The future of teaching and learning. Case study with Logitech
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What does the untethered teaching of the future look like? Come on a little trip to the city of Bielsko-Biała, Poland, with us, and we’ll show you!
Mikołaj Rej High School principal Dorota Feodorów has been fascinated by technology since she can remember – decades ago, when she was at university, she vividly recalls witnessing the first ever email being sent from Poland to the United States. Instinctively, she knew this way of sharing information with anyone, anywhere, in mere moments would be a breakthrough for education.
Between the past and future
Dorota spent years pushing for more technology to be used in the schools she taught at, often leading by example to show other teachers just how transformative it could be. But even when she became the principal of Mikołaj Rej High School, she struggled to get the PTA on board with her vision.
“‘Who is going to pay for all this?’ they asked me. But the truth is that it will be the students who pay the price if we don’t incorporate technology into their learning. Nobody is going to use chalkboards in their future workplaces…they need to be prepared, and we need to help them.”
What is the future of teaching and learning
When Covid-19 hit in the spring of 2020, Dorota sprung at the chance to get everyone else at her school using tech, too. A few months and a bit of trial-and-error later, all of her staff and students were using Explain Everything Whiteboard on iPad with Logitech Crayons, Rugged Combo keyboard cases and Zone Learn Headsets. And a few months after that, when they all finally got back into the brick-and-mortar classroom, they realized that they could combine those already-innovative edtech toolset with their flat panels. So an impressively flexible and truly futuristic untethered teaching environment was born.
Explain Everything x Mikołaj Rej High School! Check our video case study 🎬
The future of teaching and learning using digital whiteboards
Using the Explain Everything recordable digital whiteboard on their iPads, headsets and flat panels together allows the staff at Mikołaj Rej High School to teach engaging, media-packed lessons in the classroom, remotely, and in between when need be. They can give presentations and (simultaneously!) record snippets of explanations to share with students later on – thus tapping into the power of dual coding.
They can invite students to add their own ideas to those presentations in real time. They can open up collaborative sessions so students can learn important lessons about cooperation, netiquette and both synchronous and asynchronous teamwork. Or they can have every student in the classroom watch a different video without disturbing their neighbor, and then share what they learned with their peers.
Students have also fallen in love with the vast array of media formats tech allows them to express themselves. Some choose to create elaborate sketches or even animations to illustrate their thought process; other aspiring YouTubers add selfie videos to their projects to make their message that much more personal. In fact, being able to easily personalize learning materials is one of the aspects of teaching with tech that Dorota likes best.
Solving existing problems and finding solutions together with students
“If we’re teaching a lesson on calculating average speed, why not use Google Maps? Why not have them calculate their own routes from school to home, then compare and analyze those results? This way we work on solving relevant problems. If we didn’t use the Internet and Google Maps, we’d just be looking at a boring textbook page again, calculating some random numbers.”
Today, Dorota’s little high school is well on its way to becoming the fourth Apple Distinguished School in the entire country, and Dorota herself is on her way towards retirement.
“Looking back,” she says, smiling, “knowing a little school in Poland was able to do this…it will be something to be very proud of.”
