Tech for Educators has trained over 200+ professors from Engineering and Commerce Colleges in India and found that the need to use technology in higher education is far higher as compared to Schools. In College, students are in their final phase of their education and after this, they have to face the real world. As per research, the job market is increasingly becoming tech savvy, and understanding of technology in graduates increases their employability. Professors benefit by reducing their workload through the adoption of educational tools to enhance their productivity.  

Need more assurance? Take Ms. Anuradha Srinivasaraghavan’s word for it. She is an Associate Professor at St.Francis Institute of Technology and here’s what she had to say.

By becoming a Google Certified Educator, I have used all my knowledge and skills to not only work smarter but more efficiently. Now I have set an example for my student’s to become tech oriented. I have inspired them to use technology in a positive way for learning. Since I take my class online now, all my students are connected virtually, this in turn sharpens their tech skills and we learn from each other. When it comes to grading, I do not spend extra hours correcting school work thanks to the auto grading feature in Google tools. Since I teach higher grad students, the workload is immense. All I have to do now is create a form/assignment and using the rubric feature I can set the marking scheme for each question. After grading  each assignment, all the marks get collated in one single sheet under the gradebook. From the Gradebook, one can prepare the marksheet within a short time. Overall this mode of teaching and learning has helped me take on more activities which otherwise would not have been possible.

Here are some ways you can make your lecture room fun and make your students want to come to class instead of bunking the lecture. 

• Collaborative reasoning

Prior to providing students the algorithm for solving a problem, students can collaborate on Google Document or Slides presentation to reason out possible solutions to a problem. All the facilitator has to do is attach a document in Google Classroom as a learning resource and ask students to work on it. This can also be assigned to students and graded later on. 

• Make Theory Subjects Fun

Subjects like Psychology, Sociology, Theology and many others can become monotonous if the professors just go on giving a lecture. In order to avoid making your students fall asleep during your class, involve them in their learning. For example, to conduct an experiment on ‘Social behaviour’ in Psychology, students can conduct a survey using Google Forms by creating a Questionnaire and send it to their peers and family members outside the college campus, they can record the data collected and interpret how human behaviour is influenced in the presence of others.
Using Google Forms you can also conduct quizzes and assignments on the go!

• Google Keep/Calendar

Teaching is a difficult job, especially if the teacher is burdened with work. In order to keep track of all your classes, assignments,notes, meetings and so on it can get tedious. Make your work easy by setting reminders on Google Keep and/or Google Calendar, in this way you will never miss out on an important meeting and you will always receive a reminder about your next task.

• Auto Draw

Teaching subjects such as Interior Designing, Architecture, Engineering, Fine Arts, require immaculately accurate drawings. This Google tool uses artificial intelligence to convert your rough sketches into polished and professional drawings. You can customise your drawing by changing the colour and background and using the other features to suit your preference. It is also excellent to create quick sketchnotes, infographics and story illustrations.

• Research Tools

As part of any college degree, conducting a research contributes greatly to the overall grade of the student. One can use google tools to find Scholarly articles as well as to do the analysis of the collated data and to save the authentic information available on the internet in an efficient way. As a teacher you can guide students how to cite references and data from the web, to search for important keywords, and to validate the information you get via the internet as you cannot believe everything that you read.

• ebook and Mobile apps

Training in Google tools will help you to design your own ebook and Mobile apps to provide relevant and job oriented content to your students.

• Website

Promote your college or department by showcasing your faculty members on your very own website! You can add in images, videos and links of previously achieved awards. You can use the website as a one stop point for all information and notices regarding your department, exam dates, admissions, FAQs and much more.

• Google Earth

No matter what subject you teach, incorporating Google Earth into your classroom is essential. You and your students, can now go on a virtual field trip. For example, if you teach Geology, you can take your students to various landform sites with different rock structures and have them experience the moment by being virtually present. Thus making the learning experience more memorable for them.

• Google Docs

This online tool is useful to both teacher and student. All Lesson Plans can be collaborated and worked on together by all the faculty members of the department in one document. Students too can do their assignments and research using Google Docs where each one contributes something. With the help of the ‘Version history’ feature, you as a professor can see which student has worked the most on the assignment and grade them accordingly.

• Visual Learning

In today’s day and age, everyone has easy access to a smartphone. Use this as a tool to make your subject interesting by creating a YouTube channel for your subject or by creating a playlist of related videos  for a specific topic. In this way you can have a flip classroom method of teaching, where the students watch all the videos in the recommended playlist and have a discussion in the classroom the next day.

No matter which stream of education you teach in, learning is an ongoing process, especially when you are dealing with college students. You need to be ahead of the curve, since we all know the younger generations grow up to be smarter and quicker with technology. This is how you as a professor can upgrade yourself and be popular amongst your students by letting your teaching speak for itself.