Let's focus on teacher education!
Günther Osswald
The last days I've thought about a new way of how WikiEd could
proceed.
The result was that I want to propose to focus on teacher education.
One of the core issues for the WikiEducator project should become: to
develop into an international platform for school teacher education,
especially for senior secondary school teachers.
There are various reasons for my proposal:
1) We need plenty of authors to reach our 2015-goal, at least in K12,
and school teachers are the ideal target group for this. Imagine: in
many countries, school teachers form the largest profession!
2) Many countries of the south have an enormous lack of secondary
school teachers right now, caused by the widening or primary
education. They are forced to train many new teachers or to upgrade
teachers that are already in service.
3) Using a wiki-platform for open and distance learning (ODL) is a
relatively new technology; it's more likely a younger age group that
will be ready to familiarize itself with it. Teacher novices or
teachers ready for upgrading are young, because only for them the
effort to continue to learn is financially interesting. Introducing a
new technology means often to address a new generation. I know from
own experience with colleagues of mine, that the younger ones are much
more open to use the computer as means of learning.
4) ODL has already a good reputation in teacher education, we can
build on this.
5) The typical model or teacher education in the south is an in-
service training: A school graduate starts teaching often right after
examination and learns by doing. And the local government tries to
keep training costs as low as possible, that means favors distance
learning instead of taking the novice out of service to attend a
teachers college.
6) ODL has proved capable of being less costly than conventional
education.
7) If the materials for teacher education are shared among countries
via a wiki-platform, ODL will compare still more favorably.
Precondition of course: falling prices for ICT services.
8) WikiEd is capable of becoming much more than a wiki: A platform of
communication and support for the whole community of school teachers.
If teacher students produce good materials, they will be used by all
interested teachers.
9) The use of ODL gets more successful, the higher the level of
education that is being transported: from primary education to
secondary education to teacher and vocational education up to tertiary
education.
10) The field of tertiary education is already being worked on a lot.
There have been and are numerous projects of knowledge sharing among
universities and countries (Example: African Virtual University AVU).
These are often well funded undertakings with consortia of involved
organizations and powerful donor agencies, I don't really dream of
competing with them. Hence: Teacher education and vocational education
is next on the list!
And:
11) We have already an important person that showed interest in WikiEd
for teacher education: Dr. Vitalicy Chifwepa, Director of the
Directorate of Distance Education, Zambia
www.wikieducator.org/University_of_Zambia_OER_experience_by_Dr._Vitalicy_Chifwepa...
The fundament of my argumentation I've taken from the new edition of
Hilary Perraton's "Open and distance learning in the developing
world", Routledge 2007.
I've put up a page on the wiki where I'll place all corresponding
quotations from this most recommendable book:
www.wikieducator.org/teacher_education/ODL_fundaments
Greetings from warm and sunny Bavaria,
Günther ("White Eagle")
clc...@gmail.com
I am concerned about the efficency of teacher education in my samll
insland state. I has been reported that there are still at leat 30%
untrained teachers in the system ( you see, in my country teachers
graduate from high School, college or University and apply and are
accepted to teach with a teacher certificate, there is an ongoing
programme to eliminate this situation.
Recently, a proposal was prepared to have all teachers trained (in
stages) by 2009. Now the situation has been exacerbated by a high
percentage of teachers taking the voluntary retirement package - this
includes even younger teachers whose education and training has been
financed by the government; so there is a drive to get new teachers
into the system to fill the gap. It seems we are moving in circles.
The proposal is also thwarted by insufficicent staff and space at the
college; your idea of training using ODL is a great prospect,
therefore, to alleviate our serious problem. It just needs the
commitment of the political directorate to use the resources available
and improve on the facilities which would be necessary to fulfill this
great need.
THE TRAINING AND RETRAINING OF TEACHERS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!
Cynthia Crump
Antigua & Barbuda
On Jun 20, 10:45 am, Günther Osswald <Guenther-Ossw...@t-online.de>
wrote:
> Directorate of Distance Education, Zambiawww.wikieducator.org/University_of_Zambia_OER_experience_by_Dr._Vital......
Günther Osswald
Thanks for your analysis of the situation concerning teacher education
in your country.
I'm afraid this is not the only place in the world where teachers are
lacking and local capacities to train more of them are not
sufficient.
Yes, ODL offers an alternative, and if we see the installation of a
training platform as an international task, where experienced teachers
from all over the globe work together, we can put up something of
great value to many.
I don't think any "political directorate" would object, if the
resources for ODL-training of teachers can be retrieved freely from
the internet, the other way round: We are helping educational planners
out of their misery! And: we should not always ask the "politicians",
the world is too much governed, we should better see what we can do,
you and me and everybody, to alleviate miseries...
Ok., would you please tell us a bit more about yourself, and what kind
of teacher education more precisely is used in your place? And if
there is local interest for working here on our wiki collaboratively
to put up the needed materials?
Best regards - and by the way, nice to hear you're living in paradise,
sometimes I'm too, its for me a state of mind ...
Günther
Steve Foerster
<< Recently, a proposal was prepared to have all teachers trained (in
stages) by 2009. Now the situation has been exacerbated by a high
percentage of teachers taking the voluntary retirement package - this
includes even younger teachers whose education and training has been
financed by the government; so there is a drive to get new teachers
into the system to fill the gap. It seems we are moving in circles.
>>
That does seem like a retirement package that could have been designed
better -- to prevent those who had service obligations from leaving.
<< The proposal is also thwarted by insufficicent staff and space at
the college; your idea of training using ODL is a great prospect,
therefore, to alleviate our serious problem. It just needs the
commitment of the political directorate to use the resources available
and improve on the facilities which would be necessary to fulfill this
great need. >>
It may interest you to know that CKLN <http://www.ckln.org> is having
a workshop later this year on distance learning throughout the
Caribbean. I'm planning to present on WikiEducator there, so I'll be
sure to bring up WikiEducator initiatives like Handouts4Teachers that
would be specifically helpful for teacher training. I don't think
it's just Antigua; my mother-in-law works for the Ministry of
Education in Dominica and there are teacher shortage issues there as
well.
One thing: I'm interested in your opinion about what UWI has to
offer. Their Distance Education Centre has BEd programmes in Primary
and Secondary education. While I don't mean to suggest that one size
fits all, what do you think about them that makes them insufficient
for teacher training in Antigua?
-=Steve=-
Steve Foerster
universities in the Caribbean:
-=Steve=-
Leigh Blackall
In that course are the following units:
- Facilitate adult learners' individualised learning
- Coach adult learners
- Design learning sessions for adult education and training
- Understand peer relationships
- Understand peer tutoring in a tertiary institution
Some of these units will be used in other courses, such as ODL that we plan to have a go at soon.
Regards
Leigh
Günther Osswald
Thanks for joining this discussion on teacher education! I have great
respect for your work in promoting WikiEd with a lot of expertise,
thanks for that too!
You didn't mention what you think about my initial post, so I guess
you're not exactly enthusiastic about it. I hope you don't feel that
I'm narrow-minded because I propose to focus on a special task.
The other extreme would be to open up every possible door and accept
no restrictions, for example to start up a Spanish section of
WikiEducator. But from the energetic point of view, in my opinion, if
we open up too many doors, the energy will diffuse and we will reach
nowhere. We should not try to serve the whole educational world of the
whole globe, this is too big for us.
We also have to take in mind that we are not the only wiki project on
free educational materials. In Germany already, and Germany is really
not very big, there are so many wikis. F. ex. a whole wiki only for
students of law.
Spanish speaking countries will put up their own wikis, of course.
Let us concentrate first on a core issue, and see if we can reach some
success there. And then we can proceed. And why teacher education? I
just think like an undertaker that teacher education is he best market
for our product. ODL using open educational resources is most needed
there.
To find out if this is really true we could get expertise, f. ex. by
IRFOL (http://www.irfol.ac.uk/index.html.) Has someone relations to
this institute?
Best regards from rainy Bavaria, Günther
Philip Serracino Inglott
I find it funny when you say that Germany is not big ... so what about
Malta?
The point being that let us not forget that when wikied was setup, and
what distinguishes it from many other "open-education"
efforts is that it wants to be also "south focused". i.e. try and elicit
the contribution of small states and developing nations (as well ass
rural underserved aread in big nations, like those in the middle on the
aussie outback).
The human potential of these regions is almost completely untapped. If
it were tapped for free education then the world would not be too big,
rather it might become a crowded place.
While you might be right, that trainer training is an important place to
start, and I might even be more specific, as I think that ICT training
for educators is what would benefit our efforts best, I disagree with
you on explicitly focusing the site on any one area.
By declaring a bias or stating a focus on, for example, the "Misson"
page of the wiki would risk 'de facto' closing of doors, even if 'de
jure' we would still be open to all collaboration.
Even the above mentioned "south focus" is something that exists merely
by the fact that some of us are interested in pushing that agenda.
Probably the best way about this is to have "Special Interest Groups".
The most active SIGs would, by virtue of the nature of wiki, set the
slant for others to follow. In fact there already is somthing like this
on WikiEd, the people who have identified themselves as "researchers of
wikis", as well as some of the Projects focusing of specific areas.
I think that every one who is participating in WikiEd today acknowledges
the importance of well trained teachers. I am doubtful as how useful it
would be to make it WikiEd's exclusive primary focus.
BTW have you seen the work done by VUSSC's 2nd BootCamp:
http://www.wikieducator.org/Training_Educators_to_Design_and_Develop_ODL_Materials
We tried to develop a 3 day workshop to introduce educators to ODL
Ideas. I hope you find the material there useful.
Cheers,
Philip
(from the Size Does Matter Island of Malta :-p)
Leigh Blackall
Sorry for not commenting on your original post. I was short of time and wanted to add as much to the discussion as I could. Replying to your post is a sign that I am keen. I agree that we should try and develop up good teacher training resources, and your reasoning is sound. But because I am using wikieducator with our Institution - we are getting multiple subject areas going so that we can develop a community of wiki practitioners here locally.
The biggest thing disrupting the energy at the moment, is the inability to embed 3rd party multi media. I fear that this will lead to the wiki users here going for a more dynamic and functional wiki - but that's a seperate thread.
Philip, those ODL resources are looking pretty good. We are preparing to develop ODL also - but already see a contextualisation difficulty (as I've commented on other developments). But it will not be hard to decontextualise your work so far (in a separate series of pages) so that it can be recontextualised easily into other contexts. So great to see something to start with. Will let you know when we get happening.
> IRFOL ( http://www.irfol.ac.uk/index.html.) Has someone relations to
> this institute?
>
> Best regards from rainy Bavaria, Günther
>
>
> >
>
>
Günther Osswald
Dear Philip (and all interested in this topic),
I'm grateful about your long and well-thought reply. It enabled me to
reorganize the picture I have of WikiEd. Let me see, if I understood
you right:
You would advice to not explicitly focus the site on "any one area",
because it would 'de facto' mean to close doors. Is it because you
think that focussing on a task would hinder the free development of
the project?
I can see the logic in this approach, may I call it "freedom culture"?
(Or has this notion already another meaning?) I, speaking for myself,
do enjoy this freedom here on WikiEd, to express what I think and feel
and follow my own proper intentions. Maybe a site run mainly by
volunteers has to have this as precondition, because people who feel
they can't do this here will go somewhere else.
But please don't misunderstand me in the way as if I want to restrict
or even exclude someone. I'm really happy about anyone contributing,
especially about all here who are doing research on wikis, because we
need to know still much more about this fairly new technology and its
socio-cultural reception.
My intention is somehow to bundle our energies, to give people a
clearer idea of what is WikiEducator about and to make us develop some
kind of "corporate identity". Especially I think of the many newcomers
who open accounts every day. I we could tell them f. ex. that we are
here an international platform of teachers who are interested in
educating themselves, or further-educating themselves in the sense of
lifelong learning, that would be something powerful.
And of course we have a research section for wikis and OER in general,
and of course we have an ICT-training section and run introductory
seminars in COL member countries. And of course we welcome any project
that experiments with OER in ODL. Because of course we still need more
evidence on the effectiveness of our technology and still do develop
the corresponding appropriate pedagogic.
"Teacher education" , in this wider sense, in my opinion is such a
comprehensive theme, that I hardly can see anyone of us feeling
excluded by it.
The gain in my opinion is, that we can more effectively address the
needs of COL member countries. You defined a "south focus", and to
have this focus in mind I think is the precondition for all our work.
Rich industrialized nations have their own educational challenges and
their own means to address them. We are talking here, as you've
stated, about a target audience that was and is neglected, or
underserved, and needs help for empowerment. Right? But how can we do
this?
We have to give newcomers a more concrete frame for their possible
contribution. It is a great thing to give people initial ICT-training,
as you do, and I think we all appreciate it a lot. But what then? If
we could show a newly trained person how and where he/she can
contribute that would be very helpful.
Teacher education in WikiEd could have f. ex. these 6 areas of
activity:
1) Platform for exchange on the craft of teaching
2) Materials about the content that teachers in COL member countries
have to teach
3) Materials on ICT-training
4) Materials about children
5) Materials on "general education"
6) platform for research on OERs and wikis
Can you see that any newcomer could find a place to contribute? We
need to know about the children in different cultures, we need to find
out, what kind of general education is needed for an "educator" ...
If we want to try and elicit contributions, we have to say w h a t
contributions. Otherwise people suffer from lack of orientation and
remain passive until they have forgotten WikiEd.
Let us continue to search how we can make this site successful.
Thanks for reading my long post.
Best regards, Günther
BTW, I did not intend to make Germany or Malta bigger or smaller as
they are ...
Sorry for not yet having found the time to read your materials, my
family and my job keeps me very busy right now.
mackiwg
I think that its healthy for communities with particular interests to
develop within WikiEducator - for example, Philips reference to
"Special Interest Groups".
This is already evolving within WikiEducator. For example the VUSSC
group, FLOSS4Edu and the Free Text books Group. It would be great to
have a teacher educators special interest group as well, and I like
Gunther's ideas for possible content areas.
I think WikiEducator needs to think about better ways to introduce
newcomers to the various Interest Groups and to assist them in finding
their way to becomming active members in the various projects of their
choice.
Any ideas?
Cheers
Wayne
Leigh Blackall
Perhaps the teacher training projects and various topic area in points should be bundled with the contract and tutorials... there is already a project page that lists significant and active projects - this could take more prominence both on the home page, in the footer of this email list, and in the tutorials.
Is there someone who could act as a reporter? A paid someone who will keep an eye on everything that is happening and give a monthly report? That monthly report could be documented on a blog, and include interviews with the key people in the leading projects for the month. In wikispaces.com early days, they did something like this. They called it wikispace of the month. It was very rewarding and motivating for people to be celebrated as the space of the month and it presented different models and ideas for other projects to think about. It also provided a boost in space authors.
Gunther, why not start a project page for teacher training? There are already many little projects floating around in Wikieducator that could be listed on this project page. As the project grows and finds direction, perhaps CoL will assign a reporter to the project and capture its essence for promotion across the wider community.
--
Leigh Blackall
+64(0)21736539
skype - leigh_blackall
http://learnonline.wordpress.com
Kathy Harris
developing Elementary level (pre k - 5) curriculum in science, typing, math,
reading, and writing & logic. It will take me the rest of my life at the
rate I am going but I am making slow progress. I am working in wikiversity
right now but found this group.
I would like to thank Leigh for the link to the projects page. Found it
right on the front of wikieducator.org. I found some great links and places
where I can get materials and ideas.
-Kathy
mackiwg
Welcome to WikiEducator - it' s great to have you on board! Your
timing is perfect given that WikiEducator will be launching a
concerted effort to expand free content development to the K12 sector.
(Until recently our major activities have been in the tertiary
sector.)
This coming year we are hoping to train 4000 teachers across the
Commonwealth in basic wiki editing skills through the Learning4Content
project.
(See: http://www.wikieducator.org/Metawikieducator/Learning4Content )
The idea is to use the OER Workshop Toolkit materials to provide
resources for facilitators to run training workshops. These materials
are still under development.
(See: http://www.wikieducator.org/OER_Workshop_Toolkit )
We're busy with the early development phases of the Handouts4Teachers
initiative -- the idea is to work collaboratively on the development
of handouts and worksheets which can be used in the classroom.
(See: http://www.wikieducator.org/Handouts4Teachers).
Our first step in this project is to develop a few examples for
teachers to get ideas for the development of free content handouts.
If you have any spare time to help us with one or two example
worksheets for the pre K5 curriculum - that would be fantastic!
Another project which may be of interest is the FLOSS4Edu initiative,
see:
http://www.wikieducator.org/FLOSS4Edu
We're also focusing seriously on the development of Free Textbooks
which could be used in the K12 and Tertiary sectors.
See: http://www.wikieducator.org/Free_Textbooks
I don't want to overwhelm visitors with all our projects - just want
to point out that there are many avenues to express your creativity!
Chat to you soon.
Wayne
Günther Osswald
thanks for the encouragement to create a section for teacher education
(TE) in WikiEd.
It fills me with joy to take over this job.
Does someone want to join a planning team?
Regards, Günther
mackiwg
I'll introduce you to our COL Education Specialist for teacher
education. I'm sure that he will have a few ideas on planning a
Teacher Education initiative.
A few years ago COL was involved with the STAMP 2000+ project. The
Science, Technology and Mathematics (STM) Programme provides in-
service skills training and upgrading for STM teachers in
participating countries. The course content was developed
collaboratively - from memory nine countries were involved.
See: http://www.col.org/colweb/site/pid/2943.
The STAMP materials are available under a CC-BY-SA license, so this
could be a good starting point. The materials may require some
updating - but are designed for upgrading teacher qualifications.
Take a look and see what you think.
Cheers
Wayne
On Jul 2, 2:11 am, Günther Osswald <Guenther-Ossw...@t-online.de>
wrote:
clc...@gmail.com
More and more because of escalating crime my Paradise is becoming more
a state of mind than reality so I know what you mean.
Further information about me can be observed at http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Augustmoon.
Teacher Education is primarily conducted at the Antigua State College
- Department of Teacher Education. There are several courses. Mainly
the primary 2 year course, Secondary 2 year Course, or a part time one
year secondary Teacher - each of these is endorsed by the University
of the West Indies. I believe one of my comments was misconstrued - I
have positive views about the University of The West Indies programmes
- my alma mater; we are trying to fix the policy of graduates from
high school or university entering the profession without training.
We need to take the profession more seriously.
I would be willing to share in your endeavour.
On Jun 23, 11:47 am, Günther Osswald <Guenther-Ossw...@t-online.de>
wrote:
clc...@gmail.com
than good to the profession. As I explained in an earlier response,
the training offered by UWI are fantastic. The main problem are the
necessary resources and facilities for initial training after
graduation from high school. Individuals teach for up to three years
before they get that first formal training - practical teaching /
methodology is a major component.. All these initial training courses
are endorsed by UWI. The BEd and other Certificate courses are taken
by teachers who would have had the initial training.