School classroom learning information and communication technology (ICT) tools. Photo credit: medium.com

School classroom education & learning services: Top 5 information and communication technology (ICT) Tools for the 21st Century Classroom | Top 10 digital devices for your school classroom | Providing information about schooleducation and learning for sustainable future and better life in our 21st-century education system

21st-century education system demands exploitation of classroom information and communication technology (ICT) tools by school children and students

Our 21st-century education system is technologically demanding, requiring we develop and use explicit digital tools in our classroom to have a creative and informative approach to education. If we do, we’ll make our school classrooms performance-driven. Such information and communication technology (ICT) devices are not far-fetched from reality.

Getting our school children and students to acquire the bests of education, that prepares them for a sustainable future and better life needs exploration of our world of advanced technology. This is inevitable in promoting and sustaining the demands of our 21st-century education system.

You can also see here: Top 5 Technology Tools for Your Home Classroom

The Top 10 digital tools for our 21st-century education classroom

1. An information and communication technology (ICT) tools-fit classroom environment

Embarking on any technology tool program and services for school classroom education necessarily demands a learning environment fit for it otherwise the essence of the school classroom education and learning may be defeated. The driving concept of this school education service is that a new classroom environment promotes new learning. Such an environment featuring digital devices-fit design will promote readiness and create a sense of learning in the mind of the school kids.

An information and communication technology (ICT) tools-fit classroom environment should also include group discussion spaces, personal pupil-directed learning areas, and large learning galleries that can be updated to fit whatever topic is being taught.

A technology devices-fit classroom in any school or learning system is more cost-effective and time-saving than a 19th-century traditional classroom.

2. Projectors

Projectors are technology tools that have been used by classroom instructions for decades. Traditionally used to project lecture notes or multimedia presentations, their application in an advanced form (holograms) effectively help present interactive and realistic topic of a subject with a facilitator as much as having him live in the classroom.

These interactive common classroom foundations are flexible enough to connect to a wide range of digital devices (laptops, phones, cameras, etc.) allowing for full utilization by teachers and school children.

3. Smartboards

Education institutions from pre-pre school to postgraduate programs are integrating new technology in the classroom learning environment at a swift pace, progressing beyond the imagination of some.

A technology tool that has been in the unification trend for education services is a smartboard. Smartboards operate just like a whiteboard, allowing a person to write on them with real or digital markers but can record what is written or turn a digital marker line into a concrete visual component.

In opening up students’ internet access and engagement, a student can explore online learning, and control images on a smartboard. The wide range of smartboards as classroom technology devices for school education is a step beyond interactive projectors. Some versions have touch-enabled digital unlimited computer screens.

4. Smart tables

Smart tables come in the form of a table. These technology devices display take information off the wall and put it on tables.

They are stronger, durable, more relaxed to use and more especially studier than the wall-mounted boards. These devices are great for fostering collaborative work from school kids and higher learning students. They can unify the students for exciting research and learning experience by supporting more interactions at the same time. Smart tables are similar to smartboards.

The layout of a smart table makes it more accessible to people of all ages and physical abilities than smartboards.

Any form of school education can be acquired at home with these technology learning tools and not just in a school classroom setting alone.

5. Digital Papers

Digital papers are like electronic papers. Digital papers are essentially very thin tablets with paper-like functionality. One good advantage of digital papers as a home classroom information and technology (ICT) tool is that it eliminates manual paperwork.

6. Biometric devices

21st-century schools are changing and the incorporation of advanced digital devices and techniques into the classroom was inevitable and necessary to ensure school children and students have a sustainable future and better life.

One vital advanced digital security device for the classroom today is biometric devices. A biometric device is used for authenticating identity through iris pattern, fingerprint, voice or facial recognition.

In an education system, biometric as an eye-tracking device can be used to identify a student’s learning style, monitor how a student responds to the learning content, test different teaching methods so that the approach the student responds well to can be identified.

They also used by education researchers to study children’s cognitive, perceptual, and emotional development, necessary for the adjustment of teaching processes to the needs of new generations.

Even though biometric devices might not be present in all classrooms in the future, they certainly change the future of education

7. Cameras

In the US, cameras are present in almost all the classrooms and are often installed on laptops, tablets or desktop computers used by students.

Programs like Microsoft’s Skype as used in the classroom, for example, offer a wide range of educational experiences that can be accessed through these cameras.

High-quality cameras are incorporated with projectors or smartboards or projectors, opening up the classroom learning experience to all students in the class.

Cameras are commonplace digital tools for the creation of academic output instead of the more standard written essay. Cameras are used for self-assessment and recording classroom activities for evaluation purposes.

8. Digital textbooks

It is quite necessary to integrate technology tools into school education and learning services. Digital textbooks are other ICT tools that enhance classroom school education & learning devices. They are textbooks in digital form or online databases or programs.

Digital textbooks as technology tools have gained wider popularly over since it replaced high-school and university textbooks as open-source digital books. There are many free digital textbooks provided by online for school pupils and students.

They help a school cut down on the costs of producing physical textbooks. Some schools are going beyond adopting a new format for education digital texts.

9. Computers, laptops, tablets, and phones

Students inhabit a 21st-century world for 18 hours a day. It makes no sense when the teachers and educators alike put them in a 19th-century classroom for six hours of that day and get disconnected from the world of technology education. Computers, laptops, tablets, phones are a class of digital tools that reconnects the students to the 21st-century world of technology education.

The presence of computers or tablets in the classroom is fairly common in developed countries. Computers and laptops have been used by schoolchildren and students to take notes in classrooms for a good number of years now especially in developed countries and they still remain relevant digital devices in our 21st-century education system.

Part of the reason is that these technology tools have gained eminence in a flipped classroom.

A flipped classroom in an education system is a classroom where students watch videos of lectures outside of the classroom, probably at their homes, and do assignments based on the watched videos in the classroom.

Tablets and phones are even more portable and have the same capability.

10. Audio enhancements

Digital education classroom can be enhanced with audio enhancements.

Audio enhancements refer to a set of technology tools from high-quality speakers to worn wireless microphones transmitting an instructor’s voice to speakers mounted in every corner of a classroom. The speakers can also be connected to a multimedia presentation or a camera record in a remote location. With speakers circulated at strategic points around a classroom, each student is able to hear and absorb the instructional content being delivered.

Audio enhancements in a classroom help include higher knowledge retention from school children, in more engagement and interaction in the class and social activities, and conservation of teacher energy since they won’t get tired easily from having to strain their voice day in and day out.

Originally developed for auditoriums or large lecture halls advanced audio-enhancement devices in the form of directional sound speakers enable students in different areas of a classroom to engage in activities without disturbing others.

Students who have impaired hearing can tune their area speakers to provide higher amplification levels. Audio enhancements record lectures or discussions easily (as videos or podcasts) for later review or sharing.

‘’ We need the knowledge of information technology about school classroom education & learning services to develop decision-making skills for a sustainable future and better life in our 21st-century education system’’  –  Eduonwheels