This is a 5 stage CPD coaching model for teachers. 5 stage model.pdf
Stage 1
Consists of an initial meeting, where the coach will establish the experiences that the E-teacher has had using ICT in their teaching and where they want to be using ICT in their future teaching.
The coach should arrange an observation with the E-teacher at this stage. This will allow the coach to evaluate the self assessment of the teacher.
Stage 2
The e-teacher needs to highlight the strengths and challenges that they have with regard to using ICT within their teaching so far. (This can be covered in the areas of challenge and build on their strengths highlighted in the initial meeting)
The E-teacher needs to produce an action plan that will target the challenges highlighted in the first meeting.
Stage 3
Second meeting, the coach should review the action plan produced, using their observations of the E-teachers lesson to dovetail the action plan.
The Coach may need to arrange:-
1.CPD session that will allow the E-teacher to meet a challenge highlighted.
2.Lesson Planning support.
3.Team teaching support.
4.Creation of Resource materials Support.
Stage 4
The third meeting should be to review the action plan, this may require a second observation, review of the team teaching, or evaluation of resources produced.
The E-teacher needs to be critical and reflective of their achievements and future challenges they face.
The coach may recommend at this stage that further CPD or support maybe required.
Stage 5
The Support should not stop with the final meeting, follow up conversation or electronic support should continue until both the coach and the E-teacher feels that they have enough skills to continue to develop as an e-teacher.
This is a coaching model that I have developed from my teaching and experience with CPD of teachers ICT skills.
This is not a stand alone model and group CPD sessions are still and essential part of the e-teachers CPD. What individual coaching offers it personalised CPD to target an e-teachers specific teaching needs.
Tags: Coaching, CPD, Mobile Devices and E-Learning, tablets, Teaching
What is web 2.0 and how is it different to the first generation dot.coms?
In this section I have mainly used internet-based research to write about Web 2.0, as it has been difficult- if not impossible- to find any academic articles on the subject. I believe that this is due to the fact that it is still an emerging concept, rapidly evolving and developing; therefore anything that has been published through the paper medium would be out of date before it went to press. The essence of web 2.0 is publishing work, ideas and thoughts on the internet, so why publish anything in a book?
In 2001, the original ‘dot.com bubble’, as it has been dubbed, burst, and the Internet was deemed in some circles to be over-hyped. What appears to have actually happened is that the web started to evolve; some companies survived the ‘bubble bursting’ and these companies generally had one feature in common: they provided a service that the majority of other companies did not: they provided software for the consumer.
Both eras of the web (1.0 and 2.0) are based on the web acting as a platform, but the users of this platform have evolved and want more than just software that provides a service. For example, Netscape was a web browser that used the web as a platform for its software. Whereas websites such as Google, which has evolved since web 2.0, is a website that is a set of specialised tools that manages a data base or a collection of databases. Google provides an interface for users to interact with and utilise; it is not simply a search engine. Google can provide users with an electronic calendar, web mail, online document and spreadsheet creator that can create documents similar to Microsoft Word or Excel. Web 2.0 is about a move towards websites that delivered a service, and does not just uses the website as a platform for an individual company to promote itself.
Web 2.0 can be difficult to define, as its boundaries are not clear. Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, the company that claims to be the founder of Web 2.0 (although this is disputed by a variety of blogs and internet sources,) states that Web 2.0 has a ‘gravitational core’.
“Web 2.0 is much more than just pasting a new user interface onto an old application. It’s a way of thinking, a new perspective on the entire business of software - from concept through delivery, from marketing through support. Web 2.0 thrives on network effects: databases that get richer the more people interact with them, applications that are smarter the more people use them, marketing that is driven by user stories and experiences, and applications that interact with each other to form a broader computing platform.” (O’Reilly 2006)
Markus Angermeier has created a visual interpretation of the web 2.0 concept; it shows how the concept radiates from the core (web 2.0), through to principles and on into practice.
Web 2.0
http://nww.nerdwideweb.com/web20/index.html#web20en (Sept 2007)
For example, Web 2.0 is about the standardization of web design, which has been achieved in practice through the use of CSS (cascading style sheet) and standard XHTML (extended hypertext mark up language.) Some excellent examples of this type of standardisation can been seen in websites such as Zen Garden, which is a website that you can alter the appearance of, at a click of a button. http://www.csszengarden.com/ (July 2007)) Firefox is another example: a web browser totally customisable to suit individuals’ online browsing needs ( http://en.www.mozilla.com/en/ (July 2007))
This diagram was created by Don Hinchcliff, and published on his website about Web 2.0. Although this may not be an entirely accurate depiction of Web 2.0, it gives a good, albeit technical, visualisation of the interactions regarding Web 2.0.
Image2
http://web2.socialcomputingmagazine.com/visualizingweb20.htm (Sept 2007)
Web 2.0 is primarily concerned with the interface; whether this is through RSS feeds, Podcasts or HTML texts. This is then backed by the technology which enables the user to create the content.
Another striking difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0 Web is that the web was originally thought of as an area for publishing information; this has now developed into an era where people are actively participating in the Internet. The web as we know it is now being driven by the consumer, not the advertiser. Amazon is an excellent example of consumer- driven marketing; they have developed an online shop which is customized to individual shoppers. An Amazon shopper will log into his or her account- a personalised account which will then suggest products that may be of interest to the shopper. Based on previous purchases, the site makes recommendations as to other products it believes the customer would enjoy
Another function of Web 2.0 is the blog. The major development within this area is the ability to subscribe to and comment on other blogs. The main feature of the blog is the facility for others to interact with what has been posted; creating discussion, and, sometimes friendship. The use of RSS feeds [1] has also given users the ability to keep track of changes to websites. RSS feeds give users the ability to subscribe to a website and, using reader sites like Google, to easily track changes made to favourite websites and news pages.
This is a screen clipping of my Google Reader. You will see the subscriptions on the left-hand side, and a blog on the right-hand side detailing what is new to the website the user has subscribed to. I will use this facility in my own teaching, as a means of tracking students’ work. To easily track when the students have made changes to their Elogs, I will subscribe to their RSS feeds. This means that, instead of having to type in 30 individual URL addresses, I can log into Google Reader, where the sites that have been changed are highlighted in bold.
Image 3
Another part of the new generation web is the use of links from one site to another. This could be described as forming networks, similar to the brain’s neuron pathways, that lead the browser through a variety of recommended links.
Increasing the databases behind the web site is becoming a massive commodity , and companies are realising this, giving them the edge over other companies which do not have such comprehensive data bases. Web 2.0 is an interesting development, and the progression of companies facilitating individuals to publish ideas, work, and links to other web addresses, is creating user-generated content on the web. Web 2.0 is not just concerned with publishing work on the Internet; it is about sharing opinions.
The ‘BeBo’ website, is a good example of user-generated content and was featured on the BBC National Evening News on the 14th June 2007, because a group of teenage girls were using it as a way to commemorate the lives of their friends that had been killed. BeBo is a social networking [2] site aimed at the younger generation; the site enables the user to build online networks with friends, post pictures, and many other functions. In this particular case, friends of the teenagers used BeBo as their medium for celebrating and sharing with others, the life of their friend. This example shows that Web 2.0 is very much about the consumer, and the popularity of a site often comes about via web user’s recommendations .
I am interested in the impact that this might this have on Education. Children are swamped with an explosion of information to process and analyse; they are faced with an ever-changing technological world, and what pupils are experiencing and learning about the world is constantly changing. Pupils can easily create content on web sites about anything that interests them and it is a medium with which they are becoming increasing familiar.
I strongly believe that the internet can be an educational tool. In my opinion, the web is far more than simply a medium for the publishing of material developed by big companies, the Government, or ICT literate teachers; it is about enabling teachers with poor ICT skills to develop their own online resources, using websites that facilitate the user to produce interactive online resources that they can use to enhance their own teaching.
I also believe that pupils should be encouraged to publish work on the web, thereby developing their own learning portfolios, which will include their experiences of learning, and a show case of their best work. These should be multimedia rich; (e.g. pod and video casts) bringing their experiences to life. R
Blogs and Elogs
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when blogging began- some accounts suggest it started as early as 1996; others as late as 1998 and it appears to be a phenomenon that will not disappear: with predicted growth in 2003 of 5 million to 10 million in 2004, Armstrong et al, (2004). Although according to the search engine and measurement firm Technorati, (a company that tracks the number of current blogs and the number of blogs that are being created) that at the end of July 2005 they were tracking 14.2 millions blogs. The company asserts that the number of blogs is doubling every 5.5 months, with roughly 1 new blog being created every second of every day (Appendix 2). If this projection is correct, there are currently around 170 million blogs in the World Wide Web. (Sifry D 2005) Currently, journalists are the main group that seem to have carried out research, and they are sceptical about the use of blogs, because it gives everybody, regardless of background, the skills to publish work. (Armstrong et al 2004)
Blogs have moved on since they began and are now seen as a content development and management technology that enable the interactive and intercreative engagement amongst creators and readers.
The blog’s popularity may well be due to the fact that they are a different style of communication from that which we are used to, such as the traditional email, in which the communication is controlled solely by the sender. The way we approach communication when using a blog is quite different. The information is generated and the user (the person reading the blog) can interact and communicate with that information, creating a cyclical communication between creator of information and the person using that information.
Blog Email
Image 4
Farmer et. al. (2005)
It is useful to define the characteristics of a blog. Duff et.al. (2006 pp 31-38) have identified eight distinctive elements of a blog :-
1. Post date – the date and time of the entry;
2. Category – a post can be entered in to one or more areas;
3. Title – main title of the post;
4. Body – main entry;
5. Trackbacks – links from other sites;
6. Comments – added by readers;
7. Permalink – the URL of the individual article;
8. Footer – date, time, number of trackbacks, category, and number of comments.
All blogs have similar, defining characteristics or elements, but the use of a blog can vary dramatically. Bartlett-Bragg (2003) has defined 8 different types of blogs that the user can exploit it and each is used in a slightly different way:-
1. ‘Conventional ’, which enables the user to create short entries on the blog, that can be regularly updated.
2. ‘blogs O Sphere’ which is a collection of similar blogs,
3. ‘Educational blogs’ are used by educationalist (not students) to search for a deeper level of learning connections between concepts and contextualised meanings.
4. ‘Group blogs’ are created by multiple contributions to one point of entry.
5. ‘Published writing blogs’ people are using blogs to publish written materials
6. ‘Field note blogs’ People working in the field will keep a record of activities.
7. ‘Research blogs’ are used by researchers to publish unformulated ideas that can be shared so that fellow people can comment on these ideas.
8. ‘Learning Journal blogs’ these are used a reflective these are about the individuals’ experiences and they are not generally knowledge based.
The main reason I like the concept of blogging is the “simplicity of the mechanism of blogging as a public space for comment and information dissemination” Armstrong et.at (2004). The simplicity of the blog for both teacher and pupil is key as it means that the technology does not create a barrier
In my experience, teaching is a very busy career and you have to juggle many different elements to create a successful lesson. This often means that a teacher’s time is limited, therefore it is important for the software and the technology to be easy to use so that is does not become the focus of a lesson. This is why the development of blogs in general into the Elog could be a helpful resource for teachers to use. My untried hypothesis is that the use of blogs within classroom(s) could have some very interesting implications/applications.
“The chief purpose of this paper is to comment, critically, on the potential for blogs as ‘learning spaces’ for students within the higher education sector.” Would the potential, identified by Armstrong et al (2004) , be the same for secondary education especially as there are some very real differences in how learners are taught and the curriculum offered.
This article written by Armstrong et al (2004) continues to comment on the use of blog being concentrated in the areas of teacher training and other professions where the use of reflective journals as a learning tool is accepted custom and practice, and where, as a consequence, there is an increased likelihood of a favourable disposition to blogs in the first place. I am not interested in using the Elog as a reflective journal; to find the true potential of this software for use in education, I want to investigate its use in an unconventional way; I want to use the technology and thinking behind the blog, and develop the Elog so that it can be a useful tool for educators and for learners.
All of the literature that Armstrong et al (2004) have reviewed regarding blogs talks of the use of blogs as a reflective learning tool. Still using the blog as a journal, I want to discover whether the Elog could enable desirable practices, such as collaborative content creation, peer assessment, formative evaluation of student work, individual as well as group reflection on learning experiences, and up-to-date information regarding changes in collaborative spaces, and can be used in the development of authentic learning resources. (Duffy Et al 2006)
Another example of how blogs are being used in education is the ‘Edublog’ this is a Blog-O-Sphere style blog. This is the “biggest educational blog on the web” James Farmer (founder of Edublog). Ray (2006 p….) had identified the different ways that the blog is being used; firstly they are being used as a simple communication tool, similar to an electronic notice board. Secondly teachers and parents are using them to overcome homework hurdles using them as a link between school and home. Thirdly students are using them as a collaborative tool; enabling students work easily together on projects and finally the blog provides a platform for pupils to publish their work, creating a showcase for their best pieces of work.
When introducing the use of a blog into the classroom Bartlett-Bragg (2003) has identified 5 stages to ensure that the teacher and the students gain the most from the use of a blog.
Image 5
Stage 1 is identified as setting up the blog and establishing its usage. It is suggested that giving students scaffolding for their initial entries, guides students to use the blog in a particular way and enables them to become familiar with the technology. Students should also be encouraged to share their URL address (website address), as this enables others to co-create a blog community where they can comment on each other’s blogs. From my professional experience of secondary school students, I believe that peer assessment of work is best conducted within friendship groups. This builds the student’s confidence in themselves and in each other, as they have trust in their friends not to write inappropriate comments on their work.
Stage 2 In this stage students are encouraged to continue to record their learning experiences on the blog by giving pupils time at the beginning of each lesson using more structured questions to guide students in their entries.
Stage 3 Students become more autonomous with the reflective blogging process moving away from just answering the structured questions.
Stage 4 Reflective blogging time is now allocated within class time, for example when students are carrying out a discussion activity within lesson time.
Stage 5 Students move away from publishing personal knowledge to reflecting on knowledge gained.
The aim of this 5-stage process to introduce blogs is to develop learners who are not only authors but also readers of blogs. Although their writing can be strongly opinionated they display traits of critical thinking and reflective writing.
[1] RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.[2] Social Networking Sites provide a service that allows individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a structure allowed by the provider (i.e. Facebook, My Space or BeBo) these sites formally articulate lists of relationships, allow users to communicate with other users and some providers enable users to add video, pod cast etc to enhance their profiles.
Tags: Mobile Devices and E-learning
Government E-learning Objective
The Government’s e-strategy (March 2005) clearly sets out what their strategic approach to ICT in the 14-19 curriculum. The report states that the Government “wants every child to achieve their full potential by ensuring that every school in England makes full use of ICT for learning and teaching, to improve standards across the board”. By having a strategic approach the government believes it can achieve four main objectives, two of which are related to the use of ICT: -
1. Build an open accessible system, with more information and services online for parents and carers, children, young people, adult learners and employers; and more cross-organisation collaboration to improve personalized support and choice
2. Achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness, with online research, access to shared ideas and lessons plans, improved systems and processes in children’s services, shared procurement and easier administration.” (DFES March 2005)
For these goals to be realised at KS4 it is important that pupils, parents and teachers engage with these systems at every stage within the school.
Personalised Learning through mobile technologies
Personalised learning includes ‘high expectations of every child, given practical form by high quality teaching based on a sound knowledge and understanding of each child’ Milliband, D (MP) (2004). This is a new and different perspective on the way teachers have been teaching in the United Kingdom. Personalised learning has started a debate about how we teach recognising that it will require not just organisational changes, but changes to the way that teachers teach.
Personalised learning became a major feature of the public policy debate during the autumn of 2003. A series of speeches by the Prime Minister and David Milliband, the Minister of State at the DfES, emphasised its status.
The title of the conference where David Milliband gave his speech (choice and voice in personalised learning) was ‘Personalising Education: the Future of Public Sector Reform’. Milliband explained that the reforms are not just happening to education but throughout the public sector, a point that was reinforced by the Prime Minister who said ‘that our entire welfare system has been designed to fit people to a system and what he’s challenging us to do is to fit the system to people’.
‘Personalised learning is not a matter of tailoring curriculum, teaching and assessment to ‘fit’ the individual, but is a question of developing social practices that enables people to become all that they are capable of becoming.’ Pollard A and James M, (2004)
In the 21st century educational imaginary there will be a new emphasis on customisation. Schools will move away from the ‘Henry Ford’ model (you can have any colour as long as it’s black) to a ‘Toyota’ model where students are offered a customised package of activities and programmes to meet their individual needs. Hargreaves sees personalising learning as:
• A version of customisation in education
• The core of educational transformation
• Involving incremental and radical innovation
• Demanding a new approach to development and research. Hargreaves (2004)
As we all know Hargreves suggests that the personalisation of teaching and learning is realised through nine interconnected gateways. He continues by saying that these nine gateways demand leadership from teachers and leaders at all levels.
Hargreaves acknowledges that no one school is excellent in all 9 areas and that possibly the curriculum gateway is the easiest of the nine gateways to personalise learning.
In both examples the interpretation of the government’s five key components of personalised learning put that the centre and provide a clear indication of the issues. That educators should be working on to successfully implement personalised learning. To do this Hargreaves suggests that new technologies play an essential role. Mobile learning devices such as Ultra Mobile PC or tablets are excellent tools for facilitating personalised learning if used effectively.
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Add comment October 28th, 2007
Tags: Mobile Devices and E-learning
Learners today are faced with the issue of an information overload. In order to better prepare students for further studies or for work, it is not sufficient simply to teach them subject-specific knowledge in the traditional way. To truly meet the needs of students, a school should provide varied teaching and learning approaches and deliver a curriculum that is challenging, integrative, and exploratory. However, in most schools, computer skills are taught in computer classes and therefore the students learn them out-of-context (Eisenberg et al. 2004:8).
On 21 May 2003, Education Secretary Charles Clarke launched ‘fulfilling the potential’, a document clarifying the directions in which schools should be moving with ICT and e-learning, and the outcomes they should be seeking. This document sets out that ‘ICT must become an integral and natural part of the learning process. The next stage is to ensure that for all schools ICT makes a significant contribution to teaching and learning across all subjects and ages, inside and outside the curriculum’ (DFES 2003).
At NLL we are trying to address two issues: that of learning ICT as a discrete subject; and the notion that ICT should have a significant impact on the teaching and learning process.