Nurturing Digital Savvy Scholars: Balancing Tech Use in IB & CBSE Schools
I don't know about you, but I find the current obsession with mobile phones quite worrying. When I'm on a train, I notice that everybody is looking down at their screens, and many aren't even bothering with earphones. In restaurants, I see families handing small children mobile phones at the dining table to keep them 'entertained'. The world is experiencing a huge rise in teen mental health issues as the trend for social media, and sadly, online bullying and abuse, continues to rise.
Whilst technology undoubtedly has a dark side when it comes to its impact on social face-to-face interactions, the benefits for communication, research, and tech-based solutions to many problems are important elements of our present, let alone the future of humanity. It is therefore vital that we educate and train our students at MGS to have world-class understanding of how to use technology ethically, healthily, and to the betterment of their lives, not to the detriment of it.
In an era dominated by digital technology, the role of schools these days extends well beyond traditional education. Our responsibility as educators now includes guiding students on the judicious use of digital devices, integrating them seamlessly into the learning experience while instilling a sense of responsibility. This holds true regardless of the curriculum and is particularly relevant for those schools like ours with a boarding section, aiming to create a well-rounded educational environment.
As with my previous posts, I am breaking the use of devices for students down into a number of areas that I feel are important.
Integrating Digital Devices into Classrooms: A Productive Paradigm Shift
Both our IB and CBSE sections recognise the transformative power of technology in the educational landscape. Smart classrooms equipped with digital devices open up a world of interactive learning, making complex concepts tangible through multimedia presentations, simulations, and projects using state-of-the-art collaborative platforms. Our goal is to harness technology as a tool for academic enrichment, ensuring that it enhances the learning experience, increases engagement and provides many alternative methods of assessment for teachers to learn more about their students' strengths and areas for growth.
Digital Citizenship Education: Navigating the Online World Responsibly
Beyond the classroom, a good
IB and CBSE school places emphasis on digital citizenship education. Students are educated on responsible online behaviour, including the understanding of digital footprints, cybersecurity, and the ethical use of information. These essential skills prepare students to navigate the digital landscape with awareness and responsibility. Ensuring that they understand how best to use AI like ChatGTP and other similar tools, acknowledging how it enhances their work, and ensuring that they gain a level of understanding of topics and build skills to make them successful in life is paramount. Engaging in online communities through collaborative activities and gaming is increasingly a part of life and even work, so helping students understand warning signs and engage in safe interactions is ever more important.
Managing Device Use Outside Classes: Striking a Balance
Devices are increasingly powerful tools for learning and for work. However, they can also become destructive tools of disruption and disturbance when over- or misused. While our teachers manage the productive use of devices in the classrooms, we also recognise the importance of managing their use outside class hours. Guidelines and policies are established to strike a balance, encouraging students to engage in extracurricular activities, social interactions, and physical activities, thereby reducing excessive screen time. For day-scholars, we insist they carry books to read on school buses and provide educational documentaries and biographical movies. We suggest the same for students on private transport. In boarding, there are fixed and limited time-slots for each age group to use devices for home contact, but this is always closely monitored. For older students, more independence is given as devices may be needed to complete research and learning tasks forming part of homework routines. Again, this is always closely monitored to minimise distraction.
Gaming and Gamification: Turning Play into Learning
It is important that as a school, we recognise the popularity of gaming among students. Increasingly, the top IB and CBSE schools incorporate gaming and gamification into the learning process. Educational games aligned with curriculum objectives enhance engagement and make learning fun.The principles of gamification, such as point systems and challenges, are applied to various subjects, transforming the learning experience into an interactive adventure that appeals to many students and significantly increases engagement when employed well by enthusiastic teachers.
Robotic and AI in Education: Unleashing Creativity and Problem-Solving Skills for the future
Both
IB and CBSE curricula embrace the integration of robotics into education. Robotics programmes expose students to hands-on, project-based learning, fostering creativity and problem-solving skills. Students engage in constructing and programming robots, applying theoretical knowledge to real-world challenges.
The future-oriented approach of MGS extends to the incorporation of AI into the curriculum. Students are introduced to the basics of AI, exploring its applications in various fields. This exposure, and their own carefully supported use of AI, prepares them for a future where AI will be an integral part of many industries, ensuring they are not just consumers but contributors to the technological landscape.
Read more :
How is AI Transforming Education for the Future?
Extracurricular Learning
At MGS, extracurricular activities play a pivotal role in a well-rounded education. From coding clubs and tech competitions to digital art workshops, these activities provide students with avenues to explore their interests and talents beyond the traditional classroom setting. Increasingly, local and global inter-school competitions encourage the development of these skills in more exciting and original ways. Events such as First Lego League and Science Olympiads are evolving to offer more varied and diverse technological opportunities for concept-based problem-solving. This stretches students' skills, builds creative thought processes within science, and what better way to develop this than with our own inter-house competitions.
The Role of Parents in a Home-School Partnership
For many parents, there is a fear factor related to their child's use of technology, but the fact is, most students learn their behaviour from home. They see, observe, and learn their own approach to screens from those they spend the most time with. At MGS, we will ensure that parents are given the support of workshops to understand how they can alter their own digital citizenship as they aspire to work with us as a community helping their children develop the best practices for their learning. I have personally helped many parents successfully regain control of their child's device habits at home through counselling and training, and I am confident that our team will be able to do the same here at MGS.