Top Nine Technological Tools for Enhancing Education

TORONTO, ON, April 21, 2013 (Press-News.org) As new mobile applications and technological devices continue to be launched at accelerated rates, one of the industries that has primarily benefited and enriched the most is education. While some blame technology for attention issues and deem it as a distraction, recent studies have shown that when used properly, technology can serve as an advantageous tool for promoting and advancing education and learning.

Tutor Doctor, the fastest growing "at-home" tutoring franchise worldwide, supports technological resources when it comes to both independent and codependent learning. The abundance of informative websites, apps, and gadgets at our disposal can positively impact learning in a variety of ways, allowing easier access to information, increased retention, interactive teaching, better presentation of information, knowledge sharing, and endless research capabilities. It also improves students' technical skills, use of outside resources and collaboration with peers.

"Even outside the traditional classroom through our one-on-one teaching model, our tutors have observed tremendous growth and potential in students," said Frank Milner, president of Tutor Doctor. "At Tutor Doctor, we believe that all of the technology and constant new mobile apps at our disposal can only help to facilitate a boundless environment for learning."

The following are educational technological resources and methods that can be used by teachers, tutors, and students alike to enhance learning.

1. Apple iPad and other Tablets: Products like the Apple iPad enable students to both take faster, more comprehensive notes and conduct research instantly within a learning environment. Differing from a traditional laptop, these tablets also lend access to apps that facilitate learning.
2. Smartphones: It is now very rare to encounter a student without a smartphone, especially in high school. Thankfully, this mass popularity can be leveraged for learning both in- and outside the classroom, whether they're used for interactive polling, tweeting, and research, or as remote learning content access devices.
3. Games: Educators can now use smartphone and tablets to offer incentives through their educational games. Students love rewards and games are the perfect tool as they're engaging and encourage learning in a "cooler", more intrinsic fashion.
4. Online Courses: Students are now able to take online courses, sometimes for free. This is very appealing for many students, especially if there are special circumstances that keep them from traveling for school, such as no access to a car, living out-of-state, having limited mobility, etc..
5. BYOD: The "Bring Your Own Device" approach is great for teachers at schools on a budget who'd like for their students to come to class prepared with a laptop or tablet for engaged learning. With the right approach, proper support, and logical classroom objectives, it can serve as a progressive method for encouraging participation and student collaboration.
6. Student Response Systems (SRS) and Polling Apps: Smartphones and tablets can work as SRS tools, and a history of responses can provide learning analytics that help teachers focus on which topics need the most reinforcement. SRS's have been around for years and have been gradually gaining popularity as a classroom tool, and as smartphones and tablets become more common and standard for students, SRS's are becoming more accessible and can be paired with new innovative apps such as Lecture Tools and Learning Catalytics.
7. Cloud Apps: The "cloud" is becoming increasingly popular as people are using multiple devices to access and store personal content. File storage tools like Dropbox and note taking apps like Evernote have become wildly popular because they let users get to their digital content from whatever device they have on them.
8. OER (Open Educational Resources): OER is a transformational idea that can play an important role in changing the nature, availability, and costs of educational materials, content, and tools. As the ability to access technological resources increases and improves, so does the potential for OER.
9. Learning Analytics: Educational technologies are vastly improving the ability to use learning analytics to measure teaching success in- and outside the classroom. As the number of institutions and organizations working to leverage these measurements steadily grows, this technology is quickly becoming one of the top technologies in helping to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of various instruction methods and styles.

About Tutor Doctor
Tutor Doctor was founded in 2000 as an alternative to the "one-to-many" teaching model most extra-curricular learning centers offer by providing a personalized one-on-one, in-home tutoring service to students. The company quickly grew and in 2003 turned to franchising as a way of expanding the company's impact and meeting the vast market demand. Now with offices internationally in Canada, the United States, Latin America, the United Kingdom, Middle East and the Caribbean, the Tutor Doctor vision is becoming a reality as the lives of students and their families are being positively impacted throughout the world. With over 370 franchised territories worldwide, Tutor Doctor was listed by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the fastest growing franchise brands. For more information about Tutor Doctor visit the web site at http://www.tutordoctor.com.