Topic outline

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    • Continuing professional development (CPD) for educators involves an ongoing process of developing and improving your skills, insights and understanding in order to achieve excellence in your subject matter/s and to better serve your learners. The process can involve the traditional methods e.g. attending training courses but this process also includes a much broader range of activities e.g. the establishment of collaborative teacher networks where the sharing of knowledge and ideas is paramount and the vast amount of resource materials which are freely available online. 

      We will delve into the CPD opportunities that are available for you during this unit of study.



    • By the end of this session, you will be comfortable in knowing how to use ICT to acquire specific subject resources that will assist you in your continuing professional development. You will also know where to look in order to interact with other educators and create collaborative networks. 



    • Before we embark on this CPD journey we would like to introduce you to the GEC: Global education coalition!

      The GEC is a group of partners who have committed to support and provide training to educators. You may have already noticed that Google and Microsoft have featured prominently as GEC partners throughout the initial sections of the course and the volume of training materials that they are providing for teachers is phenomenal! 

      We will also be exploring what resources other GEC partners are providing. Some of these other partners include:

      • Commonwealth of Learning
      • Khan Academy
      • ProFuturo
      • TedEd.


      We encourage you to explore the plethora of resources and training courses which they have provided by visiting their websites below:


    • The Google for Education Teaching Centre provides training courses, product guides, certifications, professional development resources as well as lesson plan ideas. Available online here


      The Microsoft Educator Center will, amongst other objectives, assist the teacher in how to 'use ICT to become an effective educator'. Explore the options available by visiting their website here. Some of their available courses can be accessed here and teacher training packs here.




    • 'The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organisation, created by Commonwealth Heads of Government in 1987, to promote the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.' (definition from the COL website)

      Explore some of the courses which they have available below.



    • The Khan Academy is a non profit organisation which is founded in 2008 in the US. They provide free online educational resources for learners, teachers and parents. Explore what they offer by clicking on the link below.




    • Find out more about ProFuturo's education proposal by accessing the website below.

    • ProFuturo provides teacher training on, amongst others:

      • Innovation paths
      • Using ICT in the classroom.


      Explore their available content by visiting their website below.



    • TEDEd is a fun and innovative application which:

      • Can assist you in creating customised lessons for your learners
      • Provides you with a library of video based lessons per subject
      • Allows teachers / learners to create videos.


      Explore the options available here



    • A 'MOOC' is an acronym for 'massive open online course'. These online courses cater for an unlimited number of participants and have open access via the web. We'll cover three popular MOOC platforms which provide online courses for educators. Take a look!


      Coursera is an American MOOC provider which has been in the education business since 2012. Visit their site here and here to explore just some of the available teacher education courses. Enter your own search criteria and see what you come up with!


      edX is also an American MOOC provider, created in 2012 by Harvard and MIT. Some of their teacher education can be found here


      Another American MOOC founded in 2010. Udemy has over 35 million students taught by 57 000 lecturers! Take a look at some of their available teacher development courses here 



      The European Schoolnet Academy offers free online professional development courses to enhance your teaching. A catalogue of their online courses is available here


    • Having reviewed some of the GEC resources and MOOC online courses that are available for your professional development, share your thoughts (and maybe even experiences) with your peers using the forum discussion tool below. Have you used any of these online resources before? Which resources / courses will you take advantage of in the future?


    • Collaborative teacher networks are online teacher communities which are designed to open communication channels amongst teachers on any topic. Some of these topics can include:

      • What's an effective method to teach this specific topic?
      • How do I integrate ICT into this subject / topic?
      • The sharing of best practices
      • The sharing of difficulties / problems that are being experienced and the offering of potential solutions
      • Etc..


      Review the two articles below which will shed some light on the advantages of getting involved with collaborative teacher networks.


    • Have a look at the videos below. Although during the EduSkills OECD video they are talking about collaboration within a school, and the Michael Fullan video focuses on inter-school collaborations, let's take that further and apply these advantages and ideas to an online collaborative teacher network. 


    • Have you engaged with any online collaborative teacher networks? If not, have a look at the few examples listed below and take the leap and start collaborating online! (to access the site just click on the logo)

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       eTwinning is an online network that creates a platform to collaborate with teachers all over Europe.

       

       Scientix is an online       European science education network.

    • Some portals, like the two below, are online community resource portals - where teachers from around the world can view and / or share their resources.

       

      Merlot is a teacher education community portal where you can 'use the learning materials, submit your own modules and assignments for evaluation and comment and rate the materials in the collection.'

         

      OER (open educational resources) is a worldwide movement which has, at its heart, the belief that it is a basic human right that all people have access to high quality education. A huge number of resources are freely available online. We encourage you to explore what's out there.


    • Have you explored what teacher networks are available, for example, on Facebook? Here are a few that are out there! Conduct your own search and see what you can come up with? Also look at other social media platforms such as Pintrest and LinkedIn.



    • For this assignment you will need to develop your own personal professional development plan. This plan should include the following:

      • What is your ultimate goal in education? e.g. headmaster, head of department, government education official
      • Your professional development goals for the next three years which will help you attain your ultimate goal (include at least two goals per annum)
      • What online learning resources / MOOCs / collaborative teacher networks you'll engage with to achieve these goals
      • A timeline of when you expect to achieve each goal.


      This assignment will carry a total of ten marks. The marking criteria are detailed below.

      Upload your plan by using the assignment tool below (any digital file format will be acceptable). Also upload your plan into your personal ePortfolio.