Top teachers integrate technology in the classroom – this is how!

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What is integrating technology in the classroom?

Integrating technology in the classroom is how a teacher incorporates some form of technology into their teaching practice to enhance learning by their students. This technology could be as simple as a data projector showing presentations or videos to something as complicated as an app-based assessment tool. Research has shown that technology increases student engagement and encourages teachers to explore new approaches to pedagogy. A virtual classroom, or virtual learning environment, could be seen as one result of integrating technology in teaching and learning. Technology becomes the frame in which education takes places. 

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Virtual Learning Environments take over

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What is a virtual learning environment?

A virtual learning environment, or VLE, is a set of digital tools or applications that allow a teacher to deliver an online course. Online learning has become more popular as teaching and learning have moved into the digital space. A virtual learning environment is essential to facilitate learning online. The virtual learning environment consists of a standard set of resource types to structure and manage an online course. These resources can be course content such as text, images and videos, assessment components to deliver quizzes, longer-form assessment, a forum or discussion space to allow for peer-to-peer learning, and collaboration tools to allow for group work. Not all of these resources are in every course – the teacher can decide to activate specific resources as needed, based on course content, the audience and their teaching approach. Administration tools, available only to the course creator, include options to structure the course content and data tracking of students, such as engagement with the assessment’s scope and results. Virtual learning environments can be used in schools, colleges or universities and for workplace training.

Elements of a virtual learning environment
Elements of a virtual learning environment

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Learning about Covid-19 at schools

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How do you teach students about Covid-19 at schools? How do you explain the concept of a pandemic? And how to do you get across guidance around prevention? What does this look like for a six-year-old as opposed to a 16-year-old? These are some of the issues Cambridge University Press grappled with as we developed a series of worksheets to explain the virus and the situation we find ourselves in globally and in South Africa.

Working with Life Orientation specialist and author Edna Rooth, we have published these worksheets for use at home or in the class. The worksheets are a response to Covid-19 and function as a Social and Emotional learning (SEL) curriculum.  We divided the worksheets by the four phases in the curriculum, covering all twelve grades. Each pack has between ten and fifteen worksheets with extensive teaching notes. The worksheets are printable, and we are encouraging users to share them via email or WhatsApp, so they reach the teachers and learners who needed them most. Parents can also use these worksheets with their children. Topics covered include information on pandemics, facts about the Covid-19 virus, prevention, stigma and depression. There are many practical tasks included in the worksheets, such as guidance on how to make a mask.

Sample Worksheets for teaching Covid-19 at schools

covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet
covid-19 at schools worksheet

They are really brilliant! What great work, and clearly a lot of work. This is the most comprehensive set of materials for schools I have seen – probably the best in the world right now.

Dr James Lees.  Senior Lecturer, HIV & AIDS Programme, University of the Western Cape

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