It’s no secret that the job of an educator is demanding, exhausting, and often thankless. Today, more than ever, the public holds teachers to a high standard, despite their relatively low pay and lack of resources. As a result, technology has really been brought to the forefront of educating in recent years. Extensive studies have shown the benefits that students reap from technology use in the classroom, but what about teachers? How can technology make a teacher’s job easier?
No More Hand-Grading
Perhaps the most significant way in which technology has become a life-saver for teachers is that it can now be used to make the grading process easier. For multiple-choice tests, for example, students can submit their answers online and receive an instant grade without any physical grading required by the teacher him or herself. Even for essays and written responses, technology makes grading less time-consuming for teachers because they can use tools such as Microsoft word to comment, highlight, and otherwise provide feedback to students individually; no more red pen and hand cramps!
Easier Lesson Plans
Technology has also made lesson planning easier than ever for educators who are willing to embrace it. Specifically, lesson planning templates and software has taken a great deal of the time and hassle out of the lesson planning process. The same goes for documenting student scores and calculating grades. Instead, teachers today can simply plug in scores to a spreadsheet or grade-keeping program and grades are automatically calculated, saving teachers valuable time and hassle.
Greater Student Engagement
Teachers also find that they have an easier time keeping their students engaged and interacting in the classroom when they’re making use of technology. Long gone are the days of “boring” face-to-face lectures, where the teacher speaks and the students take notes. Today, technology makes it possible for teachers to supplement their traditional lectures with online videos, images, and other content that keeps students legitimately intrigued and interested.
Save on Printing
Finally, technology makes it easier for teachers to provide content to their students without the hassle of making photocopies and prints to hand out in class. With the majority of students having access to technology in the form of a tablet or computer at home, teachers can now upload readings, worksheets, and other documents to a course website and have students access the information from their own devices, rather than having to make print-outs to provide to everybody in the class.
These are just a few significant ways in which the use of technology in the classroom can benefit not only students, but teachers as well. In a career where so many hard-working educators are already spread thinly enough, technologies can make their jobs just a little bit easier and less time consuming in the process.
