I wonder about whether we as teachers set the same goals for ourselves. Do we want to push past our levels of comfort? Do we want to be scaffolded (or go and find scaffolds for ourselves) to move to higher levels and better outcomes? Do we want to feel challenged? Are we willing to use ‘experts’ to support us through the Zone of Proximal Development from watching the expert, doing with the expert and finally becoming the expert?
When we relate these questions to using E-Learning and ICT applications in our curriculum development and teaching, we need to determine whether we are willing to use students as the experts to teach us? Are we willing to be out of our comfort zone in front of our students, until we have tried and tried again to succeed?
s, finding ways to improve his/her skills, of practicing the new technology. Wouldn’t it be beneficial for the students to see some of the struggles the teacher is having when learning something new, so the students could realize that learning is a slow process – even for teachers?
I recently listened to an interview with a fourteen year old student as the guest speaker. She claims that teachers only teach ICT to the level where the teachers feel comfortable, and then the teachers stop teaching ICT. As young people today have skills well above the ICT skills of most of their teachers, they are effectively ‘undertaught’ by the teachers in terms of ICT skills.
Whose level of comfort is important in our classrooms: The teachers’ comfort or the students’ comfort? If teachers refuse to move past their own levels of comfort in front of their students, are we in fact robbing students of the opportunity to see that true learning, and the art of improving yourself, is a life-long task?
we finally succeeded at something we had to work really hard at…won’t it be great if we could move ourselves along this E-Learning journey with the support of our students?
A fantastic article worth reading that explores teacher vs student expertise in ICLT and it's implications with teaching an learning. The interview at the bottom is also worth a listen, it is an interview with Edith, a student in England speaking about ICLT in her learning. She recently spoke at a TeachMeet, and in the interview, explores many aspects of ICLT in the classroom, including wether ICLT should be treated as an integrated, or separate subject.
An excellent collection of short presentations sharing ideas on how to use various ICLT tools in your classroom. Page is being updated regularly with additional presentations. Has presentations relating to many of the tools covered at the Term 4 Learning Technologies Network
iPad has made such a radical change in education with more and more school districts adopting it as a learning tool inside the classroom. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has been helping teachers all along the way with reviews and tutorials on how to get started using iPad in education. We have reviewed more than 500 apps and we are planning to do more reviews this year.
Apps in Education
One of the hardest things with using the iPad in the classroom is finding the time to go through all of the apps in the iTunes Store listed under the education banner. We have started to list some of the apps we've found under each of the Key Learning Areas.
Very Good!
Interesting read- One teacher learned the hard way that just bringing iPads into the classroom won't truly change things-challenges teachers to redefine your practice.
APPitic is a directory of apps a collection of 1,300 + apps for learning.for education by Apple Distinguished Educators (ADEs) These apps have been tested in a variety of different grade levels, instructional strategies and classroom settings
Some great new ideas on how to use iPads, Google Maps & Google Search in the classroom. These are collaborative documents which are always having new ideas added to them...
Traditional textbooks are both expensive and rigid. FlexBooks conform to national and state textbook standards. They are free, easy to update and easy to customize. With FlexBooks, you can customize your textbooks to support your innovative work in the classroom. The CK-12 Foundation provides FlexBooks free to anyone who wants to use them.