The life of a teacher is busy, and there never seem to be enough hours in a day. However, smart teachers offset this by working smarter and not harder. In this article, we will discuss 10 ways that digital age teachers ensure productivity

1. Digital age teachers are creative. Whether they need to figure out how to keep their students engaged, a new way to integrate arts into the curriculum, or how to commandeer new tech tools with absolutely no budget, digital age teachers are used to being creative, as a matter of fact, it is in their DNA.
2. Digital age teachers embrace change. These teachers do more than simply tolerate change. Usually, they are the ones pursuing it, bringing innovations to their schools and districts.
3. Digital age teachers keep their long-range goals in mind. Digital age teachers set long-term goals, and they stick to them. They know where they want to be in the future and they work very hard to attain their objectives. They don’t let trends and challenges stand in their way.
4. Digital age teachers use the cloud to make their classrooms paperless. Handing out paper assignments in class? Collecting and grading huge piles of essays? These tasks are a thing of the past; digital age teachers use cloud technology to assign, collect and grade student work.
5. Digital age teachers have a backup plan. If something does go wrong, digital age teachers don’t give up! They have a backup plan, and a backup plan for that plan, too. They are ready for every situation – internet outages, network glitches, students who forget their technology at home, students who don’t know how to use the technology: all of these roadblocks are foreseen and planned for by expert teachers using edtech.
6. Digital age teachers recognize that not all edtech improves student learning. A company can make a wide variety of claims—but the evidence may not back up what the marketing department promises. So, the digital age teacher carefully assesses edtech to be sure that their students are using tools that will benefit them.
7. Digital age teachers flip parent-teacher conferences. Digital age teachers are obsessed with being productive, as they must get a lot done, in a short amount of time. One example is their approach to parent-teacher conferences. Instead of adhering to the traditional configuration, they allow parents to use a tool like Google Docs to send along questions or concerns before the conference. The teacher can gather all the data and information that they need to address these questions or concerns. That way, valuable time is not spent searching for scores, and assignments. The parent-teacher conference can be used to address these questions and creating a plan to help the student perform at an optimal level.
8. Digital age teachers automate grading. In the past, teachers have spent hours after school and on weekends grading papers. Digital age teachers use tech tools that can cut down on this time, automating grading and making measuring student progress simple.
9. Digital age teachers flip the classroom. A flipped classroom is where students learn through reading or videos at home then do projects or discuss what they learned in the classroom. Digital age teachers flip their classrooms to boost student achievement.
10. Digital age teachers save time. With technology and the internet, digital age teachers can find lesson plans and free materials online. Plus, apps and programs designed to grade student work can save even more time.

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