Institute of Education

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ICT in Education

I have already discussed the growth in the number of MOOCs available for people to engage with, especially courses that link to the work within the education field.  I am currently working through some new courses that might be of Interest and they are

Web 2.0 Tools                             University of Houston       USA

ICT in  Primary Education        Institute of Education    London

Both of these can be found on the Coursera website and are aimed at teachers and librarians, as well as other interested parties.

The Web 2.0 course looks at a huge range of ‘Tools’ that you can put in your digital toolbox and divides the materials into a series of segments such as

  • Collaboration,
  • Communication,
  • Creativity and
  • Lifelong Learning.
  •  Whilst it dealt with some tools that I had come across before it also introduced me to many that I had never seen.  It also gave me ideas about how they can be used in the classroom.

With this course one of the great finds was a tool called Jing, linked with Screencast.com.  this is on my dashboard and enables me to highlight an image  or piece of text and then copy and paste to a file.  It has already proved invaluable as it is so easy to use.

The ICT in Primary Education is particularly good as it is from a UK based institution and more examples relate to our experience. Subject areas include

  • 21st century school                                                                             2015-05-07 09.21.24
  • ICT making a difference
  • Pedagogical changes through ICT
  • Technology Opportunities
  • Inspiring examples and implementation concerns

I am currently only part of the way in to this but it is proving very  useful.  What I am finding is that the more courses I do about modern technologies the more they start to overlap and I get to use a particular tool in different ways. One of the real discoveries was a package called ThingLink.  This enables you to take a picture and then pinpoint areas of interest which can have information, links to websites, video or photos attached to them.  Unfortunately  I cannot have the software on this site as it is a third party software, however there is great potential for a whole range of topics.

Futurelearn is just finishing a course on

Cyber security                 Open University

and will soon start a course on

Childhood in the Digital age, also run by the Open University.

The former was really intended for adults and there was an emphasis on personal and business security.  However the information is relevant to all of us and I think that elements would be extremely useful for teens as they start to use the web in a different way, e.g. online banking, in the workplace.

The forthcoming course look at the effects of technology on young people and asks what the benefit and dangers are.  It also looks at the world of education and how much should the digital impact on the classroom.  It should make for a fascinating follow on to the previous courses.  I am looking forward to starting in a couple of weeks.

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“Reading for Pleasure:edgy, cool or just boring? Make it infectious and survive”

The last few months, since Christmas, have been a little odd due to some health issues.  I had got a list of events and conferences to go to and unfortunately have had to miss out on several of them.  However I have not been totally defeated and last week managed to get up to London for back to back events.  The first was a presentation of the autumn highlights from Walker books, with the added bonus of having the amazing Patrick Ness in conversation with his publisher, more on this will be found on “Margaret’s reading shelf” my book blog.

The second event was a School Library Association training day held at the Institute of Education. It was entitled “Reading for Pleasure:edgy, cool or just boring?  Make it infectious and survive” and was led by Angie Curran a highly experienced adviser in English and literacy.  it was good to get some new ideas, but also to have my knowledge and skills validated by what I heard during the day.

2015-05-07 09.21.24

Book trailers and authors’ blogs are a helpful addition to the library and     classroom.

 

 

 

 

A book corner

A book corner

It was also lovely to have the day in the library training room at the Institute and to have an opportunity to look at the resources they provide for students.  Two specific areas took my interest; the first was the series of book corners that had been set up, in order to model best practice for the students when they get out into schools.  These were bright, attractive and well themed, using books and other materials to engage the pupils.  The second area that I liked was a collection of older materials that had been put out for us to look at.  There were books and pamphlets from the early 20th century and we could see the great changes that have happened over the years.

The day itself was focused on secondary education and looked at a range of issues around supporting students and reading for pleasure.  there were six main points which were covered, they were:

  • why reading for pleasure is essential to pupil’s academic success             2015-05-07 13.38.50
  • review of schools’ current activities
  • adapting current reading activities to improve appeal
  • maximizing support
  • time management

The use of games and discussion groups meant that we all kept focused on the day and it became a very interactive learning experience.  The combination of subject, trainer and venue made this a very successful day.