Schools are now changing their pedagogy methods right in line with the technological changes that are happening in the educational sector. Pedagogy methods are the ways in which education is imparted to the students. This change is taking shape mainly due to many researches which state that the nature and method of instruction by teachers plays a significant role in improving the performance of students. An example of this kind of change in the educational sector is the introduction of smart education, also known as smart classes.
Smart Education vs. Traditional Education – What to choose?
Smart classes (education) are designed for the purpose of providing assistance to teachers for overcoming several challenges in classrooms, in addition to enhancing the academic performance of students. These goals are achieved by adopting technology in a very practical, simple and meaningful manner, all of which will surely help in changing the atmosphere of the classroom from boring to interesting.
Traditional education, on the other hand, lacks proper infrastructure, innovation, etc. because of which the performance of students gets lowered to a very large extent. Students nowadays have a tendency to score lesser marks when technology is not used in classrooms. This makes it very important for schools to move towards the smart education system, in order to bring the best out of the students.
A comparison between smart education system with the traditional one will give a better understanding of which one will be better in the long run for all stakeholders of schools –
- Learning material
In traditional education, books are the only learning materials that are provided to students. In case of smart education, students are given a variety of learning materials which include e-books, PDF documents, online links to website content relevant to the subject, etc.
- School management
Traditionally, records of school activities like fees, attendance, examination, payroll and registers are maintained in a paper-based format, which increases the chance of data loss. When school ERP software, that is a part of smart education, is brought into the picture, the day-to-day functioning of schools becomes automated. Paperless records are maintained, thereby facilitating security of data.
- Smart classes
In the traditional school environment, teachers utilise only blackboards or whiteboards along with books for explaining various subjects to students, in an infrastructure that is most of the time not very well maintained. Whereas in smart classes, education is imparted via presentations having visual effects, animations, projectors and virtual reality.
- Costs involved
Schools generally don’t incur much costs when they are run without using technology. But low costs do not usually translate into good quality education, that is extremely important for boosting the academic performance of students. Smart education, though a bit expensive, proves to be beneficial to schools, primarily due to increased attention spans and interest levels of the students towards the subjects being taught by teachers.
- Communication
Face-to-face interaction is the only way of parent-student-teacher interaction in traditional education. In smart education, the interaction level with these same stakeholders of schools is increased since technology ensures timely and regular communication. Some examples of the technology being used for facilitating seamless communication includes instant messaging, calling, email, portal-to-portal messages and SMS.
Looking at the benefits of smart education that override traditional education, schools should think of switching over to the former for the purpose of ensuring long-term benefits to the teachers, students, parents and the management.
