So when we designed a product for the teachers - RazorBee, we added a unique feature by which a teacher can choose to add text annotations on an image that she adds in her playlist, using a few clicks of a remote. If the question was of context or localization of content, she can also add her own voice over images and videos to make the content local. This can help increase the understanding of the students to a larger extent than any flashy animation can, because studies reveal that students can relate to and understand a concept much better if explained in the native language.

Teachers have found very interesting use cases for this feature. One of them decided to use this feature to record and explain the complete lesson to slow learners so they can learn at their own pace. While the children were listening to the lesson and taking notes, the teacher walked around and started looking at the way they formulated their thoughts on paper. This gave her immense insight into the areas to focus on for the children to learn/understand better in her regular class itself.

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Given the above theme, I would like to introduce a slide deck I presented on behalf of Ariem at the School Needz Expo in Jan 2010. The topic was technology as an important resource in Education today. You can view it below.

Technology as an important resource in Education Today

There has always been resistance to technology adoption in education. To cite a few examples, back in 1700s when the Quill and Bark was mainstream and slate and chalk was launched, I can imagine the educators groaning about the “costly” slates and how the “skill” for developing “own” bark was being lost on the children. Let us take something even closer in history, ball point pens vs. ink pens and the hoopla that was created around handwriting to prevent one from shifting to using ball point pens.

We are at another such point of inflection and it is ever more important because today access to information via the internet can drastically transform the way we teach today. Educators can don the role of facilitators, instead of data banks, to instil reponsibility and the right perspective towards accessing, distilling, extracting, discarding, referencing and using information in today’s children. The teachers are digital migrants today while the children are digital natives, but the concept of mentoring and guidance are still as alive and kicking today. Hence, the call for creating simple technologies that help teachers bridge the digital gap and connect with today’s generation becomes all the more important.

With the empowerment of teachers through technology, it can act as a bridge to collaborate, enabler to reach the underprivileged, differentiator to keep the teacher relevant and a source of power to ignite minds. More on each of these perspectives in the next few posts as we talk about some real life case studies.

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While lot of attention has been paid to the technology for bringing the children on board (eg., OLPC) , most have missed out the bigger picture of knowledge delivery hierarchy and the web of exams and evaluations that holds it together today. So if any solid change in the view towards technology needs to happen, it needs to start at the point of delivery while parallely working at getting a sympathetic ear from the system. Alan Kay in the last portion of his talk (starting at 18.25min) at TED points out how they can make 5 million of the $100 laptops to give away but to explore the depths of the learning software loaded on it, they won’t be able to produce a 1000 mentors over the same period. It is the same problem that we are facing today. The children born in today’s world are “digital natives” and the teachers are “digital immigrants”. If we are to lead the children through depth and ingenuity, there needs to be a platform to empower the teachers. That is exactly where Ariem is going.

At Ariem we strongly believe in simplifying the access to information for all, including the teachers.Using our product, RazorBee Teacher’s Aid, the teachers can access information available on the internet and use it in their classrooms to deliver audio/video content.

We attempt to overcome several barriers in the process of technology adoption in the teaching process ranging from complex operating systems to non-intuitive user interface while accessing information on the internet to the level of technological know-how required to deliver audio/visual content in a classroom.

Keep reading this blog, we will be uploading glimpses of how we empower teachers to create engaging learning experiences.

If you like what you read and would like to keep in touch – you can write to us at sales@ariemtech.com and follow us on twitter at @ariemtech.