Many elementary school educators are relying on digital tools to save them time on planning and allocation of assignments. Digital integration within classrooms is favorable because it eliminates the hassle of having to print physical worksheets, circulate them, arrange for collection and grade it manually. For the purpose of making the educator’s life easier, the market is flooded with sophisticated ERP systems that can be customized to create assignments as per the teacher’s requirements, but they come at a hefty price. However, contrary to that, Google Classroom is free and has impressive features which make it a highly popular tool used by schools across the Middle East.

What is Google Classroom?

As we mentioned earlier, Google Classroom is a free web-based platform which comes along with the G Suite-Education Subscription. This tool allows teachers to create individual ‘classrooms’ and ‘sub-classrooms’ by allocating students and grouping them. For Example: Say you have groups such as ‘Senior KG – Division A’ or ‘Junior KG – Division C’. That’s indeed convenient and quite a few schools in the UAE are gaining confidence from digital-savvy parents. Through Google Classroom, the following is possible:

1. Sending customized class-wise announcements
2. Creating survey forms for parents
3. Sharing explainer videos and attaching documents
4. Notifying parents on calendar events and to do’s
5. Post online assignments
6. Grade students and give feedback on assignments

Creating Assignments on Google Classroom

It is very east to create and disseminate assignments with Google Classroom. Teacher can simply upload the assignment file as an attachment to the message and send it to the appropriate class. There are two settings which can be selected as per the requirements of the educator. The ‘view only’ setting allows students to only view the attached assignment and upload a separate document with the answers to the assignment. On the other hand, ‘make a copy’ setting allows children to edit the existing assignment uploaded by teacher and answer the questions on the same document. Each child can create their own copies and submit the response to the teacher, once they have attempted the assignment.

Teachers can assign a cut-off date for the submission of home assignments to ensure accountability & adherence to deadlines. Children who are unable to complete their assignments before the due-date will still be able to submit their projects, but the assessor will be intimated about the delay and can take action by choosing to cut grades. Teachers can easily access the assessments and grade the document on Google Classroom itself. They can give feedbacks and remarks on the assignment and children can view it in real-time. This makes the entire assignment & grading process paperless which is a boon to schools in Dubai and all over the world.

Steps in creating Google Classroom Assessments

• Teachers can login into Classroom using the appropriate G Suite account
• In the appropriate class, click on ‘classwork’
• Now under ‘create’ choose ‘assignment’
• Enter the title of the assignment and the instructions for it
• Under ‘grade category’ select the appropriate grading system
• Add the ‘deadline’ by choosing a date and time on the calendar
• Choose attachments to be added (from Google Drive, desktop, or video link)
• Select option ‘view only’ or ‘edit’ assignment
• Send assignment to a classroom or a particular child in the class

Integrating Google Classroom with TechnoKids

Before going into how TechnoProjects can be integrated onto Google Classroom, let us first understand what TechnoKids actually is?

TechnoKids curriculum is a collection of technology projects to enable young learners, as well as budding teens to grasp computer skills in school. The TechnoKids learning modules are designed by experts in sync with the K-12 school objectives which is widely accepted in the GCC. The computer lessons are thoughtfully planned for children right from Primary School level and advance to Junior, Intermediate and Senior stages with focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) intradisciplinary.

All through the different stages, the teacher introduces students to TechnoProjects depending upon the age and stage of learning. Some examples of TechnoProjects are; TechnoStart which focus on computer basics, TechnoTurtle – a Python programming for kids where they learn to create mazes & games and TechnoWonderland that allows kids to be marketers & create presentations, compute surveys, and design posters.

For Integrating these TechnoProjects with google Classroom, teachers can simply download the project they want to teach & assess the children on, from the TechnoHub. All the resources related to the project are to be then uploaded in the appropriate Classroom folder. Thanks to Google Classroom’s versatility, materials in any of the following formats Excel, PDF, PPT are compatible with the software. In this way children access the TechnoProjects and easily learn, revise and undertake the assignments without much fuss.

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These days the use of technology is pretty inseparable from our lives. In recent times, the influence of technology on children’s education has had an immense impact. The domination is so great that students can’t imagine learning concepts without having a tab or mobile in their hands.

Many educational institutions across the world, support this digital transformation and encourage young learners to not limit their knowledge to classroom explanations, but take a step further and explore the concepts via different learning Apps. The Google Play Store and Apple App Store together boast around over a million Educational Apps approved by teachers, specially targeting children between 5 to 15 years.

The Middle East has impressively adopted to the modern way of teaching & learning by converting the regular classrooms into Smart Classrooms. Numerous International Schools across Dubai, GCC or UAE, as you would like to call it, promote App based learning which also includes allocated assignments, and auto-computation of grades digitally.

Right from kindergarten to elementary school and beyond, there are Apps available on each & every subject to upskill the student’s competence level and illustrate concepts in an unconventional manner. Kutubee is one such interactive Reading App which presents numerous intriguing stories in multiple languages to streamline the process of teaching-learning in an unconventional manner.

Through this Blog, we aim to highlight some benefits of mobile Apps to children

Interactive Platform

Most learning Apps have modules designed in a way to incorporate some ‘activity’ at the end of every lesson. They may be in the form of puzzles, fill in the blanks, or match the column, etc. These gamified exercises provide an opportunity for children to put their learning to test and strive to achieve a higher score, by attempting the same assessment over & over again. This interactive approach ensures that the student is not merely watching the educative videos, but also getting a chance to demonstrate his learnings.

Personalized Lessons

The learning style and pace of each student is different. Some students do not need repetition and are brilliant enough to remember what was taught in class, while others may not be able to match up. Students may feel shy to ask questions in front of their classmates, further adding to their anxiety and ultimately losing interest in studies. Thus, schools digitalize the curriculum on Apps that allow students to login and revise the topic until the concept is clearly understood, at any time, from anywhere. Each child is allocated a different username & password to access the App and has lessons designed as per his learning capabilities.

Dynamic Study Techniques

One App, many possibilities! Due to the flexibility mobile App content can be presented in multiple formats, without any hassle. Videos, animations, and info-graphics, make learning interesting. In addition to that, there are various features that are programmable to make the Educative App more user-friendly. Some Apps have a read-aloud feature for students who find it comfortable to listen to a verse, rather than reading it. If they are stuck, or don’t understand the meaning of a word, there is an in-built mechanism to get the meaning of word instead of looking it up on Google. Some Apps allow the reader to record their voice and corrects them if the pronunciation is inappropriate. Then there are Apps that allow students to take up various ‘challenges’ and compete with peers to achieve higher score than the other through live gamified learning. This indeed inculcates the spirit of healthy competition and the student feels a sense of achievement on earning the ‘championship’ star.

Setting Goals & Trackable Progress

When tracking of progress is done on paper manually, it takes up much of the educator’s time and there are chances of error. To eliminate the negligence of human mistake, and make the process seamless, digital Apps are used for assessment, evaluation, and record keeping. Apps show up-to-date reports and analyses the child’s progress at the click of a button. Even KutuBee stores the ‘reading progress’ of children and shares the data with parents & teachers, to chalk out a correct path for the student

Flexibility in Learning

Since Apps are available 24×7 there is no particular time or schedule which students need to follow. Instead of spending hours in front on the Television, children can be encouraged to watch an interesting educative documentary on the App. In this way children are not whiling away time, but are putting it to constructive use. Mobile App based learnings are a good alternate to spending time on social networking platforms.

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Mathletics is an engaging online math program created and designed for hybrid classrooms and home learning. It is a modern way of learning maths. Now doesn’t that sound fascinating already? We bet, it does.

As we keep transforming with time, it is also important to improve and adapt to newer ways of learning. So, while studying maths could have been boring, Mathletics is here to introduce students to a new way of learning the subject. Its reward-based model motivates Math learners to be better at numbers and calculations each day. Math enthusiasts even get a chance to earn the coveted title of ‘Mathlete of the Week’. This certificate of achievement is a validation to the student’s hard work and undeterred dedication.

Educators across the Middle East including GCC and Dubai, integrate Mathletics into their teaching plan. Mathletics is popular amongst all age-groups and its knowledge bank showcases age-appropriate video tutorials designed by Math experts.

The interest levels and pace of learning of every student is also taken into consideration under the Mathletics program. The class teacher is free to assign tasks as per the child’s readiness, to avoid demotivating students who can’t keep pace with others in school. While the remaining lot of nerdy geniuses can proceed to more challenging problems as per the instructions given by their teacher. This gives a proper structure to the subject and children progress from easy level, to the more difficult tasks, in a systematic manner.

If you are a teacher, then this new go-to approach to teach maths will surely make teaching- learning fun and well-defined. The three major reasons that drive teachers to choose Mathletics are as follows; it saves time with lesson planning, it provides curriculum-aligned activities and it helps in understanding the progress of each student in class.

Many parents in UAE and worldwide have been opting for Mathletics. Students can even choose a new avatar for their panel’s background look every time they learn. Thanks for Mathletics, students never complain about being bored and are always up for the next Math challenge. This makes it intriguing for them to attend Math classes and pay attention to what is being taught in school, as they may have to plan a strategy for their next Math assignment in order to beat their fellow classmates and probably earn the Golden Bar.

Age-appropriate Learning Through Game Play on Mathletics

There is Play Paws for 3-6-year old’s which helps to gain an understanding of numbers, addition and subtraction strategies. Students are rewarded with gold stars when they manage to solve most problems accurately.

Magic mentors is for 4-8-year-olds that consists of animated videos and real-world locations that students find engaging. Children make art and play games while learning about numbers, measurements & geometry skills in an engaging and relatable way.

Numbeanies is also for 4-8-year-olds. It uses the Game Box and digital flashcards for introducing concepts in a smarter way. Students learn to investigate number collections – using Augment Reality (AR) technology to bring numbers to life.

Rainforest Maths is designed for 3-12-year-old students and it is like a digital quiz in an adventurous way that tests how much the student is able to understand and learn. There are over 200 activities which are presented in a vivid rainforest setting along with interesting creatures.

There is also Maths A-Z Dictionary for 3-18-year-old students. It’s an interactive math dictionary and library to recall definitions more clearly with the help of audio and visual support.

Multiverse is for 6-10-year-old students. It challenges students and tests their multiplication knowledge. They have to navigate, survive and thrive in a Multiverse story by using their skills.

These are the numerous concepts that have been designed in Mathletics by a team of experts by keeping different age groups of students in mind. These concepts don’t just sound fun and seem to be interesting but really work well for students and help them in growing and developing their Math skills.

Mathletics has received a lot of Awards from different industries and institutions. Spring 2019 Academics’ Choice Smart Media Award (USA), International Digital Educational Resource (UK) and many more such awards were given to Mathletics, are just a few feathers in their hat.

Mathletics is highly recommended from not just institutions but also teachers, and parents. According to feedback from a Maths professor, “The biggest classroom impact I have noticed is that students who are below year level now have plenty of opportunities to develop those core basic skills in maths, while my advanced students can excel and explore a variety of new topics.”

Another testimonial from a Math educator, “I love the versatility, I can use it to teach a lesson or a concept, then turn around and assign the students an activity relating to that concept and further reinforce it with an activity from the e-books. Great for a class that approaches maths from a wide variety of angles.”

Well, if the professionals are saying then you should definitely give Mathletics a try. Your child might love learning Maths the new way!

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Before the advent of digitalization in classrooms, educators used basic pen & paper techniques and relied on memory to compute and analyze the student’s individual performance and the collective progress of the class. This method lacked colorful pie-charts, excel sheets, and bar diagraphs, but nonetheless worked just fine.

In the recent era, Schools have started entrusting most tasks to technology and are readily adapting various (Enterprise Resource Planning) ERP systems. Markezy is an example of one such innovative digital platform that aims to enhance the education experience by integrating technology to student assessments and is pretty popular amongst schools in UAE.

Technology has made it relatively easy for teachers to access data at the click of a button. Educators can now extract collective & summative data of students, progress report cards, attendance statistics, and much more, thanks to the Smart School integration.

Many schools across the world and especially the Dubai in the Middle East are joining the bandwagon to catch-up with this EdTech trend and stay relevant, so that they do not lose their current spot on institutional ranking. The aim of this data driven approach is to make work effortless, but sometimes this process backfires. Wondering how digitalization is making things within the school more complex? Well, let us explain.

Classroom technology can sometimes overwhelm the teacher by providing excessive statistical information, which may not be required by them. Also feeding the data on the teacher’s portal is a cumbersome task and often may cause fatigue. The focus on teaching is diverted & the teacher ends-up spending more time on data entry, and less on planning lessons. But that is not what the school management signed-up for when EdTech brands painted a very rosy picture of them!

Well, we don’t mean to cause any confusion to you. After having read the above pros and cons, it’s now time to answer the burning question. How effective is data analytics for the education sector? Does it really enhance the teaching-learning experience?

Let us first understand the two types of data frequently utilized by schools and its scope:

• Analytics on formative assessment are based on the marks earned by students during quizzes, internal tests, and project work. Digitalized software enables teachers to get a clear picture of the student’s grades by which the child’s level of understanding can be gauged. Formative assessments go a long way in helping the teacher plan the lessons, use the appropriate pace of teaching, and introduce variety to teaching methods based on solid data computed for each student.
• Summative assessment scores are helpful for teachers to get a clear picture of the child’s achievements at the culmination of a quarter, or say mid-term, or even at the end of the academic year. The child’s ends of mid-term exam scores or cumulative project scores are taken into consideration. By adding a few filters and selecting the date-range, teachers get a detailed report of the child’s actual performance vs. the benchmark he was set to achieve. Summation helps in realizing whether the planned module has delivered the expected results or does the next teaching module need any amendments.

And this is just a drop in the ocean. There is so much more that the student’s assessment system can be made to do.

For example: the child’s complete academic history from the time he joined school can be extracted within minutes and mapped on a graph.

Also, out of numerous subjects in school the one that interests learners the most can be clearly identified. Based on this the teacher can decide if the student needs to be motivated to focus other subjects as well; or give him a push to delve deeper on the subject of interest so as to encourage him to pursue it at college level.

When used appropriately analytical data can be invaluable. Here’s how to use data to advantage students & the institution at large:

• Data is helpful to caution learners whose assessment graph is moving downwards early on; before they struggle to make up for cut-off marks in order to be promoted to the higher grade. Schools in the GCC who use Markezy never worry about the authenticity of the assessments, as the software is capable of auto-computing the student’s score based on parameters set by the teacher.
• Having a good source of data can determine whether the optional subject courses offered to students is a success or needs to be revisited ex: German Language Course. If students are not performing well in grasping German, maybe the school can investigate further and employ another German Teacher ask the current teacher to improve the teaching method.
• When assigning project-work the subject teacher will be in a better position to form groups based on the skills of the students. Past data helps to know how resourceful the student is. The teacher might not want to club the class geniuses in one group, because it’s unfair to have them excel each time. To enhance learning, a mixed cluster having different levels of skill-set is picked for project work.

Now that you understand the authenticity of the data-drive approach and its benefits to the entire teaching-learning process, it is time to drive the data-driven culture within your institution. However, make sure everyone within the system is trained and aware about the performance goals & standards set by the school.

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What does your child want to be when he/she grows up? Momma, I want to be an astronaut and go to space, said one of the young dreamers. Children are fascinated by stars, space, rockets, and everything celestial. But they barely understand how the movement of planets affect day & night, changes in weather and how seasons pass by. Therefore, Carolina is on a mission to make Sky Watching a passion, through its Building Blocks of Science Sky Watchers 3D Kit.

The Sky Watcher Kit is an essential tool in today’s era of rapid technology. This kit comes with all the necessary learning aids required by a student to understand important concept of the universe. It not only helps students with the required knowledge, but also engages them in a fun learning experience to connect theoretical explanations to practical lessons. The kit is designed by taking all the considerations from the basics of space science to the application of learning; hence it is beneficial for all students in elementary school and beyond. Let us help you unravel the kit, to understand the essence of it.

Components of the Kit

The components that make the kit handy include; 24 chalks, assorted colors, 2 bulbs of 60 Watts, strings, super twine 200ft roll, sixteen rubber bands, a classroom set and a solar system. All these components make the kit application-oriented.

The Sky Watchers kit is promoted across IB Schools in Middle East, including Dubai, GCC, within the UAE. The kit opens-up to a teacher’s guide, miniature space models, and equipment for a class of 24 students. During their learning period, students are advised to observe the sun, moon, earth and solar system and spot the difference between them.

The behavior of each of the 8 planets and how it affects the other phenomena in space is explained using the accurately designed mini models and demonstrations. Some of the most important concepts such as; the Earth’s rotation on its axis, its revolution around the Sun, and its tilt relative to the Sun, is demonstrable, thanks to the Carolina’s Sky Watchers Kit.

Children also learn about the effects of the Sun’s light and heat on Earth, trace their own shadow, and understand the difference in temperatures in sunlight & in shaded spaces. Students study the Moon and identify the monthly pattern of its phases. Finally, they synthesize information about the planets and their relative sizes, to construct their own solar system models to take the first leap into Space Science.

Learnings of Sky Watchers Kit

Starting with the basic concepts of rotation & revolution, and then advancing into more difficult topics like; light, heat and gravity, the course encompasses all the learnings into one kit. It touches upon important Science and Engineering practices, crosscutting concepts like patterns, common language arts, mathematics and habits of mind. The major part of the kit deals with understanding the universe, energy transformation, the motion, change and scale of the solar system using Sky Watcher Kit.

Here’s a topic-wise summary of your reference:

• Becoming curious observers, students study the sky during the day and at night, and learn to identify stars, planets, clouds, sun, and moon.
• Using demonstrations students understand Earth’s rotation on its axis and the phenomena of day and night.
• With the help of strings and the planet Earth’s model, children figure out how revolution around the sun affects seasons on our planet. This is followed by an outdoor activity, where students use a chalk to map the functioning of the solar system and the position of Sun and Earth.
• The amusing concept of how shadows are formed can also be understood using this kit. The effect of heat and light in relation to the Sun’s position on Earth due to the planet’s rotation is understood via experimentation. Children set up a sphere model outdoors at a spot that is dominated by the rays of the sun and analyse the shadow’s position over the course of the day. Later, students discuss how shadows change direction depending upon the angle of sunlight falling on the Earth’s surface.
• Children observe the waning and a waxing of the Moon over time and understand the pattern through the Moon’s phases. A comparison between full moon and new moon is discussed in class using the kit. Students start to understand the movement of the moon in relation to Earth and Sun using the 3D models made available in the kit.

The Sky Watcher Kit is a modern tool designed to make today’s generation learn about Solar System. Students are intrigued by hands-on techniques and the approach of application-based learning creates a conducive learning environment for them. While doing experiments and project work activities classmates are encouraged to interact with their peers and discuss, thereby improving their communication skills. To get clarity and make things easy for students in their learning process, the teacher’s guide is also provided. We conclude by wishing our young Sky Watchers a bright future, as bright as the shiniest shining star!

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