use too much colors but relevant, don’t insert too much text. He also added that I should insert eye-catching images about what students will learn using Adobe products, Atom and/or Visual Studio Code where students can learn new skills.
Elena PinnenElena Pinnen is teaching in MYP 1 Italian language and literature; her major passions are poetry, writing poems, music and drama.
DIFFICULTIES
She thinks that her students, while preparing projects, have difficulties creating a new presentation on keynote and the objective is not clear: and they should prepare everything thinking about the audience they would talk to, sharing different interesting informations and experiences.
EDUCATION IN TECH
Education is based from different experiences and activities, not only technology, that should be seen only as an integration.
EXPERIENCE
She has some experiences with technology: for example she created many websites for trips, poems and recently she created a platform called “the wings of Hermes”, a website created to link many different schools from all around the world, thus creating a powerful instrument regarding some advice to catch students’ attention when they will visit my website.
SUGGESTIONS
She suggested to pay attention to the topic and the audience you want to address: from that it will depend how you will capture attention, engage the others with the project and use different platforms too.
Students should have more skills while doing presentations like good organization, the knowledge of the subject, to be passionate and do deeper researches.
She asked me about my website, the title, to whom it will be addressed, but also what I do to create a good presentation.
“Keynote is where you write only the keywords, keynote is something you do 'with', 'in front' and 'for' the audience". "Education is multifarious, based on different experiences learning activities."
-Elena Pinnen, MYP Italian teacher
Denis FelettoI interviewed the digital learning coach for MYP & DP, Denis Feletto
He is very passionate about music and technology since the age of 12.
DIFFICULTY AND IMPROVEMENT OF STUDENTS
When you're making a presentation, you're trying to grab the audience's attention by engaging them with good graphics and focusing on how you should present your project.
TECHNOLOGY AND LEARNING
Technology does not replace learning, it can replace some tools but never learning, because in that case presence is fundamental.
TIPS
He recommends using the WordPress platform to create my site and use Keynote in presentations because there you can write keywords. He concluded saying that all school pupils should learn the skill of creating a Keynote.
“You need to have good graphics and to be focused on how you present your content without any distracting things” & “The biggest thing you could do is to plan in advance the message you want to carry”
-Denis Feletto, Digital Learning Coach
Anju and AnikaTechnology is an effective tool and children can learn about many things easily: students can go deeper in topics, study them from other aspects that also teachers maybe didn’t tell them.
Even though tech is a good tool, it can be frustrating for children who need human contacts and interactions, that are surely more effective.
Anju gave me suggestions about my website: adding some information about advanced technology tools (ex. breakout rooms in zoom) that may be in the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page, I also put some directions about useful tools that can help students.
“We improve technology using technology. Technology is an effective tool, children can learn many things easily and dig deeper into their topics.”
-Anju Schiller, Director of Engineering in Institute of Technology
In this image I am radiant because I really achieved my goals ⚽️ with all the interviews I made, the surveys etc.. I recorded information on the difficulties of students, in other words, the skills they need to improve; I collected a lot of information and suggestions on how to make my website and on which platform. I started my website based on the ‘ingredients’ the experts told me to use.
All the ‘ingredients’ form like the pieces of a puzzle 🧩 that once they are put together, the result will be a very-well-finished-product.
