It’s not uncommon for teachers struggle with technology, especially if you’re given a substantial list of new teaching methods that incorporate the use of laptops, smartphones, tablets or even our own ARS devices. Whether you’re already finding it difficult to handle the burden of new technology in the lecturing hall or you’re planning on including it in your latest teaching plan, here are a few tips to help you see technology as something that should be embraced in an academic environment.

Don’t Overwhelm Yourself

Try and make an effective plan surrounding your use of technology throughout the year to avoid completely overwhelming yourself with a new device or technology every lesson. You might find that using new technology too often can slow the development of your teaching, so try and spread things out and make the most of one specific resource until you feel it’s time to move on.

Be Prepared to Learn

It can be difficult getting to grips with new technology for some time but this is all part of the learning process. There are likely to be many individuals in lectures or classrooms that are also unaware of how to utilise technology and get the most out of it, so you can use your time wisely and create an introductory session that explains the role of the technology you are using.

Seek Encouragement

If you are seriously struggling with technology and feel that your inability to adapt is affecting your traditional teaching methods, seek encouragement from people who know technology inside out. Building or recommending a tech team is a great idea as you can contact these guys whenever you feel you’re struggling. Having a team of reliable experts to contact, whether it’s a tech team or suppliers such as us here at CLiKAPAD, can encourage you to embrace technology and make it a regular part of your academic environment.

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Here at CLiKAPAD we realise that lecturing for a large audience full of students can be quite daunting, especially if they are struggling to maintain the right amount of concentration and enthusiasm throughout. To combat the issue of tiredness during fresher’s week and beyond, universities can make the most of our Audience Response Systems to promote feedback during lectures and keep the audience engaged.

The great thing about ARS technology is that you can use it in both lectures and seminars to give students the chance to get involved with PowerPoint presentations. Presentations can display data collected through student interaction with our clicker systems, thus creating a far more engaging atmosphere compared to any average lecture hall. Having your audience participate in this way is likely to increase the number of students prepared to answer questions and have their say.

With students preparing to set off to their new universities this month, there’s never been a better time to invest in the inspiring technology we have available here at CLiKAPAD. For more information on Audience Response Systems, get in touch with us by calling 03333 448 550 or by visiting our Contact Us page. We look forward to providing you with all the help and advice you might need surrounding the benefits of ARS at universities.

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Audience Response Systems are an excellent tool for engaging an audience and promoting their inclusion in an activity, especially as the data collected by our clicker systems can be displayed through the use of software applications such as PowerPoint. However, there’s more to teaching than just incorporating audience response.

The trick is to engage your audience by encouraging participation with fun or exciting tasks or activities. Whilst this can be challenging with such a wide range of interests to cater for, there are ways you can promote an engaging environment which will subsequently motivate your audience.

The fact is that no one likes to feel as if they are inferior to someone else. This is what often keeps students, especially teenagers, from engaging in a classroom activity or building a strong relationship with their teacher or lecturer.

A teacher should focus a lot of their time, mainly during the introductory stage of a learning process, inspiring their students and making them realise that they are worth listening to.

A strong persona and an influential attitude towards work can contribute significantly to a student’s motivation, so you should look to create a positive impression as soon as teaching begins. Stay, vocal, display your passion for the subject, maintain an energetic appearance and look as professional as you can.

In most cases, older students will look to be impressed and motivated by the way in which you conduct yourself, the superior knowledge you possess and the general attitude you have towards the subject.

On top of this, it’s important to remember that no student is the same, so working with individuals and encouraging their development separately can help to keep certain individuals on the right track.

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It is best to create a consistent routine so that everyone knows where they stand. Don’t keep chopping and changing the room or the time of the lecture in the first few weeks, as this will confuse everyone and make it all more daunting. The best way to get everyone into the swing of things is to give them a schedule of the term to come so that they know what to expect and it won’t be so unknown and intimidating.

Using an audience response system as part of your lectures is a great way to create and maintain a routine. This is still a relatively novel system, so it will help create a level of interest in the group. After the excitement of Freshers’, you can’t expect students to be inspired by an hour of monotonous talking, so getting them engaged with a CLiKAPAD system is the best way to make them feel more involved and feel like part of the group.

Starting from the outset with CLiKAPAD also gives you the opportunity to monitor the progress of the group over the term to enable you to record the improvements and identify any issues with the course material. This means that everyone knows where they stand and ultimately, the grades in your class should benefit from this extra interaction.

For more information about CLiKAPAD for students, get in touch today and we’ll be happy to explain further.

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Whichever year students will be starting this autumn, it’s important that lecturers and teaching staff are prepared. If you are still working on your lecture plans and figuring out exactly how you’re going to tweak your teaching style for your new classes, you might like to consider incorporating a CLiKAPAD system into your lectures.

It’s easy to see why the CLiKAPAD system works so well for students. Firstly, the current generation of uni-goers are incredibly skilled with technology, so getting to grips with these easy-to-use keypads will be a breeze. It’s also an exciting novelty incorporating this relatively unique equipment into your lectures, and active engagement with a topic (in this case, casting votes in quizzes and other similar activities) is shown to improve knowledge retention to improve grades.

It’s also a welcome break for students to be able to do something to break up a long afternoon in a lecture theatre, and is more likely to keep them alert and interacting with the content of the lecture if they are constantly having to think about what is being taught.

Lecturers have an easy way to see how well the class as a whole is understanding the content, and it might even be useful to take a note of each student’s response keypad and correlate the responses with each student so you can track the progress of individual students and identify any weaknesses before they spiral out of control.

CLiKAPAD might just be the best way to go with your lectures this year, and we encourage enquiries from any educational establishments, professors and lecturers who want to know more about how to use the system as a way to deliver the curriculum.

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