Explore the world of ICT tools to increase students’ engagement

When it comes to teaching, it is not always simple to keep the students interested, engaged, and enthusiastic. This is where ICT technologies like apps and web platforms come in handy to help teachers communicate and transmit knowledge while also keeping their students' complete attention. Nowadays, it is essential to understand interactive learning so that we can provide our kids with an alternative and nontraditional type of learning that keeps them involved.
The new edition of the course “Integrating ICT and new technologies into teaching and education​” took place in Tenerife from 05/02/2023 to 11/02/2023. The participants came from all across Europe, with Camilla Lundbø, Lillian Markussen, Katie Ann Slocum and  Flavja Maca from Borgund Vidaregåande Skule in Norway, Daiga Geižāne and Rihards Zvejnieks from Riga Art and Media in Latvia, Irina Pahomova and Normunds Reiznieks from Liepaja Marine College in Latvia, Alexandra Hruskova from Regionalni vzdelavaci a informacni stredisko, p.o. in Czech republic, Defives Jean-Luc and Maurice Pascal from Collège Rouges Barres in France, Anna Jurek and Katarzyna Stelmach from Szkoła Podstawowa im. Stanisława Staszica w Tuchowie in Poland, Maria Méteau and Sven Nitschman from European School Luxembourg in Luxembourg.
During this session, participants learned how to use a wide range of technical tools and integrate them into their teaching approaches.
We started our course knowing each other and discovering El Puerto de la Cruz for the first time for almost all of the participants. In this walking tour the participants learned a lot of information about the culture and the history of Tenerife.
The learning process begins by discovering some of the most important feedback tools. As teachers we know that feedback is an important part of the teaching process and usually some students are shy or afraid to share their opinion. That's why Mentimeter, Jamboard and Padlet are perfect to start a topic, before an evaluation or to create collaborative content.
We also worked on apps and websites to promote the participation of the students in the lessons. The participants learn how to improve their lessons using games, being creative and using different resources. The main apps that we used were bookwidgets, garlic phone and bamboozle. With these apps the teachers can create more engaging activities and keep the students more motivated.
Among the many tools they discovered, they discovered interactive presentations, in which the teacher can obtain the class' opinion by submitting polls, creating word clouds, or asking for questions or feedback on the topic being presented, creating video lessons, and online learning quizzes, which are very useful for testing the students' progress.
Furthermore, the participants had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the technological world through a variety of practical activities such as presentations, virtual quizzes, learning how to create engaging social media content, using tools for organizing graphics, posters, and collages, and much more.
This training encouraged participants to address and learn from one another's shared experiences. Participants finished this session with a better understanding of interactive learning and a new set of tools to employ in their classrooms. There is no doubt that this technique will boost students' creativity, engagement, attention, and motivation while also assisting in the transformation of learning into a joyful and dynamic activity!
 
Discover more about this course at https://www.erasmustrainingcourses.com/integrating-ict-into-teaching-and-training.html
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