Knowledge Base – Page 28 – Projector Ninja

There are many advantages to be had for having projectors in your classroom. Unlike in the 20th Century where computers were huge mainframes that spewed out coded machine language in long strips of paper like receipts at a cash register, the 21st Century student has access to school computer labs and their own personal notebook PCs, tablets, and even smartphones. Thusly, in modern times, the Millennial Generation and Generation Z will most certainly enjoy many different types of benefits and advantages of projectors in the classroom. Even in poorer schools where students don't have their own laptops will most likely see classroom projector use compared to students from 20 to 30 years ago. The Many Different Projector Advantages It's already the 21st Century and we're nearing the end of the 2010s. Teachers should stop being Luddites and embrace modern technology to help students learn their lessons in a more effective and familiar way. Instead of insisting that the traditional way is the only way to go about learning, it's about time educators took advantage of current tech the same way older generations took advantage of the printing press and the classroom format. Here's a list that enumerates the many benefits both students and educators can get from using a projector for educational purposes instead of merely recreational ones like watching BDs and DVDs or playing 4K videogames on a huge screen that's much bigger than an HDTV. Old Projectors versus New Projectors: Not all schools have the fancy video projectors that double as monitors for laptops. Sometimes many community colleges and public schools only have the classic overhead projector used in churches to project hymn lyrics or slide projectors that could only use film slides instead of digital data to project unto the screen. They lack funding to get more sophisticated display devices. Even then, these old-timey projectors add a lot to a given classroom in terms of improved and legible note-taking. Improved Note-Taking and Lesson Presentation: It's hard to take notes with chalk and a blackboard. You have to copy handwritten notes on the chalkboard to your notebook while at the same time paying attention to your teacher's explanation of what he just wrote. It's tedious, boring, and necessitates drawn-out note-taking that most students couldn't take. Many a pupil would rather photocopy the notes of the most studious of their classmates than have to write all that down by themselves. Projectors partially alleviate that task. Clearer and More Legible Printed Letters: Overhead projectors typically projected page-sized acetate or clear plastic sheets with words photocopied unto them for students to write. Later projectors visualize the notes complete with graphs and tables. This makes it easier for your teacher to present his lecture in big blocks of text you can write down on your notebook, photographs with your cellphone, or download directly from your teacher himself for later perusal. You can examine the content while they're projected. Bulleted Lists, Infographics, and Educational Videos Galore: The multimedia format of visualized classrooms with projectors can also allow for a more streamlined presentation of data that's not just blocks of text. Everything can instead be put in infographic format, which many Gen Y and Z youths can understand since they get their info from the Internet in that format too. Projectors also allow for PowerPoint Presentations with slides and pictures included so that it's not just projecting seemingly meaningless words that pass over the students' heads. This also makes for better-prepared educators and fewer mistakes on the notes overall. A More Interactive Learning Experience: Video projectors allow a more interactive learning experience that extends beyond featuring videos and graphics on top of text and slides you'd normally present in overhead or slide projectors. This is because these projectors can act as a second monitor for the teacher's laptop, allowing for more interaction with students in the form of question and answer or multiple-choice questions. Every piece of data is also visualized in such a way that anyone looking at the slides could understand what's presented at glance care of tables, graphs, and pie charts. The Digitized World Allows for More Dynamic Learning: It's the 21st Century. The Internet exists. You can do fact checks using Wikipedia—including its citations—and Encyclopedia Britannica Online. A multimedia classroom with a projector that projects the contents of the teacher's laptop can allow for his lessons to be presented in modules. He can teach the class what they need to know through the projector and use sources such as Google Earth or Maps for geography and the cited sources of Wikipedia for more elaborate data than what's taught in the textbook before giving them their quizzes, test papers, or interactive testing websites with time limits on them. The Projector Is The Window to a World of Knowledge: The video or computer monitor projector is a teaching tool that serves as a window to a world of knowledge accessible through the Internet. While today's young students could access any info they need through the Google search bar, a multimedia class and proper schooling is still necessary for them to parse and disseminate all the general information they need into digestible chunks while avoiding "fake news" and misinformation. It allows teachers a more straightforward method of teaching to boot. Greater Teaching Versatility: Teachers aren't limited to putting their notes on the blackboard, talking about them, or having children recite passages from their textbook before asking questions about what they just read. In a multimedia classroom with students who are used to gathering loads of information on their own, they can better make their lessons stick to their heads by taking a more multimedia approach to things. History teachers can watch YouTube videos of archival footage. They can read Wikipedia and its citations on a relevant topic in order to pick out inaccuracies and which sources are actually legit. Better Use of Class Time: Valuable class time that's wasted by writing notes on chalkboards, waiting for students to write them down themselves, and then erasing them so that the next teacher could put in their own notes on the board can now be saved by going the projector route. Students have an easier time writing notes down on their notebook or by cellphone photography. Teachers can even further streamline note-taking by giving out handouts of the same projected info. There's more time left for discussing the actual meaning behind the notes than there is for note-taking. Improved Discussions on Topics: Because the attention of their students aren't divided by note-taking and rote memorization of whatever they just wrote without really understanding the material, teachers, and students in multimedia classes can have better, more nuanced discussions regarding any topic under the sun as covered by their lessons. Instead of having information dumped into their laps, students have the chance to learn whatever they're reading and writing. Better Student Presentations: It's not only the teachers who can benefit from the improved presentation of their incremental lesson plans and various modules to their students in a streamlined manner so that no one topic is missed. The most tech-savvy generation of youths the world has ever seen can also make use of the same projectors to show to the class better presentations and class projects for show and tell. They can use Microsoft PowerPoint or Word as well as HTML and PDF to showcase the knowledge they want to share with the class. Additional Technologies to Aid in Educating Students: Aside from having lively discussions with students through projectors and video presentations, teachers can also use other technologies aside from the projector to better help these children learn more about science, math, history, or social studies. They can use webcams to communicate online for home-based learning and face-to-face interaction. They can teach students new languages through interactive quizzes. The Library of Alexandria at Their Fingertips: Thanks to the Information Age, youths now have better access to information through personal computers, mobile devices, and the Internet. In turn, the 21st Century classroom should incorporate these technologies along with the video projector in order to allow these students to better understand their lessons with both textual and audio-visual aids on hand. After all, a kid with a smartphone and a Wi-Fi connection practically have the Library of Alexandria at their fingertips. Educators should simply push him in the right direction of loving the art of learning. To Recap Everything To recap, here are the many advantages you can get out of using a projector in an educational setting. It's easier to take notes when you have a projector on hand to print out pages of a book on a screen. It's also easier for your teachers to photocopy or digitally project their lessons via projector, allowing them more time to disseminate each lesson. Projectors also make for a better interactive learning experience. The computer screen is now projected unto the big projector screen, allowing the PC or Information Age generation of youth to learn in more familiar manner care of an interactive multimedia lesson. Teachers also approve of the greater teaching versatility allowed by making use of projectors instead of chalkboards or blackboards. It's also a more efficient use of class time when all is said and done in light of how easy it is to set up and present. The future is now and it is glorious.