TEACHING AND LEARNING USING TECHNOLOGY : Lessons to be learnt

Professor Yashwant RAMMA in Le Mauricien writes about the changes and how they might impact students in Mauritius, noting that the majority of ICT use in schools has been mostly PowerPoint. He looks at contextual knowledge, pedagogy and technology – noting that concepts across different areas of knowledge are not connected in teaching areas.

Technology can serve the purpose of helping learners make sense out of nonsense (all the stuff they have to study). We should not forget that a classroom is composed of learners of different abilities, normally categorized in three groups: low, average and high abilities. This means that a teacher can expect that learning will occur if only he/she engages learners…

There is also a fascinating discussion in the comments questioning the impact of technologies in learning in other parts of the world and what is the value.

In full

 

Ten best practices in online teaching from the standpoint of a student-teacher

Isabella Villas Boas recently completed a ten-week online courses and reflects on different practices and their application – including

Making sure that people know each other well so that they can become a true community of learners….  For some cultures more than for others, images are very important to aid communication. In the course I took, for example, I resented the fact that we couldn’t see people’s photos next to each of their posts. Some of us had posted pictures to accompany our introductory remarks inside a folder called “Week 1”, but they were uploaded as documents and difficult to retrieve on a daily basis. Ideally, the LMS should have a sidebar with the participants’ profiles so that they can be consulted easily throughout the course. Instructors might also place so much emphasis on having students introduce themselves that they, the instructors, forget to do the same.

The other nine

 

BBC Christmas Lectures from 1988

How to make a Microprocessor

Can computers listen to drummers

Part one – 12 resources to discover and curate digital curriculum for teachers and students

Michael Gorman briefly looks back at using textbooks where he started his teaching career 35 years ago and what has since changed.

I first started my teaching career close to 35 years ago the textbook was not only the curriculum, it was also the center of learning. I was able to curate by finding an occasional article, ordering a 16 mm film several weeks in advance, finding a filmstrip with its exciting beeps between slides, and an occasional field trip.

He reviews a number of tools starting with Symbaloo and Diigo

 

The list in full

 

STUDENT BLOG: Media Class Visits ASEAN BlogFest 2012

Nary Chun reports from Cambodia about a blogfest that students recently attended.

My media class went to the BlogFest because we wanted to know more about Facebook, websites, blogging and how to use them. This is because we really like to study media and want to be able to write a blogpost. In the future, media can help us to have a good job. All the students in the media class want to connect tothe Internet, because we want the people around the world to know us

The students learnt more about a range of web topics including Wikipedia and web design.

 

In full

 

Fun is just a click away

Thabo Mohlala reports on the rise of use and appreciation of positive aspects of combining teaching with technology in South African classrooms. They mention the changes with lessons no longer being predictable but where the pupils have more choice and motivation about their activities. A competion was held for a number of pupil projects including:

One was by Sume Delport, who is artistic and whose goal was to make a painting for her room. The other one was by Michaela Zealand, a bookworm who wanted to finish a 170-page book in English, which is her first additional language. Delport did not know how to mix specific colours and had to do a Google search for a colour chart. In the process she learnt which colours complement one another. When she read the book, Zealand encountered some difficult words and had to use the cellphone-based dictionary to figure them out. “Both these pupils used mind maps to brainstorm and organise their thinking and knowledge-building.

 

In full

 

Video: How to influence technological change in your school

Laura shares a video she recently created

Lots of people have expressed frustration that it’s difficult to influence whole-school ICT developments and policy from a grass-roots level.

In this video (made using Videoscribe for iPad) I’ve put together some advice to help move things forward. I hope it helps!

 

Watch the video

 

Is technology the new kid on the block?

via the Yildiz University Wired In or Out blog, a vimeo interview with Dr. Gary Motteram by the British Council Turkey.  Gary talks about the differences in his own experiences of teaching languages and the range of options available using recent technologies. The Wired In or Out blog covers the symposium with more posts to follow.

The interview

Pictures from the poster presentation session showing a range of different Turkish projects