A few weeks ago I blogged about working with a group of 1 year grad student teachers where I was showing them twitter. The session was supposed to be about Interactive Whiteboards and their use in the classroom. This topic lastest all of 5-10 minutes before we were side-tracked into the extensive world of e-learning and it's many avenues. This was a group of student teachers keen and ready to learn.
In our session we covered everything from twitter, interactive whiteboards, blogs and wikis through to cybersafety. It was a packed hour session and they all seemed keen to work together again to develop an aspect of e-learning. Many of them could automatically see benefits to blogging and were keen to spend some time learning about blogs in particular.
But what stumped me... and them... was that this session could possibly be the only e-learning training that they could receive the entire year they were training to become teachers. This seemed to really interest them - almost as much as their comments interested and concerned me.
What is actually happening in teacher training to prepare and show these new teachers what is happening in classes with e-learning?
Are we filtering new teachers into the system with little knowledge and training into what the possiblities are and what is already going on with e-learning? Obviously there is SO much that needs to be taught to training teachers - but is there development of e-learning and of how it can be embedded into their teaching part of their training?
I know I have no extensive knowledge other than working with these students and what has been shared by others, and I am in no way criticising Tertiary. But I do struggle to see how we are going to make the changes and developments we are pushing for in schools now, when the system in place to train upcoming teachers seems to be limited in this respect. Schools are placing so much money into the development of this area in their schools. If my job as a e-learning specialist in a school is to support teachers with their development, surely we can be training teachers preservice to develop a more confident knowledge of the possibilities of e-learning before they enter the profession?
Then hopefully we won't be chasing our tails as much... perhaps?
Image used under CC: Husbandunit
In our session we covered everything from twitter, interactive whiteboards, blogs and wikis through to cybersafety. It was a packed hour session and they all seemed keen to work together again to develop an aspect of e-learning. Many of them could automatically see benefits to blogging and were keen to spend some time learning about blogs in particular.
But what stumped me... and them... was that this session could possibly be the only e-learning training that they could receive the entire year they were training to become teachers. This seemed to really interest them - almost as much as their comments interested and concerned me.
What is actually happening in teacher training to prepare and show these new teachers what is happening in classes with e-learning?
Are we filtering new teachers into the system with little knowledge and training into what the possiblities are and what is already going on with e-learning? Obviously there is SO much that needs to be taught to training teachers - but is there development of e-learning and of how it can be embedded into their teaching part of their training?
I know I have no extensive knowledge other than working with these students and what has been shared by others, and I am in no way criticising Tertiary. But I do struggle to see how we are going to make the changes and developments we are pushing for in schools now, when the system in place to train upcoming teachers seems to be limited in this respect. Schools are placing so much money into the development of this area in their schools. If my job as a e-learning specialist in a school is to support teachers with their development, surely we can be training teachers preservice to develop a more confident knowledge of the possibilities of e-learning before they enter the profession?
Then hopefully we won't be chasing our tails as much... perhaps?
Image used under CC: Husbandunit