Ariem Technologies Blog

March 13, 2010

Power of Self Creation and Ownership

We have come across a lot of people in the education space who tell us that teachers are lazy and no matter what you give them they want ready-made content, so that their work is easy. In stark contradiction to this observation, we have found that teachers are struggling to identify with the ready-made content being fed to them on one hand and on the other, they are being forced to adopt complex technology solutions for content creation. Content creation is a tedious process for the initiated and a fearsome one for the uninitiated. So, when we asked, if given a simple enough tool (RazorBee Teacher’s Aid) and a large enough resource (Internet), will they create content? The answer we got was a resounding yes!

The most commonly heard refrain amongst teachers today is that students know technology more than we do. Do you think that is a comfortable statement for a teacher to make? Of course not, but it is so common today that we don’t even pay heed to it anymore. Instead, we continue to push the age old computers, thin clients and netbooks into schools.

When we land up in a school with RazorBee Teacher’s Aid, what really strikes us the eagerness of the teachers to adopt technology to improve their classrooms. The simplicity attracts them to the device but what keeps them going is their sense of ownership and the power of self creation on the platform. The first time we saw a teacher present to her class with content she had put together, I could see the pride in her eyes, that was obvious. I saw appreciation in the eyes of the students for their teacher’s efforts, that was an unexpected reward!

If you like what you read and would like to keep in touch – you can write to us at sales@ariemtech.com and follow us on twitter at @ariemtech.

January 30, 2010

Relevance of Technology in Education today

Why technology in education? What is this hype about? This is a question we get asked in many different forms, day in and day out. And, this is not from people who are skeptical about it, this is more from harried education management/principals, teachers who think that they are irrelevant in today’s context.

Given the above theme, I would like to introduce a slide deck I presented on behalf of Ariem at the School Needz Expo in Jan 2010. The topic was technology as an important resource in Education today. You can view it below.

Technology as an important resource in Education Today

There has always been resistance to technology adoption in education. To cite a few examples, back in 1700s when the Quill and Bark was mainstream and slate and chalk was launched, I can imagine the educators groaning about the “costly” slates and how the “skill” for developing “own” bark was being lost on the children. Let us take something even closer in history, ball point pens vs. ink pens and the hoopla that was created around handwriting to prevent one from shifting to using ball point pens.

We are at another such point of inflection and it is ever more important because today access to information via the internet can drastically transform the way we teach today. Educators can don the role of facilitators, instead of data banks, to instil reponsibility and the right perspective towards accessing, distilling, extracting, discarding, referencing and using information in today’s children. The teachers are digital migrants today while the children are digital natives, but the concept of mentoring and guidance are still as alive and kicking today. Hence, the call for creating simple technologies that help teachers bridge the digital gap and connect with today’s generation becomes all the more important.

With the empowerment of teachers through technology, it can act as a bridge to collaborate, enabler to reach the underprivileged, differentiator to keep the teacher relevant and a source of power to ignite minds. More on each of these perspectives in the next few posts as we talk about some real life case studies.

If you like what you read – kindly leave your comments, email us at sales@ariemtech.com and follow us on twitter @ariemtech. Would love to hear from you!

January 16, 2010

Ariem @ School Needz Expo

Ariem recently participated at the School Needz Expo on Jan 9th-10th 2010. Below is a video from the conference. We received extremely positive response from the teachers, principals, school administrators, teacher trainers, current as well as future school owners who experienced our product at the stall. We would like to thank one and all for their participation and encouragement.

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