The End July 12, 2008
Posted by drahomira in learning center, teaching design.add a comment
Friday, Week 3rd
Everything is finished but I have to write logg… I feel that I missed something important if I don’t write something on the blog. I still have one comment to make on last group presentation. It was group from Sudan: Butrus, Simon and Daniel. They organized themselves very well and I could see that they used most of tools we learned about. They have made preview of LATINA and they made introduction to presentation of Mr. Lars about learning centers. I thought that we won’t have assignments on Friday but we did. That was really good because we could see the importance of learning center in LATINA and in life of OUC. We were discussing in groups about learning centers/libraries in our countries and how it should be and we all agreed that Learning Center at UOC is excellent example of well organized learning center.
Hopefully, something like this will be built in Sudan. I am sure that Simon, Butrus and Daniel got enough knowledge to teach their colleagues about LATINA tools.
Last part of the day was summary of everything we did together. We shared thoughts about past three weeks and it was very emotional. I felt like we are family but we needed to say goodbye…We all got diplomas and in the afternoon went to Anine’s home to goodbye party.
I can’t believe it is over and when I came, I thought it is too long time. I am happy that I had opportunity to visit Oslo, to meet so many wonderful people, I learned so much and I feel more confident in “digital world”. I am full of ideas how to improve my teaching and I am glad that I have summer to work on my teaching materials before new academic year.
I am looking forward to read blogs of my LATINA friends who were really hard working this three weeks. I feel that first LATINA Summer School was successful.
It is time to go home now and to continue working with knowledge we gained.
Many thanks to all who made LATINA the way it was.
Teaching design July 9, 2008
Posted by drahomira in learning, learning proces, teaching, teaching design.add a comment
Wednesday, 3rd Week
Today we started with brief introduction to the day and Snježana, Vera and Yulia had presentation about LATINA for guests. There weren’t many gests but it was nice to remember all the things we did during last three weeks. After that we had time to write our schedule for lectures. I made that and I decided to stick to the plan.
After lunch I wanted to present my topic about categories and tags by my schedule but when I started I noticed that my group cannot follow me. I tried to make things simpler by using examples and videos but I failed to make clear distinction between to main topics: tags and categories.
After I showed a movie about tagging and folksonomy, I tried to demonstrate how are tags and categories made in posts. Students had task to do their own tags on their previous posts. I noticed that some of students found this topic very useful. Others who didn’t catch some of things I talked about can see and read about that on my blog classification.wordpress.com.
After I had finished my presentation I got feedback from the group and from teachers. They drow my attention on few things I noticed myself while I was teaching and I am glad because of that. It is useful when someone can tell you what you are doing wrong so you can improve that later on.
I also got few really good comments of my way of teaching and presentig the subject. I can say that LATINA already affected on my way of thinking about teaching. I am changing my perspective every day and I am learning new things.
After my presentation, Joanna had a workshop about Photoshop. I think she is very open and communicative as a teacher, she understands what is going on in the group and she managed everything even if technology failed at some points. Joanna made blog with clear instructions and I have never used Photoshop before. I was happy when I succeeded to do the task she asked us to do.
Today’s assignment was to think about dimensions and comments on learning design. If I think about today’s presentations I can mention few things:
- from aspect of covering a subject I can identify way of teaching when starting point is very general knowledge and end specific field, term… or other way around
- if we talk about presentation itself – teacher can either stand in front of the class, or he/she can walk around and communicate with students
- we can also mention moderation vs. lecturing. This depends of a topic.
- resources could be in one place, already prepared, or students can have the assignment to find resources themself and to evaluate later on
- teacher can give students printouts before lecture so they can get a general idea about topic
- students can have few assignments before they actually step into classroom, and they can have assignments afterwards to stay in touch with the subject
Learning process is sometimes difficult and teachers have to be aware of the fact that they are responsible for each student who is listening and learning from him. Even if he says something wrong. And he should also put some effort into making teaching process less “painful” and hard. Teacher also has to be able to choose right tool for teaching and he also has to adapt his lectures to the group. Always changing but not loosing his way and goal he wants to achieve. Even if that means he has to wonder around with his student helping them to find their own way. Students are different than before so should be the teachers also.
After this hard day we went to see Nobel Prize Peace Center. It was wonderful experience because we saw lots of technological innovations which I have never seen before (digital interactive book in “paper” shape about Alfred Nobel, interactive, colorful informational wall). It was wonderful experience and a learning event. I heard about people for whom I didn’t know they won Nobel Prize.
