Why Professional Development and Ed Tech Are Better Together
Webinar presenters will go on to discuss the importance of boosting student engagement. One of the ways in which teachers can help gain and retain student attention, regardless of age group, is by using interactive displays.
“Enhancing student engagement has been a massive challenge post-pandemic,” says James Gaffikin, a national channel manager with SMART Technologies. “So, it’s really important that we make class time quality time.”
“Interactive displays encourage engagement, as they allow a truly hands-on approach for students,” he adds.
While SMART interactive displays are essentially plug-and-play, Gaffikin says, SMART offers “premade templates, lessons and resources so teachers can quickly customize content and prepare lessons more efficiently.”
He adds that teachers do not necessarily need in-depth professional development to successfully use SMART interactive displays. However, pairing Lumio — SMART’s lesson creation and delivery platform — with SMART’s interactive displays, as well as with teachers’ and students’ devices, can catapult tech-supported learning to the next level, he says.
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Brian Beedenbender, vice president of sales at Teq, agreed that professional development is vital for leveling up educational technology use.
Unfortunately, according to a 2022 Education Week Research Center survey, most of the professional development that K–12 teachers get for ed tech is one-time offerings with little or no follow-up training.
“Buying tools without a robust curriculum component can end up defeating the purpose of buying ed tech,” Beedenbender says. “And teachers don’t have dozens of hours to learn every new tool. They need to understand how to quickly implement new tools or STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) lessons and tie it to the state standards for where they are teaching.”
This is where Teq comes in. During the webinar, Beedenbender will share how Otis, Teq’s learning platform, can support teachers through robust, ongoing, synchronous, asynchronous or one-to-one learning that helps them master tech tools and integrate project-based curricula.
How Holistic School Safety Platforms Allow Quicker Actions
The webinar will also address some of the challenges that schools face with school safety. Schools should implement safety solutions holistically, says Nick Welch, marketing lead for Kokomo24/7.
“Without the ability to easily access data throughout any system, the benefits of implementing individual school safety tools may be lost,” Welch says. Systems that lack interoperability — with different interfaces, multiple passwords and fragmented tools — fail to keep the benefits ahead of the burden to teachers and administrators. Keeping students safe becomes more challenging.
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A holistic software platform reduces time and workload for teachers, administrators and safety officials. Solutions such as visitor management tools, panic buttons and mass notifications systems can work in tandem and complement each other, allowing schools to act quickly when necessary. Welch says a holistic platform must be able to connect all solutions from a shared architecture to avoid the pitfalls of multiple independent systems that might fail to integrate with each other.
“All in all, this lets schools consolidate their systems at their own pace. When they do, they can see increased efficiency, higher levels of accountability and greater interoperability between systems,” Welch says.
The webinar will take place, Nov. 7, 2024, at 1 p.m. CST. Sign up here to secure your spot.