Category: Education

Purchases made in a hurry are rarely successful. Therefore it is better to prepare for the school or academic year well in advance, choosing gadgets for education with the best value for money. And why not do it after the start of the new year? Especially since you will have a huge choice nowadays.

The market presents dozens of manufacturers competing for customers’ preferences. But so that you don’t get lost in this vast sea of tech variety, read this article highlighting the top 5 modern gadgets that help students in education.

# 1 Laptop / PC

It’s a fact that there is no way to do without a computer or laptop in the modern educational process. But here, a pretty natural question arises: which hardware to choose? Desktop computers have an advantage in power, and laptops — in mobility. So, let’s find out what to select in your particular case.

If you combine study and games, look for a pair of system units and a monitor. In other cases, the choice of a laptop seems more logical. For example, a budget laptop with average productivity is more than enough for creating presentations, writing essays, and using training sites.

Another argument favoring a laptop is its compact size, due to which a device takes up little space. This feature is significant since no one attends lectures or lessons with a desktop PC. That’s why many students prefer models, the key advantage of which is a modest size. And here we mean netbooks and ultrabooks.

Consider also that for humanitarian students, especially philologists, the technical characteristics of laptops don’t play a significant role. On the other hand, students who study professions connected with drawings and graphics processing have higher requirements for hardware. In most cases, the right choice for the study will be a laptop under Windows. MacOS is not the best option because university software can have compatibility problems.

It is also worth noting that intensive tech use during a busy school or academic year can sometimes malfunction. However, it’s pretty standard, and you shouldn’t worry too much about it, especially when you know about the existence of consulting service Howly. On this site, you can quickly get in touch with qualified experts who troubleshoot laptop, and it takes them no more than an hour.

# 2 Headset / Noise-Canceling Headphones

With the advent of the pandemic, online learning has become much more relevant. Therefore, a student needs a headset to understand a subject’s nuances in peace. The sound in the gadget comes from a computer or laptop, so choose an impedance in the 40-150 ohms range.

The sound quality doesn’t have to be so good as to capture the nuances of complex musical compositions since clear audibility will be enough for students. However, using overhead headphones for studies is much better since they are comfortable for a long time. A good choice would be a headset with a microphone with noise reduction. You can’t think of a better solution for learning foreign languages, and for a good reason:

📌 The teacher hears the student, picks up errors in their speech, and immediately shows the correct pronunciation.

📌 The student hears the teacher clearly and can pick up their pronunciation and intonation.

📌 The teacher only hears the student, even if the TV is loud in the student’s room next door. The noise-canceling microphone cuts out extraneous sounds.

📌 The lesson continues without pauses, and participants don’t have to repeat the same thing several times.

# 3 Tablet

A tablet for studies is an excellent alternative to a laptop. It is lighter, more compact, and cheaper than a previous device. However, students should look at more advanced models. The presence of a removable keyboard will allow you to type text lectures quickly, and the stylus lets you enter graphic information. The advantages of the tablet also include the ability to take pictures of learning material. In addition, if the Internet works with a SIM card, the device’s owner will always be online.

# 4 Printer

Students and pupils usually need such devices for printing essays, presentations, term papers, tutorials, and other educational materials. So here we should consider two types of these helpful techs: inkjet and monochrome printers. The pros and cons of them are discussed in the table below:

So if you buy a laser printer, looking at MFP models that can print, scan, and photocopy makes sense. It will be a good option both for students and pupils. Moreover, additional functions will not particularly affect the price tag. The market also presents color laser printers, but they are expensive, don’t print high-quality photos, and maintenance of such a unit will be a blow to the student’s finances.

# 5 E-Book

The E-book is a helpful device for reading enthusiasts. The emergence of inexpensive smartphones with large diagonals has not become a problem for manufacturers of e-books because their screens are specially adapted for reading. For example, it has a perimeter backlight that doesn’t hurt your eyes. In addition, the gadget understands more than 10 of the most common text formats. When choosing such a gadget, focus on the following details:

✔️ Screen diagonal. It’s not necessary to be limited to 6 inches. Younger students are more accustomed to reading large print.

✔️ The way of control. Students will undoubtedly choose touch control.

✔️ The presence of a backlight is a must.

✔️ Internet access can be by cable or Wi-Fi. However, wireless models are more expensive.

Bottom Line

So, in this article, you’ve learned about the top 5 modern gadgets that help students in education. Studying is a complex and time-consuming process, so the presence of such equipment can significantly simplify the life of many young people. However, it would help if you did not forget that these devices should be done in moderation to avoid harming health.

Christine Tomas is a tech expert, consultant, and aspiring writer. She writes for different news portals and thematic blogs for tech experts that helps her stay at the heart of programming, technology news.

Git Hub is revolutionizing education by providing teachers with a powerful platform to create and manage virtual classrooms. With its plethora of features and easy-to-use tools, teachers can manage projects and assignments and easily collaborate and share resources with their students.

What Is GitHub?

GitHub is an open-source software that allows people to work on projects together from any location. For educators, it is also helpful in sharing teaching materials across different courses, allowing collaboration between teachers, and making it easier to work on lessons together without constantly switching programs.

This article will explore ten ways teachers can use GitHub in the classroom to make teaching more collaborative, efficient, and fun. So read on as we dive into how teachers everywhere should take advantage of its capabilities.

10 Ways Teachers Can Use GitHub in the Classroom

Manage Classrooms

GitHub Classroom provides teachers with a powerful tool for managing their courses. Through the classroom, teachers can create multiple student rosters, which become the foundation of the course itself. With each roster, teachers can assign assignments, track student progress, and review and grade their work.

In addition, they can track their students’ contributions within their repositories, giving them better insights into how each student is doing in their course.

Starter Assignment

Teachers can use the Git & GitHub starter assignment to give students an overview of key concepts related to Git and GitHub. The course is designed to allow students to quickly get familiarized with the topics and develop a better understanding of its fundamentals.

It covers several essential elements, including version control with Git, repository collaboration on GitHub, real-world application of the concepts, and other less-discussed topics, such as techniques for debugging code along with best security practices.

The course also provides helpful links to tutorials and additional resources that teachers can use to introduce more complex topics within software development. The starter assignment simplifies the ongoing learning experience by giving students an effective platform for grasping essential knowledge about Git and GitHub.

Create Individual Assignment

Teachers can use GitHub Classroom to facilitate the creation of individual assignments. They can also determine each assignment repository’s visibility and access permissions by assigning a title and setting an optional deadline.

Grading can also be automated, streamlining the assessment process for improved accuracy. In addition, instructors can employ starter codes, documentation, tests, and other resources to support student efforts on their assignments.

A dedicated space to discuss each assignment with a student further enhances GitHub Classroom’s appeal as an easy-to-navigate educator tool that facilitates comprehensive educational experiences for teachers and learners alike.

Create Group Assignment

Using GitHub Classroom, teachers can easily create collaborative assignments for their courses. Once a student accepts the assignment, they have the flexibility to create or join a team of fellow students. The teams created for each assignment are saved as a set and can be reused for future assignments.

For added convenience, teachers can also provide starter codes, documentation, tests, and other resources to offer students a head start on the project by creating a template repository. This makes it simple and convenient for teachers to administer collaborative assignments through GitHub Classroom.

Edit an Assignment

Teachers can use GitHub to easily edit existing assignments, providing them with limitless opportunities to modify the assignment in a way that best fits their course needs. With the help of GitHub, they can edit such things as submission deadlines and auto-grading tests from previously created assignments.

Additionally, teachers can add bulk or single tasks to an assignment and a grading rubric for individual students.

Reuse an Assignment

Reusing existing assignments is a great way to save time and energy as a teacher, especially if you have multiple classrooms in different organizations. GitHub Classroom can help by copying the assignment wherever you need it, including any other classrooms.

Not only will the assignment contain all original details like the name, source repository, auto-grading test, and preferred editor, but it will also include a template repository and its contents from the target organization.

You can easily make changes to your copied assignment post-copy, allowing maximum customization and flexibility for your students. Remember that you have no control over the preferred editor setting, though!

Create an Assignment From a Template Repository

Creating an assignment from a template efficiently provides your students with documentation, starter codes, and other resources. All you need is to use the template repository as the starter code for your assignment on GitHub Classroom.

Depending on the visibility setting of the repository, either your organization must own the template repository, or it must be public for it to be used in the creation of the assignment.

Auto-Grading

Assessment becomes automated by designing tests to run in the assignment repository, enabling quick and efficient processing of assignments.

All teachers need to do is set up the tests for an assignment. Whenever students submit their work on GitHub Classroom, the configured tests will automatically run in a Linux environment containing the latest submission.

The student can then view the results of the tests and make necessary changes before submitting them again.

Leave Feedback With Pull Requests

Providing feedback to students in a timely, structured manner can have a positive impact on their learning outcomes. To deliver meaningful and constructive feedback, GitHub Classroom offers the ability to create special pull requests. This allows instructors to easily add comments, questions, annotations, and code snippets directly within the repository for each assignment.

Seamless integration with the Student Appointments feature allows for discussions about assignment submissions where everyone involved can see the context within which conversations are held. With an organized workflow, instructors can spend more time engaging with students and less time managing communication logistics.

Register and Connect to an LMS Course

Registering and connecting an LMS course to GitHub Classroom is a simple process that requires only a few steps. First, an administrator must configure the LMS instance to allow for integration with GitHub Classroom. Then, the administrator initiates the OAuth authentication handshake by registering their LMS with GitHub Classroom.

This registration only needs to take place once, but it allows any teacher using the same LMS instance to sync their courses to classrooms. After these preliminary steps are complete, teachers can import rosters of student identifiers from the LMS and into their desired classrooms.

Conclusion

Overall, GitHub provides an effective solution for managing educational resources, which saves time and helps streamline the learning process for all involved.

A helpful video demonstration is also provided on their website for all features as a guide for further instruction.

Computers are here to stay. Most of our world can’t run without them — including household appliances — and in order for things like your car to drive, planes to navigate, televisions to play your favorite show, or grandmas’ dinner to not burn in the oven, the world needs coders.

What you may not know is that between the steadily increasing demand for employees in this sector and competitive salaries, you may be overlooking a very stable career path.

As with any subject matter there is a variety of nuanced fields which all relate to the main topic, but the differentiations between those roles is dependent on the type of knowledge and experience gained. Here is a breakdown of some major sectors in the coding business world and the average salaries that accompany those positions.

1) Software Developers

Software developers create a broad range of tools generally meant to enhance functionality of mobile, desktop, and operating systems for customer usability. They accomplish this by creating and testing the programs that become the client-facing web pages and applications the public use every day.

In order to do this, they employ a host of problem solving skills all while translating solutions into program languages, “code”, which serve as the directions for those mobile and desktop applications.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), “the median annual wage for software developers was $120,730 in May of 2021.” Starting wages for such positions are around $90,000 annually.

2) Database Administration

Data administrators do a little bit of everything. They need to monitor, manage, and manipulate code in ways that allow for companies or programs to interact with each other. These professionals seek to make sure the software is complete and working properly. They also strive to prevent data loss, and make any necessary changes when flaws are found in a system.

Before you make a commitment to career in coding, While there is a much broader spectrum of salaries to this position — $63,000 on the low end, $125,000 on the top end — U.S News found that a median annual salary for Database Administrators is around $96,000.

3) Data Scientists

Data Scientists have the responsibility of formulating systems which perform detailed analytics of massive amounts of data. By building machines and software which engage with users and systems, they seek to learn from that gathered information. The infrastructure that data scientists create are crucial to understanding how people and software interact with each other.

Salary.com shows the average salary for Data Scientists as $139,631, with a range of $124,400 to $153,880 per year.

4)  Web Developer

Web development (similar to web design) is the production of the underlying code which directs the actions of websites. They are the front-facing, interactive pages that people engage with anytime they visit a website. High demands from large and small business owners over the years have seen a rise in the need and availability of work for companies and as freelancers. Generally providing design, formatting, and troubleshooting, web developers attend to a broad range of responsibilities.

This is another job with a significant salary range — around $43,000 starting, $91,000 for more experienced work — but still a very steady median range. Payscale.com lists web development positions at around $62,000 annually.  Full stack developers tend to earn a lot more, from around $99,000 to start up to $150,000 for the most experienced workers.  This is because these developers possess both front and back end skills. Therefore, companies only need to hire one person, as opposed to getting two people who are only equipped to do one or the other job.

Next Steps

In order to save you some time, and the annoyance of sorting through thousands of websites and opinions about what coding is, here is a solid survey of the different job positions and what their salaries are.

What should also be noted about this sector of the tech industry is the emergent demand for women in fields traditionally held by men. The intentional diversification of teams has created a host of opportunities and incentives for women, such as scholarships, with the goal of encouraging the betterment of society and closing the gender gap.

Today, nearly every school in our country has an emphasis on STEM subjects. The growing demand of accessibility to STEM activities has created plenty of programs and clubs to join in or out of school rooms. If, however, a club or classroom setting is not what you respond to, there are also coding games (yes, you heard me right) designed to simultaneously engage and teach principles of coding. Each provides the opportunities to try out the subject matter needed to pursue an education or career in coding.

• Read 7 things to consider before joining online coding classes
• Starting kids young!  The basics of coding explained

The Ultimate Guide to Creating Effective and Engaging Instructional Videos is a step-by-step guide that provides the tools and knowledge required to create effective and engaging instructional videos. These including planning and scripting, filming and lighting, and editing and post production.

Educators who create instructional videos engage their students while learning and studying.  This is especially the case with those who respond to visual learning. All aspects needed to easily make instructional videos are included in this guide:

Planning and Scripting:

Planning and scripting are critical steps in producing an effective instructional video. The following are some suggestions for writing a clear and concise script:

1. Define the video’s purpose and objectives.
2. Determine the intended audience.
3. Outline the main points that will be covered in the video.
4. Avoid jargon and use simple language.
5. Keep your script brief and to the point.

You should plan the video ahead of time.:

1. Make a storyboard to visualize the video’s flow.
2. Divide the script into different sections or scenes.
3. Determine the necessary props, equipment, and locations.
4. Determine the video’s overall length.
5. Plan the video’s pacing so that it flows smoothly and keeps the audience engaged.

Following these guidelines will allow you to write a clear and concise script that effectively conveys information to the audience while also ensuring that the video flows smoothly.

Filming and Lighting:

Lighting and filming are critical components of producing a professional-looking instructional video. The following are the best filming practices:

1. To avoid shaky video, use a stable camera mount.
2. Correctly framing shots to create a visually appealing composition
3. Keeping the camera steady and smoothly panning or zooming
4. Taking photos from various angles to add visual interest and variety
5. To keep the camera steady, use a tripod or stabilizer.

The following are the best lighting practices:

1. When possible, use natural light to achieve a more natural look.
2. Adding depth and dimension to your shots by utilizing multiple light sources.
3. Diffusers are used to soften harsh shadows.
4. Backlighting should be avoided because it can cast unwanted shadows.
5. Using a light meter to ensure consistent and balanced lighting levels throughout the video.

You will be able to create a visually appealing, professional-looking instructional video if you follow these best practices.

Editing and Post-Production:

Editing and post-production are important steps in producing a polished and professional instructional video. Among the methods for making a clip are:

1. To organize and edit your footage, use a non-linear editor (NLE) software such as Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or Avid Media Composer.
2. Trimming and cutting footage to achieve a consistent flow and pacing
3. Adding transitions, text, and graphics to improve the video’s visual appeal
4. Using color correction and grading to improve the video’s overall look and feel
5. Including sound effects and music to improve audio quality and make the experience more engaging.
6. Create clip from the footage to highlight key moments.

Adding special effects, animations, and other visual enhancements to the video is also part of the post-production process. Following these techniques will allow you to create a polished, professional instructional video with engaging and effective clips.

Publishing and Distribution:

The final step in creating an instructional video is publishing and distribution. The following are the best publishing and distribution practices:

1. The final edited video is exported in a format that is compatible with various platforms and devices.
2. Optimizing the video for various video hosting platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and Wistia.
3. Creating a captivating video title and description in order to attract viewers
4. Making the video more discoverable by using keywords and tags
5. Creating a visually appealing video thumbnail that accurately represents the video’s content
6. Adding closed captions or subtitles to the video to make it more accessible to a larger audience.
7. Sharing and promoting the video across multiple platforms, including social media, email marketing, and other channels.

Conclusion:

Creating an instructional video is simply another way to capture the attention of students.  It’s another method of storytelling no matter what the subject is.  By following the steps outlined in the guide, you will be able to create engaging, effective, and professional-looking instructional videos.